Letter: Ask not what your community can do for you, but what we can together do for our community

One of the most memorable things I’ve ever heard a U.S. President say was in his January 20, 1961, Inaugural Address. President John F. Kennedy said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

That has come to mind as I’ve thought long and hard about how to find a solution to our community’s housing and workforce shortages. When it comes to the workforce, the City of Folsom, one of our nearby Northern California cities, has come up with a cooperative effort to address the problem, at least in the short term. Basically, they are asking that students, retirees, and stay-at-home parents come back into the workforce at least 20 hours a week to help get local businesses through this crisis. The South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce is respectfully asking our community to do the same thing. I’ve included the link to the article.

It is puzzling that California’s unemployment stands at seven percent, yet businesses are shuttered or have reduced their hours due to a lack of workers. One can speculate as to why this phenomenon is occurring in South Lake Tahoe: It could be increased unemployment benefits, the child tax credit payments, the pandemic, the effects of the Caldor fire, or all the above that is keeping people from working.

In our community, we can certainly apply a lot of blame on the un-affordability of housing or the high cost of childcare (if you can even find a place to care for your children). Now inflation is set to eat up paychecks with high gas prices and home energy costs. Perhaps those we are asking to consider (re)entering the workforce will be helping themselves combat the rising costs of inflation.

In addition, I believe it would be appropriate to ask if retirees and/or families with an extra room (or rooms) consider renting them out to help with our workforce housing shortage. My wife Tamara and I did just that this past year by having our college-age niece and nephew come live with us and work here. It was enjoyable for all of us, including the business they worked for. The city just contracted with a company called Landing Locals to incentivize renting out all or part of your home to workforce housing. Contact Zach Thomas, the city’s Housing Manager at (530) 542-7400 for more information.

The City of South Lake Tahoe is leading the effort along with the California Tahoe Conservancy and private developers to create more housing with approximately 500 low to moderate-income units to come online within the next two years. In the meantime, we should encourage the Conservancy, who are buying the Motel 6 property, to not tear down those roughly 143 rooms until the other projects are built. They most certainly should not evict the current monthly tenants that currently occupy a portion of those rooms now. Let’s use all 143 units to house our small families and perhaps the J-1 workers from overseas.

If those who still choose to stay home would consider watching their friend's or neighbors’ kids, they could make a few dollars while also freeing up a parent who needs to work to buy groceries and Christmas presents. The bottom line is that our Chamber is saying, “Ask not what your community can do for you, but what we can together do for our community.”

Duane Wallace, CEO, ACE
South Tahoe Chamber of Commerce
duane_wallace@hotmail.com
530-545-3563