Matt Wilbur stands in the gym of a small schoolhouse in the national park town of Kelly. His daughter started kindergarten here and will graduate this spring from Jackson Hole High School. The whole time, they’ve lived in employee housing.
But the 51-year-old is set to retire soon as a law enforcement specialist for Grand Teton National Park.
Then, he will need to leave Jackson Hole for good. Wilbur shared his dilemma at a March open house for more park housing.
“It’ll be a sad day,” Wilbur said. “We love this community, we love the valley. And if we were able to stay, we would stay in heartbeat.”
Housing is so expensive in Teton County that 95% of his coworkers are in the same position. That’s a much higher ratio than almost any other national park, says superintendent Chip Jenkins. It includes him.
“This is the first time I’ve been in a job that I know that after 30 days, if I were to retire here, I’d have to be out of housing and go some place else. I will not be able to afford to stay in this community,” Jenkins said.
Despite that reality, Jackson Hole is making record investments in employer-owned housing as a way of keeping staff. Voters allocated $80 million in tax revenue to be collected over years to house teachers, doctors and government employees in 2022.
The resulting rentals won’t allow workers to build housing equity in a community where rising property values continue to price out the working class. But beyond that, critics call employee housing indentured servitude. Or argue that it subsidizes businesses that should just pay their workers more. Housing Supply Board Chair Laura Bonich said it keeps Jackson in “the old coal town mentality.”
“The biggest thing that I will say over and over again is people’s jobs should not be tied to their housing,” Bonich said.
County Commission Chair Mark Newcomb, who used to live in employee housing as a climbing guide, brings up the worst case scenario: “For whatever reason, if the employer has to downsize and lay me off, then I lose my housing. That would be tough.”
Employers like the Jackson Hole Mountain resort give a grace period to move out if workers lose their job.
Ty Hoath, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s human resources director, says the resort needed to invest in employee housing to maintain operations. He likened the expense to paying for electricity. (Evan Robinson-Johnson/KHOL)
But research shows employee housing can squash unions and keep people in jobs they don’t like. Jackson’s government experts prefer housing that allows people to change jobs. That helps keep wages competitive and reduces corporate power.
In Jackson, affordable housing stock not tied to specific jobs can require up to more than $200,000 per bed of taxpayer money and lots of public input. That can take years to resolve. Jackson/ Teton County Housing Department Director April Norton is grateful employers have stepped up.
“An employer can be Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, but it can also be the hospital, who has invested many millions of dollars in employee housing and thank goodness they have,” Norton said.
People replacing the retiring workforce won’t have the same opportunities to get into the housing market. By the end of 2025, the median single-family home price in Teton County pushed $3.3 million, according to Keller Williams Jackson Hole. The Jackson Hole Report for the first quarter of 2026 had no listings under $1 million.
“It’s so, so expensive to live here,” Norton said.
Companies across the country are increasingly treating housing as a necessary benefit for hiring, right alongside healthcare. That’s especially true for mountain towns like Lake Tahoe and Big Sky, where the Montana resort houses half its staff.
Before housing became a core priority for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, 15% vacancies threatened to derail operations, Human Resources Director Ty Hoath said.
“Do we love being in the housing business? No,” Hoath said. “But to keep the resort open, we need electricity. Do we love paying the electricity bill? No, not at all, but it’s an essential path to enable us to do what we’re great at. Probably true for housing as well.”
The town of Jackson has 48 units, after two decades of planning, which supports about a third of its full-time employees, Mayor Arne Jorgensen said. The county has about double the staff but half the units.
For the county’s largest year-round employer, it’s not just about drawing people for the winter season.
Taylor Nelson, St. Johns Health lab manager, lives in employee housing. The hospital leases the $1,500 basement one-bedroom. It’s five blocks from work and helping Nelson save for a place of his own — just not in Jackson. (Evan Robinson-Johnson/KHOL)
St. John’s Health has 96 units, half owned by the hospital, the other half leased from area residents. Property owners in the community call every week with units to offer. Facilities director Sean Ryan said they want people to have space for bikes, kayaks and growing families.
“We’ve been really, really, really focused on livability,” Ryan said. “And what does it mean for our staff who are going to be here long term. Because our tenure once our employee gets into housing, it’s significant. Folks live in the housing for years.”
The hospital recently scrapped studios in favor of two-bedrooms in the 72-unit employee housing complex under construction across the street.
That could mean a bigger spot for people like Taylor Nelson, the hospital’s clinical lab manager.
When Nelson started studying medicine, he didn’t expect to land in employee housing. But the 35-year-old said it’s actually helping him save up for a home of his own. Just not in Jackson.
“No matter what I save, it won’t be in town,” Nelson said.
He’s managed to move away and come back to Jackson with the assurance that his employer would put him up.
Most of the people he tries to hire for the lab don’t have the same luxury.
“I lose 80% of my applicants by saying, ‘Hey, have you looked at the housing prices yet?’” Nelson said.
He pays about $1,500 a month for a basement one-bedroom five blocks from work. That’s about half of market rate rent.
There’s not much natural light in the bachelor pad, but there is in-unit laundry, which Nelson says is “Jackson bougie, as far as I’m concerned.”
Plus there’s a garage. So at least while he works for the hospital he’ll have space for his surf boards.
