Letter: The real factor in South Lake Tahoe housing issues

New revelations on the factors creating the housing issues in South Lake Tahoe show that the cause has been misdiagnosed and it’s not vacation homes creating the problem. We’ve had a home in South Lake Tahoe for over 40 years and I have been studying the housing issue for a long time. Whereas Amelia Richmond, President of the Vacancy Tax initiative, has only lived in South Lake Tahoe a short time. Richmond complains that about 1,000 local workers live in Nevada and commute to jobs in South Lake Tahoe.

Being new to the area, Richmond was apparently unaware of the enormous change in commuting patterns that is the real problem.

Vacation homes are not the real problem. The relative makeup of vacation homes, rentals, and owner-occupied homes has changed little in over fifty years. There is no significant increase in the number of vacation homes. So the question is, “What has changed?”

I believe that I have just identified the cause of the current increase in complaints about housing availability. A recent research study by the University of Nevada, Reno, reveals that the number of workers living in South Lake Tahoe and commuting to out-of-state jobs has doubled in the last five years. There are now more than 4,000 workers who call South Lake Tahoe home while working in Nevada. This is a dynamic change in the housing pattern for the area.

In 2019 25 percent (2,833) of the South Lake Tahoe residents worked in Nevada. Following the pandemic, that number jumped to 35 percent (4,000+) in 2023. It’s simple mathematics, we’ve lost 10 percent of our workforce housing to an influx of Nevada workers in the last five years. That means that now nearly half of our workforce housing units are occupied by Nevada workers. That 1,769 rental units loss far exceeds the number of housing units Richmond claims we need for local workers.

Accelerating the problem is the fact that Nevada employers pay as little as $10.25/hr and their workers can simply cross the state line to receive taxpayer-subsidized housing and welfare in South Lake Tahoe. Stateline and Douglas County, Nevada have no workforce or affordable housing. The City only needs subsidized housing because employers are not paying a living wage. If the workers received higher wages, the inventory of available homes they could afford to buy or rent would increase significantly. Joanne S. Marchetta, former executive director of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency once admitted the problem is that “nearly two-thirds don’t earn enough to afford the living expenses of a typical family”. That is not a “housing problem” it is an “income problem” caused by low wages in the tourist industry.

Making more housing available for workers is the same misleading argument that was used by proponents of Measure T to mislead voters. The truth is that even if there were more vacation homes available for rent, low-paid workers could not afford them. That is why the Vacancy Tax proposal is nothing more than a money grab using smoke and mirrors. No one is going to rent their home out for an absurdly low amount. If the owners are forced to sell their vacation homes, low-paid workers wouldn't be able to afford them.

The real benefactors of this fiasco are only the giant real estate corporations who are gobbling up thousands of homes across the country in order to establish a monopoly on rental housing – and they certainly are not going to lower rents for workers. Is that their real goal?

- John Messina, Director
Lake Tahoe Taxpayers Association