'Go back to California': Wave of newcomers fuels backlash in Boise

[Demovictory9]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-10/go-back-to-california-wave-of-newcomers-fuels-backlash-in-boise

The Twitter squall started in late September, when former Boise State University football player Tyler Rausa went out to his car one day. There he found a professionally printed card, white with an elegant charcoal gray and gold border. It had a nicely centered, two-line message in all capital letters.

GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA

WE DON’T WANT YOU HERE

Rausa was a talented kicker for the Broncos in the 2015 and 2016 seasons. He scored 219 points for the team then. He is now an NFL free agent. He still lives in Boise. But he kept his California license plates.


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“If you come here and love it, everything’s fine,” Roscoe said. “If you come here and fly that California flag in your driveway and have stickers on your car that say, ‘Santa Cruz,’ there’s going to be some hard feelings.”


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Patricia Flanigan also swapped her California plates for the red-white-and-blue “Famous Potatoes” version when she moved from Dana Point in 2015 to the Boise suburb of Eagle. She had retired as dean of online education and learning resources at Saddleback College.

“I took the position that I would come to Idaho and adapt to the community,” she said. She has a doctorate in education. Earlier in her career, she’d taught English as a Second Language at three Southern California community colleges. She’d also run an ESL program at Lake Tahoe Community College. When she moved, she decided to volunteer with non-English speakers.

She got an appointment with the director of a nearby community college. But the school wasn’t interested in her offer of free help. She was told to try the region’s refugee center. She sent a resume. And never heard back.

At the college interview, “I was dressed professionally, looked like a Californian,” Flanigan said. “I probably irritated [the director] by my confidence. There was no way she was going to have me volunteer.... She wanted to get rid of me.”


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which brings us to the heart of the problem: income inequality.

Anyone moving to Boise from another part of Idaho is still saddled with the same bottom-of-the-barrel minimum wage, an anemic $7.25 an hour. So it’s most likely not the Idahoans who are driving up home prices and filling up rental properties, because they can’t afford to.

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Part of this negative feeling probably stems from the fact that these people perhaps sold...

their homes in CA for much more than what the same size home goes for in a lot of jurisdictions ... I see this in MO too. They sell their homes in CA, make tons of money for the most part, move to other states (in my example, MO), and then buy a bigger home in MO, still have lots of money left over, all w/ the same size home in both locations. And those of us in MO can't for the most part reciprocate e.g., move from MO to CA, since there is no way the home prices are compatible. In a way, I don't blame the resentment, being that I've seen several couples move back from CA to MO, and have it all, home, savings, etc.

I guess that this will happen in lots of areas besides MO too, e.g., Idaho, etc.

[jberryhill]

2. From whom are they buying those homes?

And what do the sellers then do with the money?

[SWBTATTReg]

12. Eh, people that live in MO. What does any other seller do with money from a sale? In particular,

I am not really sure what they do w/ the money, but I know that myself, having been a recent seller too, was happy to get the home sold and used the proceeds (minor) to buy another home. And not uptick/upscale the home either.

[dalton99a]

3. +1. Californians are cashing out on equity and driving the prices up wherever they end up

I saw the same phenomenon in Texas

[Igel]

6. Shall we call it "gentrification"?

Perhaps "carpetbagging"?

People that come in and are convinced that the natives are somehow inferior and need to be enlightened? (Gee, that's working on "colonialist views".)

Nobody likes being given a free helping of condescension.

[NickB79]

4. Sounds a bit like the backlash Dust Bowl refugees felt

Are these people moving due to wildfires?

[UniteFightBack]

5. They should be lucky that anybody would want the hell to move there. Red State ROT. nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

7. This happening in Northern Idaho, too.

People visit the gorgeous lakes and buy property for a lot less than California.

But they forgot to check on what the winters are like. Freezing cold and 20 feet of snow.

[Yavin4]

8. Why don't the good people of Boise just build a wall?

Hey, every city/state should build walls. Then, America will look like one giant maze.

[Demovictory9]

9. the mayor mentions building a wall at the beginning of the article

[Yavin4]

10. I need to get into the wall building business

I could become a billionaire.

[2naSalit]

11. This is happening in Montana too.

In fact, one f my siblings who lives in Calif. came to visit this summer and much of her time looking at homes for sale. In her mind she could sell the dump she lives in there and get something pretty nice around here. What does happen is that a lot of people come from California to the rural places here and decide they don't like the way we live so they decide they will show us how things are done. All while jacking up housing costs as many buy properties to rent and they instantly start charging exponential increases and pricing al the tenants out of house and home. I moved from where I used to live because of this, couldn't find a place that I could afford and I didn't qualify for assistance so I was SOL. Sometimes they buy a business and with the "we'll show you bumpkins how it's done" attitude get really pissed when they go out of business within a year or two. The good part about some of them is that once they endure one winter they are ready to leave come spring.

Just goes to show that in most cases, no matter where you go, there you are.

A lot of R Californians are vacating the state and moving to what they consider "their kind' of place only to realize they were incorrect. So they go to Idaho or Montana. Montana gets called a red state when it's actually purple.

Hell I get dissed a lot for having the plates from county I just moved from still on one of my cars because I found out I was moving about two weeks after I had renewed the registration for about $100. I decided to wait for next year and then I'll change the plates, I did change them on the one car because it was due anyway shortly after I moved.

The issue of resentment of nonlocals is pretty widespread in the nonwealthy states. Mostly because they buy up properties and jack up the rent, it happens a lot.