Shortly after Cam Sholly became superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, he named improved housing as one of his top priorities. It wasn’t an idle promise. 

By the end of the year, the park will have built, refurbished and reclaimed almost all of its available employee housing options, closing a wound that has been festering for decades.

Sholly links the future success of the park to the quality of the available housing.

“Anyone who thinks housing is just infrastructure is sorely mistaken,” he said. “Our ability to attract and retain good talent, whether it’s our scientists, public safety, or our maintenance folks, is predicated largely on quality and availability of housing.”

Sholly added that, “If you bring in a highly qualified person and they’re living in a place that this is not the standard — even from a basic standpoint — they’re not going to stay.” 

The quality of housing was definitely lacking. Available housing prior to Sholly’s arrival in 2018 included many mobile homes purchased decades ago, modest wood-framed homes built in the 60s, and homes and structures in Fort Yellowstone built about 140 years ago. 

They were what a good real estate agent might call “rustic” at best. The mobile homes represented some of the worst employee housing in the national park system, Sholly said.

“Getting rid of those trailers from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s was literally goal number one,” he said.

The park built modular homes, a very “cost effective, high quality, long term solution,” Sholly said.

Using modular versus on-site construction has allowed the park to build quality units in less time with lower costs, the park reported in the 2021 State of the Park report released last week. The park will save an estimated $36 million from the original housing improvement plan proposal.

The structures are engineered for snow load, energy efficiency and come with modern amenities. “A place that people can actually call home,” Sholly said.

The Park Service removed all seasonal trailers from the Mammoth Hot Springs housing area in the winter and spring of 2020. They received 31 modular homes at Mammoth and 10 at Old Faithful last year and an additional 19 units are scheduled to be placed throughout the park in 2021.

Improvements also included refurbishing other housing units constructed as early as the 1960s as part of Mission 66 project, spread over nine developed areas in the park. These housing units are the primary residences for NPS employees, many of whom are snowed in completely between December and April. 

“The condition of these houses varied dramatically depending on when they built, with many in extremely poor condition,” the report said. 

The Park Service has already rehabilitated 44 houses since 2019, including insulation, appliances, flooring, fixtures, plumbing, painting, siding, roofing, and windows. An additional 95 units are planned for upgrade in the next 18 months.

One of the new items being installed are about 70 wood-burning stoves. The upgrade provides employees with an additional heat source in the event of power outages and helps reduce energy costs. Residents were also given choices on amenities, from the color of interior paint to types of countertops.

“It allows them to have a little bit more personal investment in their home,” Sholly said. 

Finally, the park is also rehabilitating the historic homes at Fort Yellowstone. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 2003, the fort consists of 34 structures used as homes and offices constructed in the late 19th century. The U.S. Cavalry was housed there between 1886 and 1916.

“Historic preservation is the primary reason for these rehabilitations,” Sholly said of the deteriorating structures.

The park received $43 million to rehabilitate historic Fort Yellowstone and Laurel Dorm (near the Old Faithful Inn) through the Great American Outdoors Act signed into law during the Trump administration. This project will be one of the largest historic preservation projects in the service this year and will be done under supervision of historic preservation experts.

“The fact is, historic preservation is a key component of the [National Park Service] mission,” Sholly said. “The structures in Fort Yellowstone have been severely neglected over the past decades and we have an obligation to remedy that.”

Outside the park, housing options are few. Sholly calls it “a massive problem” looking to the future.

“There’s been substantial increases in housing prices in gateway communities that we’ve got to focus on,” he said. Most of the available houses have been purchased and transformed into Airbnb rentals and similar projects, significantly driving up home prices. The State of the Park report said an online search of available rentals last month within gateway communities resulted in “zero matches.”

“Right now there’s only one house for sale in Gardiner, Montana. It costs $700,000,” Sholly said. “I mean, how many park employees do you know that can afford a $700,000 house?”

The average salary for a permanent park employee is $65,666, thousands less per year than workers living in comparably priced metropolitan areas. Many working in Yellowstone now are retirement-eligible employees who purchased houses in the 1990s, when housing prices were five times lower than current levels. As the workforce retires, new employees “won’t be able to afford housing,” Sholly said — meaning housing capacity in the park will need to increase.