How Ski Resorts Build True Communities for Seasonal Workers

Every winter, thousands of seasonal workers arrive at mountain resorts across the world. Lift operators, instructors, patrollers, and hotel staff are drawn by the culture, the landscape, and the work. Some come on seasonal visas from halfway around the world. Others are locals who grew up on these mountains and want to lay down roots. Many share a common conundrum: finding somewhere to live that doesn’t consume an entire winter’s paycheck.

The shortage of affordable housing in mountain resort communities isn’t localized to North America. Resort towns globally face similar problems. Tourism economies depend on seasonal labor, but housing markets are dominated by premium second homes and short-term rentals. The fallout is workers forced to find housing even further from their workplace.

The industry’s response is shifting towards building healthy, sustainable mountain communities. To maintain staff who know the bones of the mountain, resorts must build for them. At a turning point in the industry’s history, real money and long-term thinking are leading the way.

• Related: How to Land a Job at a U.S. Ski Resort as an International Worker

North American Innovation

Saddleback Mountain Resort is one of the most impressive turnaround stories in the East. After a devastating five-year closure between 2015 and 2020, the resort used its restart to rebuild for the long term. Saddleback invested $10 million in its own people, opening The Saddleback House in November 2023. The modern facility includes affordable, ski-in/ski-out housing with communal kitchens, laundry, and gear storage. Rent is capped at 30 percent of an employee’s gross pay. It is the first workforce housing built on-site at a Maine ski resort. In the off-season, available rooms are offered to workers in other local businesses.

Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Jeffersonville proved that solving a worker housing squeeze doesn’t require breaking new ground. In 2022, facing a critical shortage of local rentals for their J-1 visa staff, Smuggs pioneered a creative community partnership with the former Northern Vermont University, now Vermont State‘s Johnson campus. They invested $240,000 to lease a dormant on-campus residence hall, housing 75 seasonal workers arriving from Peru, Chile, and Costa Rica. The agreement also gave the international crew daily free shuttle service, and full access to university amenities.

Vail Resorts took a different approach by addressing the root cause of housing shortages. Their inDEED program pays local homeowners to place permanent deed restrictions on their properties. This ensures the homes remain available to local workers in perpetuity. The concept relies on the market working with the community rather than against it. Nearby in Summit County, Colorado, officials went further. They offer homeowners up to $60,000 to build accessory dwelling units specifically for workforce housing, creating quiet, integrated solutions without changing the neighborhood’s character.

In Jackson Hole, Wyoming, average home values sit near $2 million. The share of affordable homes there dropped from one of three in 2013 to just one of 10 by 2020. In response, a major shift is underway. A 225-acre ranch site originally zoned for 118 luxury homes has been rezoned and approved for over 1,300 workforce housing units near schools, transit, and amenities. Breckenridge, Colorado is thinking on a scale that matches the problem. The town has committed to adding 924 workforce housing units by 2027, with roughly 300 already under construction. It is a major institutional commitment with a clear timeline and shovels in the ground.

One of the most visually striking solutions comes from Big Sky, Montana, where they’ve embraced modular construction. Prefabricated units are built off-site and assembled on location like giant architectural Legos. The resulting Levinski campus offers a mix of studios, apartments, and dorm-style units a short walk from the resort base. Units are fully furnished with modern kitchens, common spaces, and free laundry (a luxury in on-mountain living). Modular building allows Big Sky to expand capacity quickly with less material waste and lower energy demands than conventional builds. The area’s workforce housing capacity currently stands at six times the industry average, with the goal of housing half their entire workforce on-site.

In British Columbia, Sun Peaks has moved beyond temporary staff dorms toward true community planning. Established in 2018, the Sun Peaks Housing Authority (SPHA) oversees long-term rental housing for workers and families tied to the resort economy. The Authority’s flagship BC Builds project at 1180 Sun Peaks Road is a six-story complex housing 110 rental units. Rent is capped at 30 percent of income for residents. Sun Peaks Resort partnered directly to secure 40 percent of those units for long-time ski resort staff, letting local families lay down roots.

• Related: Mount Bohemia, MI, Announces New Employee Housing Plans For 2026

The Global Response

Japanese resorts are also adapting to unique local pressures. Resorts like Niseko are coping with massive international luxury development that has priced out locals. Developers in the town of Kutchan are pushing for multi-building workforce housing districts designed to shelter over 1,200 seasonal employees closer to the slopes. Concurrently, local resort businesses are buying and repurposing old care facilities into modern employee dormitories. The goal is no longer just finding a bed, but protecting year-round mountain communities from hollowing out.

Across the European Alps, local municipalities have stepped in with direct interventions. Switzerland’s strict limitations on secondary residences have forced towns like Zermatt to actively build and provide high-quality, subsidized staff housing right in the center of the village to ensure a sustainable work-life balance. In parts of the French Alps, where seasonal staff has routinely faced long commutes from lower valleys, winter-leasing networks are now working directly with ski towns to rescue apartment blocks from short-term tourist platforms and hand the keys back to the workers.

A Modern Standard for Employee Housing

For years, workers who make mountain playgrounds possible have faced housing shortages and other accommodation woes. Housing solutions emerging now invest in real, permanent infrastructure, as ski resorts protect their greatest assets: the people who keep the the lifts spinning, and the lights on.