Have you tried hiring a qualified staff member for just about any position recently? Whether it’s an Executive Director, a recertification specialist, maintenance staff or Housing Choice Voucher Director, it’s been darn near impossible to find someone in a reasonable amount of time. Let’s take a look at what is going on with the job market and see what some of the reasons are and some of the potential answers.

Retirment of Baby Boomers

The baby boomers were one of the largest generations of employees in the history of the USA. The generation before it had 47 million compared to the boomer generation with 76 million. Now compare that to the proceeding Generation X of 55 million and you can see that the shear number of human beings is just down. The baby boomer generation also stayed in the labor force longer and had an outsized amount of experience and technical expertise that is quite frankly hard to replace. The pandemic increased the rate of retirement for many boomers and at the end of the day, this was always going to happen. I worked most of my career in the Northwest and have seen Stephen Norman from King County, Andrew Lofton from Seattle and Michael Mirra from Tacoma all retire in the last couple of years. That is a ton of knowledge, expertise and influence gone. That has played out across the USA. In summary, a very large generation has retired or is wrapping up their careers and the generations behind them are either not as large or need time to get up to speed.

Another item I noticed in the public housing realm is how many experienced PHA staff are retiring and in reality, held 2-3 jobs. The knowledge base of some PHA executives with 40 years’ experience was so staggering that there was no way to replace the individual with one staff member. Some organizations are having to restructure just because the retiring staff member could handle multiple divisions and now 2-3 staff are needed to have make up the knowledge one person had.

Changing Work Habits:

Many PHAs moved to a hybrid or remote work environment during the pandemic. This was a struggle for many agencies and in some cases, it was an abject train wreck. I’ve talked with agencies across the country where reviews got behind, units were not inspected, leasing suffered, and units fell into disrepair. For many Executive Directors they saw enough to pull everyone back into the office ASAP as the pandemic calmed down. However, many staff got a taste of having the flexibility of not commuting, having more flexibility how the day is structured and having more time with family. To be blunt, those who have the requisite skills, experience and abilities, will not have an issue finding jobs that match their needs. If your PHA cannot offer flex work schedules or hybrid work environments, the best and brightest will find another one or find a different sector to work in. That does not mean you necessarily have to move your entire work environment but it’s something to consider.

Regional Variation:

In some parts of the USA, affordable housing is priority number 1, 2 and 3. When elected officials and the voting populace make affordable housing or homelessness a major issue, new funding can be dedicated. Many of us in the industry are used to stagnant or shrinking budgets. However, in some parts of the U.S. new funding is creating amazing opportunities and hiring challenges. In the Portland, Oregon Metro area, voters approved two major funding initiatives in the last couple years. One brought several hundred million in new funding for affordable housing development. Another brought over a billion dollars in homeless funding over 10 years. The numbers will be closer to $2 billion when it’s all said. The Govenor of Oregon made affordable housing development and homelessness major policy initiatives. This is coming with new funding. New dollars mean new programming and new development. With that comes the need for more staffing. Good real estate developers are not going to show up for $100k anymore. With all of the money floating around in the metro area, a developer can go to the private market or start their own business and make double if not triple what they could make at most housing authorities. There are similar funding increases happening in parts of Washington State, California and Arizona that I know of. For areas of the country with extra funding, this is going to compound the issues on trying to find qualified talent.

What Can Be Done?

There are no simple answers here. However, I am seeing some of the following solutions:

1. Utilize a Recruiter- This is not a sure-fire way to get the staff member you need but a recruiter might be able to help you find someone who is willing to move or take a step up to advance her/his/their career. You can go months without getting a qualified candidate just using normal job posting techniques. Recruiters will charge anywhere from 15%-25% of the first-year salary and benefits but might have a roster or pool of candidates.
2. Build Internally- This is tough because it requires time and energy. You will have to eat some mistakes. However, investing in internal staff can be helpful because you know your staff and they know you. If you go this route, invest heavily in training and technical assistance. Make sure that you are increasing salary as the employee gains more experience and training. The last thing you want to do is train up someone and have another PHA steal them away. I’ve utilized conferences and training as a mechanism to demonstrate to staff that I am investing in them. It’s important for staff to know they mean a lot to the organization, and you want to build with them. If you are worried about the technical expertise, supplement with an organization that can assist you. That might mean seeing if Nan McKay, CVR, Quadel or CGI can contract to assist you doing transition years. It should be noted that consulting companies are also getting a lot of work right now. I recommend looking for piggy backing opportunities. In my prior position we hired some highly skilled individuals with zero housing experience and just provided them with weekly remote training and consulting while they were actively working on projects and learning from the ground up.
3. Internship Programs- We ran excellent intern programs at the Tacoma Housing Authority that resulted in some really talented staff developing into amazing affordable housing professionals. Many of the former interns are doing great things today in the industry. Look for opportunities to get cohorts of interns through the door and rotate them into all aspects of your business. Get them into HCV, Public Housing, Finance, Development and Procurement. Its rare you can hire someone and have them rotate around and learn the various business functions of the authority. You can create well rounded housing professionals by utilizing this tactic.

There is nothing earth shattering in this article about the issues or solutions. Even if the economy slows down, PHA leadership should not expect this problem to be solved. Some areas might loosen up overtime but highly skilled workers including trades, staff with tactical/technical expertise and leaders are going to be hard to recruit and retain for the foreseeable future with some of the trends in the marketplace. For areas of the country with extra funding, this trend might be exacerbated.