Housing national park employees and concessions workers could prove tricky as long as the coronavirus pandemic dictates extreme care in trying to prevent the disease's spread.

Consider:

• On April 8, there were 914 National Park Service staff in shared housing, and approximately 1,500 concessions staff in shared housing.
• At full occupancy, shared housing can handle more than 5,500 Park Service workers.
• During peak season, 16,000 concession workers reside in sharing housing.

But as long as Covid-19 remains a concerning risk to park and concession workers, park officials are being asked to avoid shared housing where possible.

"The NPS recognizes that reducing the risk of COVID-19 exposure requires limiting shared housing situations for the 2020 summer and fall operating seasons," reads a document that Michael Caldwell, the Park Service's acting associate director for Park, Planing, Facilities, and Land, sent out earlier this week to the agency's regional directors. "Fewer tenants in shared housing means a reduction in the number of employees, volunteers, and concessioners. Reduced staffing levels will impact operations."

Across the country, 186 of the 419 units of the National Park System use shared housing for Park Service staff.

To deal with the virus and the housing crunch for their staff, park managers are expected to prioritize staff for housing; provide alternative housing for those workers who consider themselves to be at high-risk if they contract Covid-19; review the travel history and Covid-19 symptoms before assigning seasonal employees housing, and; educate staff on the precautions they should be taking to avoid contracting the virus.

Custodial workers should be provided with personal protective equipment, staff in government housing should be given cleaning supplies, and concession lodging or private housing should be used for staff if needed, the document added. Park managers also need to take into consideration the ability of local medical facilities to handle Covid-19 patients.

The best approach to limiting exposure is to house staff in facilities where each tenant has their own bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room, said the guidelines. The next best would be where each tenant has their own bedroom but shares the common spaces and bathroom, it added.

If park managers feel they need to house two or more tenants per bedroom, or where multiple bedrooms share a bathroom, they must obtain approval from the Park Service's deputy director for operations before assigning such housing.

"The Department of the Interior has issued guidance to ensure that tenant rent is not increased by the need to implement these guidelines," Caldwell told the regional directors. "The guidance in this document will remain in effect until the end of the 2020 calendar year or until the state/local authorities in the jurisdiction of a park announce that the area is entering Phase III of the White House’s Opening Up America Again Guidance."

Under Phase III guidelines:

VULNERABLE INDIVIDUALS can resume public interactions, but should practice physical distancing, minimizing exposure to social settings where distancing may not be practical, unless precautionary measures are observed.

LOW-RISK POPULATIONS should consider minimizing time spent in crowded environments.

The documents did not say how concessionaires would house their workers.