In Search Of Reasonable Housing For National Park Service Employees

Some Parks Are Losing Employees Due To Lack Of Affordable Housing

By Lori Sonken

Melissa Smith loved working as an interpretive park guide at Arches National Park during the summer 2020.  Traveling from Illinois to southern Utah, Smith and her husband, a retired teacher, treated their stay, surrounded by the red rock landscape, as a vacation. They rented a condo in Moab for $1,400 a month – too costly to manage on her $17 per hour government salary.

But Smith, a retired librarian, had a pension to supplement her income as a seasonal employee. Otherwise, she too would have struggled to secure affordable housing near her work as other park employees do.

“Arches National Park wanted us to rent a house in Moab but at a GS 4 ($27,184-$35,338) or 5 ($30,414-$39,540) pay grade, that would have required me to have four or five roommates,” said an NPS employee who wished to remain anonymous.  Instead, the employee accepted a park ranger position elsewhere, but works weekends as a bartender and tour guide to meet living expenses.

“I absolutely love my work with NPS. I just wish all units were able to offer affordable in or near park housing to employees if they need it,” the park ranger said.

The lack of affordable housing, 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 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, said Sally Mayberry, communication manager for park planning, facilities and lands at the Park Service's Washington, D.C., headquarters. No estimate on the cost to meet housing needs was provided.

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 in an email.

Grand Teton  has 120 units available to permanent employees, and last summer housed 135 seasonal employees at multiple venues, including 24 historic properties. However, the park estimates that about 20 permanent staff need or will soon need housing in the park, and housing for an additional 12 staff currently living in the community will be needed when those positions turn over.

Housing Is Anything But Cheap In The Grand Teton Market

Adjacent to Jackson Hole, a tourist destination where the cost of living is comparable to New York City,  the national park faces housing issues similar to Jackson Hole businesses. Compared to housing readily available on the market, rentals within Grand Teton are cheap.

A three-bedroom home in Jackson Hole can be rented for $5,000 a month, and a five-bedroom house in Jackson is available for $40,000 a month, according to the website hotpad.com. In contrast, for permanent park employees, “rental rates (inside the park) range from $400 a month for a one-bedroom 600-square-foot unit in a multiplex housing building in Colter Bay, about 40 minutes from park headquarters, to $1,500 a month for a three-bedroom unit house in Beaver Creek,” said Jeremy Barnum, chief of staff at Grand Teton.

Seasonal employees working this past summer paid from a minimum $315 a month for dormitory housing to as much as $940 a month for a one-bedroom apartment.

Grand Teton is taking steps to upgrade housing conditions and expand its housing stock.  A historic house near Antelope Flats is undergoing rehabilitation to accommodate additional staff. The Grand Teton National Park Foundation lent a hand in addressing the employee housing issue by acquiring in 2018 the Moulton Ranch Cabins in the Mormon Row Historic District in the park. Nine existing lodging units on the property are expected to provide housing for seasonal park employees. Efforts are also underway to bring broadband internet and cell phone coverage to the park to benefit employees.

“We recognize that employee housing is one of many building blocks to a positive and inclusive environment, which is why Grand Teton is focusing so much attention on housing. This is part of recruiting and retaining good employees,” said Jenkins.

Not only has Rocky Mountain National Park lost employee housing to wildfires, but some of its remaining employee housing needs to be replaced/NPS

At Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, housing was a crucial issue for park employees before the East Troublesome Fire burned into the western edge of the park in 2020. Then that fire destroyed some employee housing and turned a dire issue into a truly critical one. Some relief should come in two years, when construction is expected to begin on housing to replace those units lost to the flames.

“In 2023 we’ll be able to start building. In the interim, we tried to lease some housing in the Grand Lake and the Granby area, which is in closest proximity to the park,” Rocky Mountain Superintendent Darla Sidles told the Traveler earlier this fall. “We were unsuccessful there, because, you know resort communities, right, they can get a lot of money (from renting to tourists). They don’t need what the government can lease it for.

“So, we ended up getting temporary seasonal housing in Winter Park, which is an hour away, each way,” continued the superintendent. “And so, unfortunately, our seasonal staff, some may not even have vehicles, but they are commuting back and forth a couple hours each day. So that’s an unfortunate situation that has really impacted our staff. We did have a number of (hiring) declinations as a result of not having housing nearer to the park.”

Employee Housing At Yellowstone Has Vastly Improved

A success story in employee housing has been seen at Yellowstone National Park, which is both rehabilitating historic homes and adding capacity by replacing trailers – some more than 60 years old -- with modular cabins and improving the condition of other dilapidated housing units. Tens of millions of dollars are being spent in Yellowstone to upgrade employee housing, which since the 1960s has placed many employees in trailers. In 2019 the park signed a $20 million contract to upgrade that housing with modular units. To accomplish all the work, the park is budgeting $83 million.

