Truckee Town Council elected to join the Truckee Tahoe Workforce Housing Agency at its meeting Tuesday, unanimously approving to partner with the joint powers authority at a cost of roughly $50,000 for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The town already has $100,000 budgeted for housing services, of which $50,000 is dedicated to the Mountain Housing Council membership. An additional $5,000 was approved for the capital improvement plan budget during Tuesday’s meeting in order to join the Truckee Tahoe Workforce Housing Agency.

The agency, which was founded a year ago, supports the development of workforce housing, and currently works to help serve employees of the Tahoe Forest Hospital District, Tahoe Truckee Unified School District, Truckee Donner Public Utility District, and Truckee Tahoe Airport District.

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In January, Truckee hired Wendy Sullivan of WSW Consulting to conduct an employee housing needs study, which showed 43% of town employees are either considering leaving or are undecided about their employment in part due to high cost of housing. Nearly a third of new town employees rent their home and 34% of town employees commute from outside the school district.

The survey also found that employees with the most housing trouble are households that rent and earn under $75,000 per year. A quarter of town employees that rent also dedicate more than 30% of their income to do so. The area median income for a household in Truckee, according to census data, is $97,092.

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Since being founded, the Truckee Tahoe Workforce Housing Agency, according a Town of Truckee staff report, has helped 66 employees in finding housing and matched 130 employees with the Landing Locals grant program.

The town could also face additional challenges in staffing, according to the survey, as roughly 13% of its employees are expected to retire within five years.

Justin Scacco is a reporter for the Sierra Sun. Contact him at jscacco@sierrasun.com or 530-550-2643