A few weeks ago, our sister station, KUNR in Reno, ran a series of stories on housing issues in the Reno/Tahoe area.
The series’ title, Squeezed Out, give you an idea of the issues the reporters tackled.
The basic premise is this: As the Reno/Tahoe area is experiencing a boom of economic development, there is a shortage of affordable places for people to live.
Here to talk about why this is happening, and what is being done about it is KUNR News reporter Amy Westervelt. She was the lead reporter for this series.
On where the problem is:
"Reno has traditionally been where people who are in Truckee or Tahoe will move to because the rents have been cheaper but now there is a shortage in Reno to. So, it is really impacting both communities."
On what is being done about the problem:
The construction industry was very gun shy about starting to build because they got hit so hard in the recession so they were understandably a little bit hesitant to start even when they [Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada] started to make all these announcements Tesla's coming, Switch is coming, all these companies are coming and they're going to hire more people and they're going to need to import people, and I think still the building market lagged behind because they just wanted to make sure it was real first and now they've acknowledged, 'okay this is really happening," and they're ramping up again but we've got about an 18 month to two year gap.
On new companies being part of the solution:
I think when people first hear about it they think 'oh great new jobs, economic development' but there are a lot of issues. Washoe County just announced that they are definitely going to double sessions for some schools next year because they can't get the money to build new schools.
There is really no requirement for companies coming in here to do anything about schools or housing or any of these big infrastructure needs. It is kind of a catch 22. We want the jobs but we also need places to put people.
On it being a housing shortage and an affordable housing shortage:
It's both really. There's a general housing shortage for everyone. A part from the very, very wealthy. I live in Truckee and that town there are a lot of companies that are saying we have middle managers who make pretty decent salaries that can't find a place to live.
There are a lot of people interested from the Bay Area in moving, especially back offices to Reno, because it is so expensive in the Bay Area. I talked to one tech investor who lives in Incline (Village) and Tahoe and he said 'he sits on the boards of a lot of companies in the Bay Area and I'm telling them all to move to Reno.'
On how the expansion of UNR is adding to the problem:
It is this crunch of we've got the students, now we've got construction workers who are usually taking more affordable apartments and smaller places as well and we've the new employees from new companies coming in. It isn't just the new companies. It is kind of everyone.
On the Tahoe housing market:
I don't think people realize that more than half of the residents in Tahoe are very low income. I think that people tend to think of Tahoe as a wealthy vacation spot and it is that... but the vast majority of people who live there year round are low-income residents. I talked to people who were paying 100 percent of their income on housing every month and they're just bartering for other stuff. That's what you see in Third World countries. It is kind of surprising to see it here.
Amy Westervelt, news reporter, KUNR