“We have the largest housing improvement project in the National Park Service since Mission 66,” said Superintendent Cam Sholly.

An example of old employee housing at Yellowstone that is being replaced/NPS

The living room of one of the new employee housing units at Yellowstone/NPS

The National Park Service needs “an initiative that can provide housing at reasonable costs for the staff they are trying to hire. If we want to be more inclusive and diverse, having housing at a reasonable price is critical,” said Paul Anderson, president of the Association of National Park Rangers.

Retired in 2012, Anderson worked for the National Park Service for 40 years, spending time as deputy superintendent at Shenandoah National Park, deputy regional director for Alaska Region, and superintendent of Denali National Park and Preserve. Over the course of his career, he witnessed substandard housing, including four people living in a bunkroom the size of a college dormitory room, trailers with mold and leaky roofs, and housing that parks used for 30 years after the temporary units were deemed excess to the needs of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Anderson blames past administration efforts to eliminate housing structures within the parks, compelling employees to rent from the private sector, as a reason for the decline.

“Another reason was the cost of maintaining the housing units, which goes away when we get rid of them and force our employees to find housing outside the parks,” he said. “We are now finding ourselves In dire straits.

Every four years, the Department of the Interior administers regional rental surveys examining comparable rents in the private sector to set baseline rents, based on OMB Circular A-45 and the DOI Housing Management Guidebook. Factors considered include unit type, age, square footage, condition, utilities, government provided amenities and services and remoteness.

Recognizing that “government housing is frequently found in areas influenced by tourism or boom-bust natural resource development that may produce unreasonable rents” the handbook allows rents at less than fair market value. The majority of NPS employees pay below market rates, said Mayberry.

In Fiscal Year 2020, the National Park Service collected more than $21 million in rent from tenants; these revenues are retained by the park for operation and maintenance purposes and cannot be used for construction.

NPS Can't Compete With VRBO and Airbnb For Housing 

As Rocky Mountain Superintendent Sidles noted, websites such as VRBO and Airbnb are also impacting housing availability in gateway communities adjacent to national parks. Instead of leasing residential properties to Park Service employees as many homeowners formerly did, they are finding in some cases they can earn more revenues by housing vacationers. However, local governments are taking steps to limit these transactions. For example, Moab restricts short-term housing to certain commercial zones and requires the owners of each listing to have a business license.

Earlier this month, residents in Bar Harbor outside Acadia National Park voted to require a minimum of two nights rental in residences where the owner resides, known as vr-1, and four nights at vacation properties where the owner does not live – referred to as vr-2. Additionally, the new law caps at 9 percent the number of vr-2 units allowed in Bar Harbor.

Across the National Park System, parks are seeking opportunities to create more housing. However, government regulations stymied Acadia’s efforts to enter into a public-private partnership for new housing in 2018. To make the project economic, the developer needed to rent to the private sector in addition to NPS employees and volunteers, but government rules prohibit this, said John Kelly, management assistant to the superintendent. The deal fell apart.

Other parks have had more success finding creative solutions to their housing problems. In 2019, the Friends of Arches and Canyonlands Parks purchased for $1 million a house capable of housing 14 seasonal workers pre-Covid when the agency allowed room sharing at a rate of $182 a month plus utilities per person. The tax-exempt organization leases the house to the Park Service for $16,000 a year, enough to cover maintenance costs, said Joette Langianese, executive director, and recently elected mayor of Moab.

In 2019, Glacier National Park and Columbia Falls High School formed a partnership, called the School to Park Program.  Now in its third year, the program has students working under the tutelage of a Park Service carpenter building sheds, cabins, and kiosks. So far, the students have built two cabins, each  housing two employees, in the Polebridge and Rising Sun communities, within the park. A third cabin is under construction along with a storage shed.

A similar program working with high school students is underway at Denali National Park and Preserve.

At Rocky Mountain, Sidles is trying to get creative.

“That west side housing as a result of the fire will be replaced. Thankfully we were able to get the funding for that in 2023,” she said. “But outside of that, we are continually evaluating our housing, and those that are in the poorest condition, both external and internal, we are looking to demolish those and rebuild in a smarter way.

“So, for example, maybe we have a two-bedroom house on the east side. We can demolish a couple of those and instead build a dorm that is more efficient, more sustainable, and provides more adequate housing for the particular housing situation that we’re trying to resolve.”

Unfortunately, noted Sidles, there currently is no funding for that. Additionally, she said, they are simply replacing old, dilapidated housing, not building additional housing for staff.

Over the long term, some Park Service staff fear that the lack of employee housing could hamper the agency’s ability to meet its mission.

“While we have been careful to ensure we are meeting park priorities with the resources we have, we are concerned that as fewer park employees can afford to live in the private housing market, we are going to be faced with some tough choices about core park functions in the future. Unless the park can expand its housing stock, the park will have to reconsider its resources and operation because it will not be able to house new employees,” said Barnum.