Yellowstone National Park has added staff housing, but not all parks are so fortunate./NPS file
With time running out on the current session of Congress, legislation that could help provide much-needed housing for National Park Service staff is languishing in a House committee, according to its sponsor.
The Lodging Options Developed for Government Employees Act would allow the Interior Department to enter into partnerships to create housing on federal lands, but it has stalled since the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands held a hearing on it and other legislative proposals in June.
"I'm frustrated. This is a solution. America wants solutions," U.S. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, said Monday during a phone call. "This is one of those opportunities that make sense. We think it would go by unanimous consent. And so from my perch in the minority, I don't have insight as to why something like this couldn't move more quickly."
The lack of housing to meet staffing needs and the lack of funding to replace dilapidated housing is reaching a crisis level at many areas of the National Park System. Not only has Rocky Mountain National Park in the past lost some prospective employees because of the poor housing situation, but both Voyageurs National Park and Indiana Dunes National Park have had to reach out to their surrounding communities for affordable housing for seasonal workers.
A housing needs assessment, conducted between 2010-2015, showed the National Park Service needed 200 more units (a unit can house more than 1 person) for permanent employees, and 630 additional bedrooms for seasonal employees, Sally Mayberry, communication manager for park planning, facilities and lands at the Park Service's Washington, D.C., headquarters, told the Traveler last November.
Years of unreliable congressional funding have left NPS budgets pinched and park managers without the proper funds to keep up with maintenance needs. With limited funds, managers often must make tough choices. As a result, other park repairs are often prioritized over employee housing. According to NPS, deferred maintenance for employee housing totaled more than $186 million in fiscal year 2018. Compare that with the $2.2 million NPS received that year for its Housing Improvement Program. With such inadequate yearly funding, it’s no surprise the problem continues to grow. -- The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2019
“Employee housing is the limiting factor affecting park operations, project implementation (including addressing administration priorities ranging from implementing the Great American Outdoor Act to connecting with underserved communities) and workplace culture/employee morale,” said Chip L. Jenkins, superintendent at Grand Teton National Park told Traveler contributor Lori Sonken in an email a year ago as she explored the housing issue.
Against that backdrop, there have been some efforts in Congress to deal with the problem. Earlier this year U.S. Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins, both representing Maine, introduced a measure that would allow a 55-acre tract of land at Acadia National Park to be used for affordable housing for seasonal workers at the park and Mount Desert Island residents. It also has failed to gain traction.
Moore's legislation, which was cosponsored by Jimmy Pancetta (D-CA 2), Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ 1) and Dan Newhouse (R-WA 4), would let the Interior Department contract with other federal agencies, state or local governments, tribal governments, or public or private organizations to create housing on federal lands, including National Park System lands. The housing could be leased to Park Service employees or concessions or outfitter workers who need housing, the Republican said.
"Housing affordability is constantly discussed in Democratic circles, so I'm a little lost" why the measure isn't moving forward, said Moore, a minority member on the parks subcommittee.
Lindsay Gressard, the communications director for the House Natural Resources Committee, couldn't say when, or if, the measure would come up again before the current session of Congress ends.
"As far as a markup goes, those are unfortunately always very hard to predict, but it is definitely something we’re working on," she said in an email.
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Comments
How in the world will offsite for profit housing helt the NPS workers? In Yellowstone I paid around $300 a month to rent my apartment in the lake district. If this is approved the nearest housing would be in Wapati or Cody Wy. I pretty much broke even ten years ago with the low pay and cost of living in Yellowstone- if this is enacted I would have LOST money working for the NPS....
Workforce housing for seasonal and full time employees is a critical need for all the federal and many state land management agencies. The same need can be said for the tourism and retail industry. The advent of VRBO and other forms of rental housing has eliminated many of the places that seasonal workers formerly could rent. The US Forest Service used to have hundreds of Guard Stations in remote locations that housed 2-6 workers. The crews at Guard Stations did initial attack on fires in addition to the routine projects in their area of responsibility. Time to bring them back. Way to much consolidation of districts and forests have led to large numbers of USFS staff sitting glued to com-uterus in cities far from where the work is needed.
Doesn't more and better employee housing contribute to the spiral of more services offered, then more visitors, then the need for more employees, then the need for more employee housing with more resource damage, then more infrastructure, then more services offered for more visitors, and on and on?
a johnson- housing IS needed. But it can be done in house with the NPS being the lead. In Yosemite for example the majority of employee's who are full time are commuting in from the mariposa region. A few decades back that used to be mid pines. A few decades before that - el Portal. Now few employee's even own houses in the mariposa region. Had I stayed on and gotten full time work- my closest "affordable" option would have been hawthorn NV.
Hving an outsitde company build these units- as I see know on NPS land- only to "lease" the buildings to the NPS despite the fact they would be on federal lands.
Thats just a money making scheme off of some of the least valued workers in all of Govt.
There's no point in providing more housing if NPS can't also change the formula use to determine rents. Rents for NPS housing in some parts of the country have been driven far past the range of affordability, due to a combination of sky high housing in general (California), made much worse by VRBO-type rentals driving up prices even higher. As a result there is a significant contingent of employees who are essentially homeless; living in vans and trailers; camping outside the park boundaries, couch surfing, etc.
You're absolutely right on this score. I've come to think that the reason superintendents and other managers who talk about housing as "the number one" issue facing worker retention and wellbeing is that they are afraid to talk about pay. It's no secret that the nps massively undergrades and thus underpays its workforce compared to the rest of the federal government and that its career ladder doesn't really exist. Real leadership to fix this is needed. Systemic regarding to acknowledge the complexity of the work and the quality of the workforce is essential to having rangers who do not constantly feel anxiety about the hand to mouth existence most of them live under.
Leadwrship means leading not managing the decline of the agency. It's not fun to burst the public illusions surrounding the myth of the national park ranger. But it is what leadership and stewardship requite
Waged are based on an entire area, much larger than the park or forest where people work. While parks are in resort and expensive cost of living areas much like Aspen CO. Resorts often bus employees in, the feds don't. The current housing system is broken in many areas and has been. NPS leadership continues to fail the employees and this is one of many factors that contribute to the low moral of the workforce (one of the lowest on the federal government).