Erickson: Fountain Hills is becoming no place for young families

Fountain Hills has been a wonderful place to call home for the last 10 years, but my family and I recently moved to a different part of the Valley. My wife and I moved here after graduating from NAU in 2013. Many life events have occurred since then, but we decided to move due to expensive housing and school uncertainty. Big surprise!

Home prices passed us by even while owning a home. Moving from a three-bedroom starter home to a four-bedroom home for our growing family is hard to pull off in Fountain Hills. The area has no room to grow and anything newly built is tailored for wealthy retirees. I have nothing against wealthy citizens, but this community increasingly caters to one demographic when it comes to housing. We barely snuck in buying our small place in 2017 before home prices really exploded.

The school district has several issues including inconsistent leadership (seems to have gotten better lately), staff turnover (low teacher pay compared to nearby districts) and diminishing local support. My wife had three principals and three superintendents in her five years teaching at FHMS. I can understand the reluctance to pass bonds/overrides from a mainly retiree community, but those funds are needed to maintain facilities, upgrade equipment, ensure safety and keep FHSD competitive with other districts that are passing overrides. The school district faces an uphill battle no matter how you look at things. 

I hope residents thoughtfully analyze what happens if most young families leave. What does that future look like? Perhaps many don’t care because they don’t have kids or didn’t raise kids here, but it will greatly affect the town. Fountain Hills is already a ghost town in the summer.

Anyway, we will miss Fountain Hills and enjoyed our 10 years as residents.

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