PARK CITY, Utah — In the heart of Park City Library, you’ll find librarian Katrina Kmak.
She spends most of her days making children smile, but one would never know the struggles she once faced.
“I had gotten COVID first, my son was about six months old, and they're like you need to quarantine away from your family and use a separate bathroom. I'm like, that's not our situation,” she said.
In 2020, she was sharing a one bedroom/one bathroom condo with her husband and son, and realized they needed help affording a bigger house.
“There was the anxiety of being like, oh my goodness, are we gonna still qualify for this? I'd lost both my parents and I was like, Are we still gonna qualify or assets gonna be too much all these things,” Kmak said.
Kmak applied for the city’s affordable housing program, and once they got on the list, they were sent every house they were eligible for, and they eventually found their new home.
"I will never forget we were at the house I grew up in with all of my siblings. It was the first holiday without either of our parents,” Kmak said, "the email had just come through, and I'm like, John, John, another house just went up. This is our house.”
The Park City Community Foundation works to connect families with nonprofits who provide financial assistance and sees many workers who make the city run but can’t afford to live there.
“The most clear problem is expense. The median house price here is really out of reach of most families unless you've made a ton of money,” said Joel Zarrow, CEO of Park City Community Foundation, "like 80% of our workforce drives in to the community.”
The other problem is not a lot of starter homes in the city, mostly luxury ones.
The exact issue inspired newly appointed council member Diego Zegarra to bring his ideas to the table.
“There's two projects, perhaps with a little bit over 100 units each that could help us start looking at that group of folks in the 60% of area median income,” he said, "we're looking to invest immediately in rentals so that our workforce can be closer to the centers of employment.”
There are even attainable housing options for those who make slightly more than the threshold but still struggle financially, which is exactly why Kmak was able to stay in Park City doing the job she loves.
“You don't know unless you try. I think so many people would be surprised to see what the parameters of the attainable housing are too,” she said, "these resources exist for everyone you know, it's not just for a certain sect of people, it's for everyone who lives here.”
Zegarra said there’s two parcels of the land the city is interested in and hopes to get these housing projects off the ground halfway through the year, if not by the third quarter.
