People
with working-class jobs in US beach towns and resorts are getting pushed
away by exorbitant housing costs.
By Josh Hoxie
EDITOR'S NOTE: The latest brain fart from the Charlestown Planning Commission is to try once again to get part-time rentals classified as affordable housing even though they don't even come near to meeting the definition. But heaven forbid that Charlestown should allow construction of affordable homes or rentals for working class people. - Will Collette
Think back to your favorite vacation. Wouldn’t it be delightful if that trip never ended?
Imagine moving to that fantastic destination town, finding a job
and a house, and living the dream.
Even if you had to wait tables or stock store shelves, who needs a desk job when you live in paradise?
Even if you had to wait tables or stock store shelves, who needs a desk job when you live in paradise?
That’s how many of us view the lives of the working class in
beach towns or mountain resorts — an endless vacation.
As destination towns get more popular, she explains, more people
flock to them. That creates more jobs, but it also causes housing prices to
spike, making it nearly impossible for ordinary workers to find a place to
live. This scenario is playing out in just about every town in America that
people like to visit.
I grew up on sunny Cape Cod, a Massachusetts peninsula known to
vacationers as a quaint getaway with sandy beaches and bountiful seafood. What
it’s not known for is affordable housing or high-wage, year-round jobs. This
leaves businesses scrambling to find enough workers during the year’s busy
months and workers struggling to find housing they can afford.
Or take the case of Vail, Colorado. Low-wage workers, who can’t
begin to pay the skyrocketing rents around the expensive ski resort, are being
forced to move farther and farther away from their jobs, as The New York Times recently reported.
In short, the Cape Cods and Vails of America are turning into
hollow versions of their former selves. They’re losing the culture, vibrancy,
and authenticity that comes from real people living there — not just second
home owners commuting in from the cities on weekends and holidays.
Addressing this problem is going to take action on two fronts:
raising wages and cutting housing costs. These problems are felt in nearly
every burg and burrow across the country. But destination towns have one key
advantage — a steady flow of tourist revenue.
The only problem is it’s going into very few hands.
Ski resorts are an excellent example. While some mom and pop
resorts are barely getting by, mega-resorts like the one at Vail are profitable enough
to pay their executives seven figure salaries. Yet most of the folks who keep
the resorts running — many of whom, like ski patrollers and instructors, do
dangerous work — toil for sub-poverty wages.
Now, though, many of these workers are organizing to raise their
wages through labor unions and collective bargaining. Ski instructors at Beaver
Creek, a resort owned by Vail, recently won collective bargaining rights, as
did ski patrollers at Telluride. These inspiring efforts offer a glimpse at a
solution for what ails America’s many hollow paradises.
Reducing housing costs is harder. Wealthy urbanites have more
cash to drop on second homes than local workers have to buy their sole
residences. That drives up the cost for everyone.
Yet innovative solutions like community land trusts are gaining
popularity. These trusts take land out of pricy real estate markets and often
enforce year-round residency requirements. That creates a way for communities
from Lake Champlain,
Vermont to the San Juan Islands
in Washington State to ensure housing for low- and
moderate-income families.
Vacation towns aren’t immune to the inequality that’s been
festering in this country for decades. But if they can invest in a more
equitable future for their workers, then maybe living there really will be
a little more like paradise.
Josh Hoxie is
the director of the Project on Opportunity and Taxation at the Institute
for Policy Studies. IPS-dc.org. Distributed
by OtherWords.org.