Often those who came to Lake Tahoe for seasonal jobs and decided to brave the intense winters, limited job opportunities and housing problems. It’s a choice you make to live up here, to just make it work,” said Alicia Barr, the co-founder of FiftyFifty Brewing in Truckee. We joke we have some of the most overeducated bartenders and servers in the nation. People have continued to settle here even as environmental pressures have mounted, including fast-moving wildfires that have threatened entire towns and severe winter storms that have knocked out power and cut the area off from the outside world for days on end. Countless residents share stories of coming for seasonal jobs and deciding to stay, despite the intense winters, limited job opportunities and housing challenges. Those who have settled here permanently were usually drawn to the area’s natural beauty and outdoor lifestyle. The millions of visitors are sustained by a population of just 56,000 residents who keep the community running by working in law enforcement, fire departments and at local hospitals, staffing restaurants and ski resorts and teaching students. The millions who visit Lake Tahoe every year are sustained by a population of just 56,000 residents. The constant stream of tourists keeps communities around the basin, which straddles five counties across California and Nevada, bustling year-round. Tahoe also serves as a playground for the rich and famous – Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber and members of the Real Housewives are among its most famous visitors. On a recent December day, the snow-covered streets were filled with large groups of tourists on their way to the shores of the lake or pizza joints and Mexican restaurants after hitting the slopes. We’re not helping them right now – not enough.” Constant stream of touristsĮvery year about 15 million people travel to Tahoe to enjoy the lake or snowboard and ski at the area’s world-class resorts – a larger number of visitors than Disneyland, Yosemite national park or Napa Valley wine country. “The only way to get our community back is to build housing for people who are the backbone of our economy: the tourism workers. “It’s hard to stay here,” said Heidi Hill Drum with the non-profit Tahoe Prosperity Center.
The resulting upheaval has fueled fear and uncertainty about Lake Tahoe’s future, and forced the area to confront a difficult question: who is Tahoe for? The story of Lake Tahoe is a microcosm of what’s happening in communities across California and the US, where longstanding housing problems have been intensified by the pandemic. Renters cross fingers and hope the owners don’t sell.” “The market is so tight and the demand is so high get whatever they want. “It’s been getting progressively worse,” Clay Kuecker, a lifelong resident, said while sitting at the bar of a restaurant on the lake’s north shore. Ski resorts looked to campgrounds and tiny homes to house workers while short-staffed restaurants reduced their opening hours. In turn, local businesses struggled with a depleted workforce.
Rents rose and the housing shortage grew more severe, pushing locals east to more affordable cities such as Reno and Carson City. During the pandemic, tourists flocked to communities like South Lake Tahoe, California, bringing traffic and packed beaches.
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