Missoula, MT

Housing, Built environment | 2025

Identifying housing policy solutions that reduce evictions, improve rental conditions, and support community ownership.

Maintaining affordable housing and preventing evictions can lead to better health outcomes for residents. This is especially relevant in Missoula, where many residents who are Indigenous, are Black, or have low incomes experience higher rates of eviction and poor housing quality from historic disinvestment in their housing stock and neighborhoods. These poor housing conditions contribute to residents’ negative physical and mental health. To address displacement and housing conditions in three specific neighborhoods—Franklin to the Fort, Northside/Westside, and River Road—Front Step Community Land Trust aims to engage residents through grassroots advocacy and gather data to inform policy solutions.

Front Step Community Land Trust will partner with the Missoula Tenants Union and the Missoula Invest Health Team to collect data and speak with policymakers. Front Step Community Land Trust will hire and train community organizers from the three neighborhoods to collect data about their housing conditions and their experiences with displacement pressures. These organizers will target renters, cooperative housing residents, and homeowners with low incomes. Front Step Community Land Trust will also engage with small landlords and property owners to learn more about their perspectives on affordability and maintenance challenges. After analyzing the data, Front Step Community Land Trust will publish a housing equity report and generate policy recommendations. Community organizers will present data from the report and host conversations with policymakers about recommendations.

Front Step Community Land Trust plans to share the findings with residents, organizers, and policymakers to advocate for policy reforms that can improve legal protections for residents and sustain affordable and inclusive neighborhoods for Missoula’s residents. The trust hopes this project can inform advocacy supporting tenants’ right to counsel, expansion of resident-owned housing cooperatives, and adoption of community and tenant opportunity-to-purchase policies.