Pandemic influx of city-dwellers triggered housing shortages in many resort towns, pricing out the locals

Early in the pandemic, many city dwellers moved to rural areas. Communities with vibrant tourist economies were especially attractive for such people, according to a recent report from the Economic Innovation Group. Housing was frequently in short supply even before the pandemic in many small towns, but the new residents have triggered soaring housing prices that price out mid- and low-income workers critical to the local economy, Molly Bolan reports for Route Fifty.

Exclusive ski-resort town Sun Valley, Idaho, and surrounding communities offer an extreme example. "It is not just service workers struggling to hold on. A program director at the YMCA is living in a camper on a slice of land in Hailey," Mike Baker reports for The New York Times. "A high-school principal in Carey was living in a camper but then upgraded to a tiny apartment in an industrial building. A city-council member in Ketchum is bouncing between the homes of friends and family, unable to afford a place of his own. A small-business owner in Sun Valley spends each night driving dirt roads into the wilderness, parking his box truck under the trees and settling down for the night."

The housing shortage now threatens the once-thriving local economy in the area: "The hospital, school district and sheriff’s office have each seen prospective employees bail on job offers after realizing the cost of living was untenable. The fire department that covers Sun Valley has started a $2.75 million fund-raising campaign to build housing for their firefighters," Baker reports. "Already, restaurants unable to hire enough service workers are closing or shortening hours. And the problems are starting to spread to other businesses." However, when Ketchum officials sought a tax increase to build hundreds of affordable housing units over the next decade, voters wouldn't approve it.

Resort towns have long grappled with how to house their workers, but in places like Sun Valley those challenges have become a crisis as the chasm widens between those who have two homes and those who have two jobs. Fueled in part by a pandemic migration that has gobbled up the region’s limited housing supply, rents have soared over the last two years, leaving priced-out workers living in trucks, trailers or tents.

More than just housing prices are affected, Bolan reports: "Local officials in smaller communities that have seen an influx of residents are dealing not just with squeezed housing markets, but also added pressure on infrastructure like water systems, crowded backcountry destinations, and increased traffic congestion."

And Summit County, Colorado, another ski area with a booming pandemic population, "has had a lot of 'churn' in its schools, as new students enroll and others move away. As property values have increased, some families who can’t afford the higher prices are being pushed out," Bolan reports.