Yellowstone receives $40 million donation for employee housing
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — The National Park Service (NPS) and the National Park Foundation (NPF) have announced a $40 million donation to Yellowstone National Park (YNP), intended to address the “urgent need” for employee housing in the park.
Anonymous donors provided the funds, which will create more than 70 new modular units of housing for staff, YNP said. According to the announcement, the sum is intended to inspire further donations for staff housing at other national parks.
“This transformational gift will meet a critical need for new housing in Yellowstone, and be a catalyst for more philanthropic investment,” NPF President and CEO Will Shafroth said in a statement. “These skilled, dedicated professionals at the National Park Service who protect our parks and make visitors’ experiences great deserve housing they can be proud to call home.”
Affordable housing near YNP is scarce, which has lead to difficulties in NPS recruiting and retention, the announcement said. Construction of the new YNP units is expected to begin later this year.
According to the NPF, its assessment of housing needs included research at Grand Teton, Acadia and Yosemite National Parks. The foundation found that more than $115 million in funding for those three parks would be needed to build more than 200 new employee housing units.
“The housing challenges facing each park are unique, and so are the solutions,” NPS Director Chuck Sams said in a statement. “The ability to recruit and retain a talented workforce remains essential to our ability to protect parks and to ensure a world-class visitor experience.”
NPS shared that its 429 parks employ a total of 20,000 people. Approximately 5,600 housing facilities exist in 200 of those parks, where staff live in dormitories, duplexes, cabins or even historic buildings. These facilities serve more than 15,600 people, including 2,800 permanent and 5,000 seasonal employees, plus volunteers and concessionaire staff.
The project announcement diagnoses the current employee housing crisis as a combination of rising property values in park gateway communities and growing demand for vacation rentals close to parks.
2023 was Yellowstone’s second-busiest year ever. Its winter operations are winding down in early March. YNP is aiming to begin opening for the season on April 19.
