Truckee Launches Rooted Renters Housing Pilot Program to Lock in Workforce Rental Units
The Town of Truckee has announced the launch of its new Rooted Renters pilot program. This innovative initiative builds upon the existing Lease to Locals program to utilize the existing housing inventory as workforce housing. Rooted Renters will lock in workforce rental units at affordable prices for multiple years, providing stability for the local workforce. For potential tenants, this means they can secure long-term, affordable housing in the Truckee area, ensuring stability and security for their families.
Property owners can receive up to $26,000 in incentive payments if they rent their home to qualified local workers for 36 months. The goal of the program is to create stable, long-term rental housing at an affordable rate for the local workforce across multiple years, provide landlords offering below-market rent with equitable participation in the Town's workforce housing incentive programs, and expand the Town's suite of housing programs through a multi-year rental solution.
"Actively supporting workforce housing development is a priority for our Truckee Town Council. We recognize that we cannot simply build our way out of the housing crisis, and unlocking existing housing stock for the local workforce is essential," says Mayor David Polivy. "The Rooted Renters Program builds on the success of the Lease to Locals Program with Placemate and further opens incentives for homeowners who commit to supporting locally employed tenants for multiple years.”
The Rooted Renters program was developed by Placemate, Inc., a trusted organization committed to solving housing issues in vacation communities by incentivizing long-term rentals to year-round residents as an alternative to short-term renting. The Town of Truckee has allocated $1,250,000 for a two-year Rooted Renters pilot and will evaluate the program afterward.
As the Truckee-North Tahoe Region continues to face unmet housing needs, the Rooted Renters Program offers a fast and effective way to create additional housing for the workforce without the cost and time of new construction.
Program Details
To be considered for the program, property owners must submit a Preliminary Application Form which will only become available on the Placemate website at 9:00am PDT on July 15, 2024.
To qualify for the Rooted Renters program, properties must be within the Truckee town limits and leased to a qualified renter household. A renter household qualifies if the average income of all adult residents within the household is 150% or less of the area's median income. Household members do not need to be related, but at least one member must work 20 hours or more per week at an employment site within the Tahoe Truckee Unified School District. Property owners who have participated in the Town's Lease to Locals program and those who have not are both eligible to apply.
Funding for the program will be split into two buckets: one for property owners who have participated in the Town's Lease to Locals program and another for property owners who have not. This will ensure all interested property owners can participate upon program launch while ensuring equitable funding distribution.
Property owners who rent their unit to a qualified tenant group for the Rooted Renters program length of 36 months receive a total payment ranging from $9,000 to $26,000, depending on the size of their home. This incentive is designed to offset the potential difference between market rent and the affordable rent set by the program. Property owners can receive four incentive payments throughout the three years of Rooted Renters, the first distributed at the program's start and the final three distributed at the end of each rental year. For each successive year of program participation, the incentive amount will increase. Tenant groups can change throughout the three-year rental period, and property owners must rent to a qualified tenant group for a cumulative period of 36 months to receive the total incentive amount.
Property owners interested in the Rooted Renters program can register their interest on the Placemate website or download the Rooted Renters Program Guidelines for full program details. To be considered for the program, property owners must submit a Preliminary Application Form which will only become available on the Placemate website at 9:00am PDT on July 15, 2024. Registering interest before July 15, 2024, does not count as Preliminary Application Form submission. Property owners will be reached out to on a first come first served basis in the order that their Preliminary Application Form is submitted.
About Placemate
Placemate is helping solve the housing crisis in vacation towns by unlocking new housing opportunities for local employees. Through their trusted online platform, they connect local tenants with homeowners who have underutilized properties available for rent. To bolster this effort, they partner with local governments and nonprofits to incentivize property owners who convert their units into seasonal and long-term rentals for locals.