“I never thought I’d be doing this,” said Randi Lowe as she reviewed a spreadsheet of southern Vermont homes available for rent or sale. Lowe isn’t in the real estate business–she’s the superintendent of a Vermont public school system. But for the past few months, she and her staff at the Bennington-Rutland Supervisory Union have been compiling a list of properties in the hope it will help recruit and retain workers amid an acute shortage of both housing and labor.
“I don’t want to be doing this,” Lowe said. “This step was taken out of desperation. But it has worked very well.” While housing shortages have hampered the recruitment efforts of employers in many sectors, they’re a particular concern for many school systems and health providers whose workers have already been pushed to the breaking point by pandemic pressures. Among public schools looking to fill jobs as of January, 61% said the pandemic had increased teaching and non-teaching staff vacancies, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
If a health system builds housing, will the workers come? The University of Vermont Health Network is betting on it. The health system, which has six hospitals in Vermont and New York, has teamed up with a developer to build apartments for its permanent employees. Construction is underway on the 61-unit building in South Burlington, in Vermont’s Chittenden County, where housing inventory has dropped about 79% over the past five years, according to the MarketWatch analysis.
Even surgeons and other highly paid health care professionals are struggling amid the housing shortage, hospital executives say. “I’ve got people making five to 10 times the median income in the area who can’t afford a place to live,” Beirl said. One physician who moved to the area is living in a year-long Airbnb rental, he said.
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