{"id":23064,"date":"2026-02-18T16:57:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T23:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=23064"},"modified":"2026-02-21T17:14:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T00:14:27","slug":"arch-makes-positive-ddprogress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/18\/arch-makes-positive-ddprogress\/","title":{"rendered":"ARCH Makes Positive ddProgress"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL<\/em><\/p>\n

ARCH Angels Helping the Community<\/strong>
\nOne Home at a Time<\/strong>
\nHigher Ground, the Hunger Coalition, Mountain Humane\u2013 just a few of the many delightful organizations in our Valley that make you smile and feel uplifted when you hear the name. That\u2019s true social currency. The slight feeling of happiness when merely thinking of goodness.<\/p>\n

Social Currency<\/strong>
\nThe Advocates for Real Community Housing (ARCH) is definitely one of these. Over the last 20 years they\u2019ve worked for the work-force searching, partnering, buying and building or remodeling homes for people who work in Blaine County. As an essentially year-round tourist\/resort town, Sun Valley offers magnificent hiking and fishing in the summers, splendid skiing (when we have winters) and an infinitely warm community. People of all ilk work and play in the Valley.<\/p>\n

To be able to work from home is a luxury or an invention if you can but if not, and you\u2019re working in the Resort or a restaurant that caters to the tourism or recreational sector, the work is enough, and we know what a commute does to the soul, the environment, the individual\u2019s vehicle and the augmentation of traffic. The need for accessible homes, if we want the industry to function, is real and that\u2019s where ARCH makes the rubber meet the road.<\/p>\n

Enter Michelle Griffith<\/strong>
\nWith only three core staff members it\u2019s incredible the amount of work ARCH gets done. Michelle Griffith is their Executive Director and sat down to talk about what the current goals are in their \u201cpipeline\u201d of potentials.
\n\u201cWe moved here full time in 2009. One son graduated from Wood River High School, the other from Community School and I\u2019ve been with ARCH since 2009. Now, initially ARCH relied predominantly on federal housing programs in order to finance housing development and in 2021, 2022, around in there, you know, right as the impacts of COVID were really hitting the Valley. Our board recognized that we needed more funding and more flexible funding.
\n\u201cSo we began fundraising in earnest and those efforts allow us to serve a wider variety of households and have proven to be really effective. We started doing rental programs using donor dollars and we also started by engaging in partnerships. So we would partner with another entity and that other entity would either bring land or construction financing to the project and ARCH would bring whatever the other entity didn\u2019t have. And then we didn\u2019t have to fundraise for both the land and the houses. We would fundraise for one or the other.\u201d
\nConsolidated fundraising and creative partnerships\u2013 this is a team aware of the landscape around them and how to carve their own path.
\nARCH is currently finishing the Herberger Hideaway in Hailey, previously the Ellsworth Inn, now a six one-bedroom set of apartments which are completely full. There\u2019s also a detached one-bedroom unit behind the inn on 4th Street, fully leased.<\/p>\n

SIGN UP for Rentals or <\/strong>
\nPipeline Partnerships<\/strong>
\nIf you work in Blaine County, 30+ hours a week, and find yourself earning between 80 and 140% of the area median income you should immediately contact them. Particularly Ben at ArchBC.org
\nGet on their lists, they do absolutely come through.
\nIf you\u2019re a property owner of homes, buildings, etc, and they\u2019re zoned for residential living ARCH works directly with you to get your project in their \u2018Pipeline\u2019. \u201cWe work on what we call the pipeline. So we\u2019re always looking for land that can be developed. We\u2019re always trying to get things through the entitlement process,which would mean architecture, engineering, and permitting.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd then we\u2019re always under construction and swiftly leasing up. So the under construction stuff is the Hideaway project. We also have a couple of home ownership opportunities in Hailey, which are under construction. In the entitlement phase, we have a development up in Ketchum. 11 units at 180 Leadville! And so there\u2019s an existing house there, which we renovated. It\u2019s a historic house, renovated and occupied. And we just got approval to go ahead and start engineering our drawings to put in for building permits for the new construction piece of it. So we\u2019re waiting for our engineers to get us the plan set that we can submit for a building permit and that we could also put out to contractors as an RFP to get them to bid to build it.
\nYou hear so many bizarre things about worker housing and low income housing. These are the people who run and \u2018make function\u2019 the restaurants, bars, gear shops, thrift stores, chocolatiers, coffee houses, diners, etc\u2026 EVERYTHING. People say things like \u201cWe\u2019re a high class ski town. If you can\u2019t afford to live here, go to Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, small towns in Texas, Arizona, etc.\u201d The blatant and OBVIOUS fallacious ignorance put forth is that everything about the \u2018high class ski town\u2019 REQUIRES workers! What about the shops and businesses that people who say things like this rely on for their libations and recreation? There would be no grocery stores, no restaurants, no bars, without the workers. It\u2019s an age old discussion and perhaps the possibility of robots ameliorates this in the mind of the one spreading such vulgar sentiments. Some day that may arrive but not now. ARCH is helping with the help. A crucial role played by a company single-mindedly searching for opportunities to make things work. For all.<\/p>\n

Management Rumors<\/strong>
\nGriffith was unworried and spoke almost with laughter when asked about whether ARCH were outsourcing management. \u201cNo, we\u2019ve never done that. Yeah, no, we\u2019re not outsourcing anything. We\u2019ve always kept to our\u2026 you know, we\u2019re going the other way. We\u2019re outsourcing less and less.\u201d<\/p>\n

So there it is.<\/strong>
\nGriffith is a delight to speak with, assured, informed and absolutely at the top of her game as Executive Director. This is one of those wonderful organizations we enjoy, even just knowing they exist is coolness point. Someone needs a leather rocker vest with pins showing the logo of each of these great organizations in action for the betterment of our community. It\u2019s kind of amazing, especially after visiting a city where little is recognized and even less is done to help. We live in a wildly beautiful Barry Lyndon-esque painting. Support it!<\/strong>
\nIf you have property that\u2019s just sitting? Call ARCH to discuss a partnership.
\nIf you know of people who do, anyone who enjoys the fruits of Sun Valley must consider how those fruits are picked, cleaned, cut and displayed for all to enjoy.
\nAny questions about the new developments in Ketchum, specifically the 11 units at 180 Leadville\u2019s Historic House, feel free to contact ARCH through the typical means on their website: https:\/\/archbc.org\/
\nCall: (208) 726-4411
\nEmail: homeownership@archbc.org<\/p>\n

They also have socials:
\nInstagram: https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/arch_blaine_county
\nFacebook: https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ARCHbc\/
\nX: https:\/\/x.com\/arch_idaho<\/p>\n

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BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL ARCH Angels Helping the Community One Home at a Time Higher Ground, the Hunger Coalition, Mountain Humane\u2013 just a few of the many delightful organizations in our Valley that make you smile and feel uplifted when you hear the name. That\u2019s true social currency. The slight feeling of happiness when merely thinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":479,"featured_media":23065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,82,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-community","8":"category-housing","9":"category-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23066,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23064\/revisions\/23066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}