Tourist towns lack housing for summer workers, hard to get

Lack of available housing has made it harder for tourist towns to attract summer workers. 

"Although the summer workforce shortage has been particularly acute this year, the mismatch goes far beyond the national shortage of municipal lifeguards, camp counselors, wildland firefighters and resort housekeepers," Erika Bolstad reports for Stateline. "There are more available jobs in the United States than workers to fill them, and not just in the service or hospitality sector. An estimated 11.5 million job openings exist for 5.5 million eligible workers."

Some towns are offering free housing for summer workers. That includes Medora, N.D., which drew 124,000 tourists last year with a historical-themed musical. Though the community needs only 325 summer workers, "the tiny Western-themed town in the North Dakota badlands is illustrative of the scramble to hire a summer workforce each year," Bolstad reports. "In 2021, despite near-record visitor attendance at the musical, Medora couldn't open its high-end dining room at the Rough Riders Hotel until well into the summer season. The hotel had no chef and lacked kitchen staff—in previous years it depended on foreign workers with H-2B visas to fill many restaurant and housekeeping jobs. The pandemic as well as Trump-era immigration policies slowed participation in the H-2B and J-1 visa programs." In the winter, Medora's population is 120.