Amid housing crises vacation towns limit short-term rentals
By: Jesse Bedayn | Published on Aug 23, 2022
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — In the Colorado ski town of Steamboat Springs, motels line the freeway, once filled with tourists eager to pitch down the slopes or bathe in the local hot springs.
Now residents like Marc McDonald, who keep the town humming by working service-level jobs, live in the converted motels. They cram into rooms, some with small refrigerators and 6-foot-wide kitchens, or even just microwave kitchenettes. Others live in mobile homes.
Steamboat Springs is part of a wave of vacation towns across the country facing a housing crisis and grappling with how to regulate the industry they point to as a culprit: Short-term rentals such as those booked through Airbnb and Vrbo that have squeezed small towns’ limited housing supply and sent rents skyrocketing for full-time residents.