Media Coverage

A 2023 study from Headwaters Economics shows that qualifications from federal grant programs disproportionately hurt under-resourced rural areas.

• Match requirements prevent rural and low-capacity communities from accessing climate resilience funding
• A rural capacity map
• Capacity-limited states still struggle to access FEMA BRIC grants

Cooley said a study of potential statewide impacts conducted by the Bozeman-based firm Headwaters Economics showed that the alternative transportation route would bring $229 million in visitor spending, 2,500 new jobs, and $22.8 million in new tax revenue.

• The economic potential of the Great American Rail-Trail
• The Outdoor Recreation Economy by State

“We know that communities really struggle when a disaster hits, and we also know that these disasters are getting more frequent and more extreme,” said Kristin Smith, the head researcher on the Headwaters Economics study. “One of my big questions is how are we ensuring that rural and disadvantaged communities have the money, the staffing, the capacity, just the resources that they need for the future?”

• Match requirements prevent rural and low-capacity communities from accessing climate resilience funding
• A rural capacity map

The Governor’s Housing Task Force was charged with an enormous job: identify solutions to build more homes and ease Montana’s housing crisis.

Every Montanan deserves affordable, attainable housing. Legislation that considers the task force’s report can help us get there.

But if we want new housing to be safe, healthy and durable, we must also ask how can we build new housing today that is ready for the floods, wildfires and heat waves of tomorrow?

• Yellowstone Flood reveals Montana’s mobile home flood risk
• Building a Wildfire-Resistant Home: Codes and Costs
• Wood roofs are a $6 billion wildfire problem

“About 60% of the funding is going to require a local match,” says Kristin Smith, applied researcher at Headwaters Economics. “Local matches are really features of federal funding, they have been for decades. But as we’re thinking about how to help communities get the resources that they need, the local match can actually be a barrier to accessing that funding.”

• Match requirements prevent rural and low-capacity communities from accessing climate resilience funding
• Capacity-limited states still struggle to access FEMA BRIC grants
• A rural capacity map

The analysis — by Headwaters Economics, an independent research group that focuses on community development and land management — warns that local match requirements are putting rural communities in particular at a disadvantage. Many lack the resources to both apply for grant projects and also to sustain their portion of funding through the lifetime of a project.

• Match requirements prevent rural and low-capacity communities from accessing climate resilience funding
• Capacity-limited states still struggle to access FEMA BRIC grants

“Given the scale of how much needs to be done, we are just skimming the surface,” said Headwaters Economics researcher Kimiko Barrett. “Risks are increasing at a scale and magnitude that we haven’t seen historically. You’re seeing entire neighborhoods devastated.”

• Wildfires destroy thousands of structures each year
• Wood roofs are a $6 billion wildfire problem
• Construction costs for a wildfire-resistant home: California edition

While the report highlights a number of growth factors, [Megan Lawson, an economist with the nonprofit research group] said it leaves out data on income and housing inequalities. She pointed to No. 2-ranking Jackson, Wyo., and Teton County, which boasts the highest per capita average income in the country, putting housing out of reach for teachers and police officers.

• A rural capacity map
• Unaffordability for renters made worse during the pandemic
• Housing costs broke records across the U.S.

In her research with the non-profit Headwaters Economics, [Dr. Kristin] Smith found that more than one in five mobile homes in Montana are situated in high flood risk neighborhoods – something that the state has been waking up to.

• Yellowstone Flood reveals Montana’s mobile home flood risk
• Mobile home residents face higher flood risk
• Capacity-limited states still struggle to access FEMA BRIC grants

That came as a surprise to economist Megan Lawson with Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, who examined the five-year data.

“Rents increased over that time period across the state, but incomes increased more,” Lawson said.

• Housing costs broke records across the U.S.
• Unaffordability for renters made worse during the pandemic

“For many, many years and decades, really those other costs that come to the surface following a wildfire event have been overlooked,” said Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire researcher and policy lead at Headwaters Economics in Montana.

• The unequal impacts of wildfire
• Wildfires destroy thousands of structures each year

“It’s concerning the fact that we continue to grow in high wildfire risk areas, rebuild in high wildfire risk areas, assuming that a wildfire won’t occur,” said Kimiko Barrett, a wildfire researcher with the Montana-based research group Headwaters Economics.

• The unequal impacts of wildfire
• Building a Wildfire-Resistant Home: Codes and Costs

“That would affect more than wealthy landowners, said Megan Lawson of Headwaters Economics, a community development nonprofit in Bozeman, Mont.

“Amenity economies depend on guiding services, lodging and hospitality in general,” Ms. Lawson said. “That’s the lifeblood of the economy in several states.”

• Innovative New Ways to Count Outdoor Recreation
• The Future of the Outdoor Recreation Economy
• The Outdoor Recreation Economy by State

Wildfire Researcher Kimiko Barrett with Headwaters Economics says those homes were built close together and had high property values, increasing insurance claims.

She says urban areas traditionally thought of as safe from wildfires are more exposed as fires intensify.

“It’s entire neighborhoods being burned, in some cases hundreds, if not thousands, of structures being lost in one wildfire,” she said. “These trends unfortunately are going to increase because the risks are increasing across the board.”

• Construction costs for a wildfire-resistant home: California edition
• Wood roofs are a $6 billion wildfire problem
• The unequal impacts of wildfire

“In the last few months, the Fed has been raising interest rates,” said Megan Lawson, an economist with Headwaters Economics. “And that’s slowing down new home purchases because borrowing costs are just more expensive.”

• Housing costs broke records across the U.S.

So far, Mississippi River communities have also received a smaller percentage of BRIC dollars than coastal states, according to a Headwaters Economics analysis.

• A rural capacity map
• Capacity-limited states still struggle to access FEMA BRIC grants

Organizations such as Headwaters Economics have developed tools for federal agencies to identify at-risk populations and have begun exploring data that can measure capacity. These creative and innovative tools may be useful to a range of communities that are often missed by traditional measures of income and vulnerability.

• Neighborhoods at Risk
• A rural capacity map

Montana-based nonprofit research group Headwaters Economics compiles National Park Service data annually, and this week it published data showing that NPS units — which can include national monuments, forts, historical locations, parks and preserves — saw a big surge in visitors from 2020 to 2021.

• Economic Impact of National Parks

“Currently, at the federal level, through the land management agencies — primarily the U.S. Forest Service — we’re spending $65 million per wildfire, which is doubling the cost since 1999,” said Kimi Barrett, a wildfire and policy analyst with Headwaters Economics, a nonpartisan independent research organization based in Bozeman, Montana.

• Living with wildfire

Kris Smith, a researcher at Bozeman-based Headwaters Economics, said that when the flood hit, one of her first thoughts was: “What’s going to be the plan for making sure that we’re not worsening the housing crisis that we know is already existing in Montana?”

• Yellowstone Flood reveals Montana’s mobile home flood risk