The airport, whose renovation is underway, sees a steady stream of private traffic ferrying the wealthy to their homes in places like the exclusive Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, about an hour south, where stars like Justin Timberlake and Tom Brady own multimillion-dollar properties.

“On any given day at our airport, there will be 80 to 100 private jets on the tarmac, primarily Yellowstone Club guests,” Corner says.

During Covid, local buyers were systematically outbid by cash offers from out of state. So many people bought homes sight unseen that the state association of Realtors added a new disclosure form to its contract library. And while Montanans found it impossible to get on the real estate ladder, others found it equally impossible to even continue renting.

“Every developer in America has heard about the exorbitant rental prices in Bozeman and how attractive it was to develop here,” Corner says. Apartment blocks and townhouses began to materialize everywhere, quickly, with one-bedroom rents reaching $2,000 a month or more, something no locals could afford, especially those with single incomes.

It was thanks to this wave of frustration that Mayor Morrison achieved victory in November 2023.

The mayor, now 30, lives with his fiancee and two roommates. Before that, about 10 years ago, he rented a room in a duplex for $333; that same room now rents for $900, he says.

Morrison, who grew up in eastern Montana with a nurse mother and an incarcerated father, was a founding member of Bozeman Tenants United, the union chapter that has since aided the mobile home park strike. His election to mayor, he says, was a referendum on housing policy and the supposed abandonment of average Montanans by local government.

“It really was a big wave… that clearly said: we want one of us to represent us on City Council,” he says.

He sees “a lot of hopelessness about staying in this state, in this particular city,” he says.