Housing availability and affordability problems are causing Colorado to offer free housing to help fill a big shortage of snow plow drivers, according to Colorado Public Radio.
“Right before they start, they tell us they can't take the job because they can't find housing,” said Lorme, the Colorado Department of Transportation’s (CDOT) director of maintenance and operations. “It's either affordability or availability depending on where you are. And sometimes it's both.”
That dynamic has existed for decades in Colorado’s most expensive mountain communities, but it’s now spreading as housing costs rise. It’s a large contributing factor to CDOT’s current shortage of about 300 maintenance workers who fill potholes, fix guardrails, and plow snow.
Lorme said CDOT wants to partner with short-staffed state agencies and local governments to build micro-neighborhoods where government workers and their families could live for free, or at least at a reduced rate.
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Source: CPR
