One way or another, every single person on this planet has been affected by the outbreak of the coronavirus. From being confined to one’s homes to losing one’s jobs, things haven’t been easy for the general population.
However, it is also clear that most people have suffered more than others. Due to the economic crisis, a lot of people also lost their homes. This lead to a significant increase in the homelessness crisis in the United States; something that was already an issue before the pandemic ever hit the world.
Workforce Housing – A Solution?
Workforce housing is a program that helps middle-income employees find affordable housing. However, there have been issues in finding affordable yet good-quality housing for people. According to Maxwell Drever, the proposed solution to this issue is converting old distressed hotels and buildings into workforce housing.
Maxwell Drever believed that safe and affordable housing should be the fundamental right of all families. Therefore, he suggests that all vacant hotels should be utilized to provide affordable housing to people in need.
Since the number of families that need affordable housing has increased significantly during the pandemic, the need for workforce housing has also increase.
At the same time, the pandemic has also caused a dent in the hotel industry. Due to the travel restrictions put in place during the lockdown, hundreds of millions of hotel rooms remained vacant during 2020. Even after the travel restrictions were lifted, the hotel business hasn’t returned to ‘normal. The occupancy is still significantly lower than it was in 2019.
It may not be possible to predict if and when will tourism go back to as it were before the pandemic. Therefore, converting these vacant and closed down hotels into workforce housing accommodations can be beneficial for the hotels as well. Instead of completely going out of business, these hotels can be utilized to house a number of families.
Since the hotels are already designed to provide the utmost comfort to their guests, it wouldn’t be too difficult to rework them into comfortable and affordable housing. This means, people can literally start moving in the second the owner decides to turn the hotel into a workplace housing accommodation.
Bottom Line:
By converting vacant hotels into workforce housing accommodations, two major problems can be solved: the affordable housing crisis and the distressed hotel business. This can significantly benefit the economic crisis that is going on in the country at the moment.
It will take time to learn just how much workforce housing can help the aftermath of the pandemic. However, it is safe to say that it is a great first step towards the improvement of the economy.