Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Wyoming has plenty. But, where do you live? So homelessness has increased statewide.

Can you say “quixotic”?

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January 12, 2013

In Wyoming, Many Jobs but No Place to Call Home

By JACK HEALY

On a recent night, Tiffany Kipp cooked dinner at the shelter where she and her family are staying. There is a surprising downside to Wyoming’s economic resilience and its 5.1 percent unemployment rate: a sharp rise in homelessness. Tiffany Kipp and her family moved to Wyoming from Southern California, looking for a fresh start. Her husband, Justin, found a job, but they could not afford the high rents in Casper, which has a low vacancy rate. They landed in a shelter. Left, Ms. Kipp cooked dinner on a recent night.
Credit: Matthew Staver for The New York Times

CASPER, Wyo. — After losing everything last year to Southern California’s soured economy, Tiffany Kipp and her family packed up three boxes and a diaper bag and caught a Greyhound bus to Wyoming, their best chance at a fresh start.

They were drawn to Wyoming, where Ms. Kipp has family, by the promise of plentiful jobs and a booming energy sector, and a thin hope of rebuilding their futures on the High Plains. But like a growing number of people here, they ended up on the underside of the boom.

Unable to scrape together enough money for an apartment, the Kipps, who once rented a four-bedroom house north of Los Angeles, bounced from motel rooms to friends’ couches. They ended up in a single room at a shelter run by a local nonprofit organization.

“We lost everything,” said Ms. Kipp, 25, whose husband works for an oil services company. “We needed somewhere to go.”

“We lost everything,” said Ms. Kipp, 25, whose husband works for an oil services company. “We needed somewhere to go.” Left, she and Mr. Kipp prepare their two children, Emily and Payton, for bed in their room at the shelter.
Credit: Matthew Staver for The New York Times

There is a surprising downside to Wyoming’s economic resilience and its 5.1 percent unemployment rate: a sharp rise in homelessness.

As another winter settles in, many people who moved here fleeing foreclosures and chasing jobs in the oil, gas and coal industries now find themselves without a place to live. Apartments are scarce and expensive, and the economy, while strong, is