April Fools’ joke opens the door to serious questions about affordable housing in the Valley
By Hayden Seder
The anonymous person or group behind Ketchum’s annual April Fools’ Day prank has struck again, this year setting up tiny tiny homes in the form of remodeled Clearcreek dumpsters.
The “homes” were placed around Ketchum on Monday at Java, Starbucks, Sturtevants, The Elephant’s Perch, Johnny G’s, Grumpy’s, Warfield, Rickshaw, Casino, and Board Bin. A press release of information was included at each location, which also directed interested parties to a fully-functioning website that describes the “Clearcreek Residences” as “small modular units delivered on premises” and as a “live/work solution to Ketchum’s affordable housing dilemma.”
The press release for the Clearcreek Residences gives some backstory to why this is the solution to the affordable housing issue in the area.
“Pick up the Mountain Express any week of the last few months and articles on Ketchum’s affordable housing and parking issues eat up column after column.”
The press release relies heavily on quotes from a made-up Nile Barisorry of Dump-Stir-It-Up Enterprises, the innovator behind these tiny tiny homes.
Barisorry cites the many positives of these Clearcreek Residences, from providing employee housing in an expensive rental market to shorter commutes for residents.
Barisorry also points out that converting shipping containers into homes as well as the building of tiny homes have become recent trends, particularly for those with limited budgets or environmental concerns and that these dumpster homes are merely a hybrid of these trends.
Not content just to take aim at the City of Ketchum’s lack of affordable housing, the prank also pokes fun at the current YMCA parking lot controversy.
“Our Live/Park model is absolutely tailor-made for the unique situation that the YMCA finds itself in,” Barisorry said in a fake press release on the Clearcreek Residences website. “I’ve been keenly following Ketchum’s struggles with affordable housing and parking. In my mind, Ketchum’s got it all backwards—30- to 40-unit apartment buildings with NO parking? That’s crazy. Our model flips that notion on its head; small dwellings with a minimum of 3-4 parking spaces per unit. This allows for one resident parking spot and 2-3 spots for City parking.”
Ketchum’s real mayor, Neil Bradshaw, said, “This local humor highlights a local issue that is on the top of everyone’s minds and is not going to go away until we solve it or at least make a significant dent into our housing requirements. Workforce housing is not a laughing matter but bringing the issue to everyone’s attention can be done in a humorous way.”
Whoever is behind Ketchum’s April Fools’ Day pranks certainly has a knack for tapping into the hot-button issues of the area and exploiting them, often to the point of controversy. In 2016, the April Fools’ Day prank focused on “relaunching” the defunct Ketchum Cruiser program, a bike-share program used in the ’90s. This joke version made fun of the area’s aging population by putting 25 walkers around town for public use. Many in town were offended, with the Mountain Express even running an article shortly after the prank about the many in town who thought the joke was in poor taste.
Less controversial was 2017’s prank, the Puber Project. Combining the word public and the ride-share company name Uber, Puber was a fake ride-share company to help people reach destinations in the Valley. Pedestrians were urged to stand on the side of the road holding up a colored flag that would signal what part of the Valley they wanted to go to. Rather than being offended, many thought the program was real and the joke even ended up getting picked up by local KMVT news.
Perhaps the tamest of the April Fools’ Day pranks was last year’s banner on the hill in Ketchum that is usually home to Irving’s hotdog stand that read “McDonald’s—Coming Soon.” While the prank was not as involved as others, it still led to many complaints to the City of Ketchum and many wondering if it were true.
Whomever is behind these pranks certainly has a read on the town and knows how to stir things up.