More than 35 new townhouses will be going in on Mission Street in McCall, providing affordable housing for St. Luke’s employees.
MCCALL, Idaho — The McCall Memorial Hospital District is partnering with the St. Luke’s McCall Foundation on a $1.4 million housing project designed to address a critical shortage of affordable housing for healthcare workers in the resort community.
The project will create 38 townhomes — consisting of fourplexes and tri-plexes — on nearly five acres on Mission Street. The McCall-Donnelly School District previously owned the land.
McCall Memorial Hospital District board president Andy Laidlaw said the housing shortage has prevented doctors from accepting positions with St. Luke’s in McCall due to unaffordable housing costs in the area.
“We’re just trying to build a community of healthcare workers that, you know, I mean, it benefits healthcare providers, but it also benefits our community to have those people as part of the community,” Laidlaw said.
Under the affordable housing model, tenants will pay 30% of their household income to cover rent and utilities combined.
The McCall Memorial Hospital District is funding the project through four phases with support from the St. Luke’s Foundation. The district will use its annual levy to pay off the property, incorporating the costs into its $1.5 million yearly budget.
“One of the challenges in providing rural health care, and especially in a kind of high-value housing market like ours, is getting, recruiting and retaining staff, and one of the huge recruitment challenges is housing,” Laidlaw said. “People want to come to work, but they can’t afford it, or they can’t find a place, even if they can’t afford it and stuff like that.”
The housing project is moving forward despite an ongoing investigation by the Idaho Attorney General’s Office into the hospital district’s use of funds and relationship with the St. Luke’s Foundation.
The investigation began in early July after a citizen group called Give Us A Vote submitted a petition in January signed by 100 taxpayers in the district requesting the probe.
Tomi Grote, a member of the citizen group, said in a statement that “clarity is all our grassroots organization has ever sought. However, the Attorney General’s investigation comes out, it is a win for the district’s taxpayers.”
The hospital district board said it plans to move forward with the housing complex and hopes to have the first tenants move in by early 2026.
