MTV News Features Wyoming as Hotbed For Celebrities

MTV doesn't really play any music videos these days (ever) but they do have news segments that focus on celebrities. Sometimes they focus on where celebrities are currently flocking to, like believe it or not, Wyoming.

It's no secret that Wyoming has its fair share of celebrities these days, such as Kanye West (without Kim Kardashian, and no, that's not too soon), Harrison Ford, Sandra Bullock, Nikki Sixx, Jeffree Starr, and RuPaul, among others. They all have homes either in or around the region known as Jackson Hole. And there has been a relatively recent influx of these celebrities setting up shop at their new spot in Wyoming.

You may not know this fact, but Wyoming has the highest number of billionaires per capita in the entire country. Sure, we have beautiful scenery and lots of secluded land, but it seems that the biggest reason for this is the most obvious, no state income tax.

Unfortunately, the popular settling spot for celebrities is one of the factors that has caused the housing market to skyrocket and has caused a housing crisis for the locals in and around Jackson to find affordable housing. A Jackson-based nonprofit, ShelterJH, is a housing advocacy group attempting to address the local housing crisis. Clare Stumpf, ShelterJH coordinator said this about the situation in a separate interview with Buckrail:

We are the only housing advocacy group in the valley...While we don’t work to build homes, we work to influence local policies that will broaden housing opportunities for locals. We are creating a network of housing advocates that can lobby our electeds to make responsible and progressive choices that prioritize the workforce over the 1%.

Stumpf also addressed some goals they look that ShelterJH looks to push for in order to help the local workforce with affordable housing:

One of our longer-term goals is to enact a real estate transfer tax for the state...This tax could be imposed on homes worth more than $5 million, for example, and therefore still create a stable source of revenue considering the sale prices here, while also protecting those who are purchasing or selling more reasonably-priced property.

Be sure to check out the video above with the full story in their 'The Pop Factor' report. On a side note, who would've thought that Wyoming would be featured in an MTV News segment called 'The Pop Factor'? Then again, I suppose that had much better odds than us ever seeing any music videos on MTV ever again.