<story><title>Some employers have decided to build their own housing for workers</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1172301798/workers-affordable-housing-companies-building</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smeej</author><text>I think the people complaining in this thread would complain about anything.&lt;p&gt;When government won&amp;#x27;t allow construction of &amp;quot;workforce housing,&amp;quot; complain, because nobody&amp;#x27;s big enough to try to push back and get concessions to make it possible.&lt;p&gt;But then when a company, which &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; big enough, especially relative to its small town, &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; do the hard work of negotiating construction contracts and helping people find financing so they can sell homes at cost by removing inefficiencies from housing production, complain about that too?&lt;p&gt;Some important points from the article:&lt;p&gt;1. The houses are being sold, not rented.
2. They&amp;#x27;re being sold at cost.
3. Anyone who buys one can sell it later to someone outside the company. The only restrictions are that if they sell within 3 years of buying, the company has the option to buy the house back at the previous sale cost, and for four years after that, the company has ROFR at market price.&lt;p&gt;Is it a perfect solution? Of course not. These are humans. Humans don&amp;#x27;t come up with perfect solutions.&lt;p&gt;But if you&amp;#x27;re going to complain, what would fix it for you? And is that just a matter of personal preference? &amp;#x27;Cause it&amp;#x27;s not like most of you are willing to live in a Midwestern small town with one major employer in the first place, but clearly these people are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qbasic_forever</author><text>&amp;gt; 1. The houses are being sold, not rented.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s not at all what the article says, here is a direct quote from it (emphasis mine):&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;So a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, _mostly for them to rent_ but sometimes to buy.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I would hope it&amp;#x27;s extremely obvious the major problem there is with linking your housing (through renting) to your employment.  It&amp;#x27;s the &amp;#x27;company town&amp;#x27; problem all over where workers can be exploited with the constant threat of homelessness if they&amp;#x27;re terminated.</text></comment>
<story><title>Some employers have decided to build their own housing for workers</title><url>https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1172301798/workers-affordable-housing-companies-building</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>smeej</author><text>I think the people complaining in this thread would complain about anything.&lt;p&gt;When government won&amp;#x27;t allow construction of &amp;quot;workforce housing,&amp;quot; complain, because nobody&amp;#x27;s big enough to try to push back and get concessions to make it possible.&lt;p&gt;But then when a company, which &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; big enough, especially relative to its small town, &lt;i&gt;does&lt;/i&gt; do the hard work of negotiating construction contracts and helping people find financing so they can sell homes at cost by removing inefficiencies from housing production, complain about that too?&lt;p&gt;Some important points from the article:&lt;p&gt;1. The houses are being sold, not rented.
2. They&amp;#x27;re being sold at cost.
3. Anyone who buys one can sell it later to someone outside the company. The only restrictions are that if they sell within 3 years of buying, the company has the option to buy the house back at the previous sale cost, and for four years after that, the company has ROFR at market price.&lt;p&gt;Is it a perfect solution? Of course not. These are humans. Humans don&amp;#x27;t come up with perfect solutions.&lt;p&gt;But if you&amp;#x27;re going to complain, what would fix it for you? And is that just a matter of personal preference? &amp;#x27;Cause it&amp;#x27;s not like most of you are willing to live in a Midwestern small town with one major employer in the first place, but clearly these people are.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zyang</author><text>I think this is a tempting solution but a bad idea in the long run. Just like how employer provided medical insurance sounds good on the surface, but it gave employers an incentive to lobby against socialized medicine, which reduces worker mobility and hurts the economy.</text></comment>