Message from Traci: How do we build tomorrow's affordable housing workforce?
Dear friends,
When your work is to provide affordable homes to people who need them, operating at full capacity is a good thing. And as unprecedented public investments fuel a surge in new development, Oregon’s affordable housing industry is using every available resource to put new units on the ground.
Unfortunately, our industry is increasingly operating beyond capacity. Between the rapidly expanding development pipeline and the strain on housing operations caused by recent and ongoing public health and economic crises, we are facing a workforce crunch.
It's a topic of rising concern for housing leaders I’m in conversation with. Across housing development, operations, and asset management teams, vacant positions are going unfilled for lack of qualified candidates. Some burned-out workers are leaving for opportunities in other industries. Many housing providers are struggling—and competing—to recruit and retain the skilled, experienced people they need to do this important work.
Meeting our collective staffing needs is a tough challenge in the short term. But we can approach it as an opportunity to strengthen our industry and our communities over the long term. We can set an intention to build a better trained, fairly paid workforce that looks like the residents we serve. We can make it a priority to introduce young people, especially BIPOC youth, to a field in which there are opportunities to learn, grow, innovate, build rewarding careers, and make positive impacts on their communities.
What will tomorrow’s affordable housing workforce look like? How will we build it? I look forward to being part of conversations that ask and set about answering these questions. Let’s start talking about the investments we can make today to build the skilled, diverse, creative, committed workforce we need for tomorrow.
Warm regards,