Ski Resorts Struggle to House Employees as Rent Continues to Rise
The Steamboat Ski Resort in Colorado is pulling out all the stops to find housing for up to 50 if its seasonal employees. The resort announced last month that they will pay a $200 monthly incentive to landlords who agree to house employees for under $500 a month.
According to Steamboat Ski spokesperson Nicole Miller, a large number of the resort’s seasonal workers are currently on a waiting list for a room at the company’s housing complex.
Elsewhere in the city of Steamboat Springs, affordable housing is scarce. Every unit is almost always occupied, and when a one-bedroom does become available, it costs upwards of $1,050 per month. Unfortunately, the average monthly rent in this resort community is far beyond what the employees can afford.
Finding housing for employees has been a struggle for many other resort communities over the past few years as rent costs have continued to rise. According to the Yampa Valley Housing Authority executive director Jason Peasley, the city is 180 beds short of being able to house the seasonal workforce.
“It’s so much worse today than it’s ever been,” said Sara Flitner, the mayor of Jackson, Wyoming. In this beloved ski vacation destination, the medium price of a single-family home increased 24% to $1.2 million last year. In this and other ski towns across the West, the gap between the locals and the tourists is widening tremendously.
About 1.6 billion people worldwide are living without adequate housing, and Forbes has estimated that 1.5 million new housing units need to be built every year in order to accommodate the population growth.
To keep their resorts staffed and running smoothly, companies like the Steamboat Ski Resort have had to get creative and even make significant investments to help their employees find a place to live.
More than half (57%) of businesses and organizations view employee retention as an issue. Limited housing and high cost of living is certainly one-factor driving turnover among seasonal employees out in ski country.
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