**Natalie Kinchen scoops steamed rice into a bowl before adding homemade curry. Kinchen is able to work at Mount Bachelor Ski Resort thanks to the affordable housing she obtained at Campfire Hotel.** (Kathryn Styer Martínez/Oregon Public Broadcasting)

By KATHRYN STYER MARTINEZ/Oregon Public Broadcasting

A handful of people were in a Campfire Hotel common room making dinner after a long day of work at Mount Bachelor Ski Resort, just outside of Bend.

John O’Connor was about to eat the sandwich of his dreams — a caprese sandwich that he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He’s a seasonal lift operator at Mount Bachelor and lives at the hotel.

For the last three years, Mount Bachelor has paired up with the Campfire Hotel to provide affordable workforce housing for some of the ski mountain’s workers in Central Oregon, where affordable rentals are in short supply.

High housing costs in the region reflect a growing trend of unaffordability across the state. A recent Oregon Housing and Community Services report found that the state’s housing crisis worsened from 2003 to 2023.

The ski resort and the hotel first paired up in 2023 to provide low-cost housing for seasonal workers, according to Lauren Burke, director of marketing and communications for Mount Bachelor.

“Having affordable housing for employees and workforce housing for employees is incredibly important,” Burke said.

Mount Bachelor was the fourth largest employer in Deschutes County last year, according to surveys by the nonprofit Economic Development Central Oregon.

**The Campfire Hotel in Bend rents almost a third of its rooms to Mount Bachelor workers from December to April.** (Photo by Kathryn Styer Martínez/Oregon Public Broadcasting)

O’Connor, 27, likes living at the hotel and its proximity to nearby services. “It’s really cool to have access to the hot tub and the pool and the bus that takes you up to the mountain,” he said.

The Campfire Hotel is located in the center of Bend, close to the Cascades East Transit Hawthorne bus station, where a bus runs from the city center to the ski resort. Bachelor employees get free rides on the bus with a flash of their employee identification, according to Dan Miller.

Miller, 30, and Natalie Kinchen were hanging out after a day of work on the mountain, eating dinner in the same common room as O’Connor. What was a multi-bedroom suite had been converted into a kitchenette with a dishwasher, refrigerator and shelves for communal spices and snacks.

Like O’Connor, Miller and Kinchen work seasonal jobs in different parts of the country in the winter and summer. This year Miller is a ski instructor and Kinchen, 23, works at the resort’s daycare. Kinchen said having a housing option was non-negotiable for her to accept a job working on the Central Oregon mountain.

“A lot of people will stay here year-round and they can sign a lease, but I won’t be doing that. So having a housing option through my job is super important,” she said.

Mount Bachelor workers pay $400 a month to share a hotel room, or $800 for a single occupancy room, according to Burke. The rent is subsidized by the resort and deducted from employees’ paychecks.

**A vacant double occupancy room remains for two Mount Bachelor workers at the Campfire Hotel.** (Photo by Kathryn Styer Martínez/Oregon Public Broadcasting)

According to Zillow market trends, the average cost for a studio in Bend is $1,625 per month, while the average rent for a room listed on Craigslist.org in mid-January is $889 per month, according to the website.

But the hotel can’t house all of Mount Bachelor’s seasonal workers.

The ski resort workforce balloons to about 1,000 workers during the ski season, said Mount Bachelor spokesperson Presley Quon.

The hotel hosts about 50 people from December to April and rents out almost a third of its 100 rooms to Mount Bachelor workers, according to Campfire Hotel Manager Keagan Parks.

This season, Mount Bachelor didn’t open until late December, leaving hundreds of workers in the lurch and searching for ways to fill their time and wallets.

Kinchen said she was “very poor for the month of December,” but luckily the ski resort and the hotel cut her a break. She said she was allowed to delay a rent payment while she was waiting for work to start.

Burke said feedback on the program has been positive from resident workers and the hotel, but added that the model might not work for other ski towns that struggle with affordable housing.

With Bend’s population of just over 100,000, she said it’s not a traditional ski town like Aspen, Colorado, or Park City, Utah, which are “really, really small towns with extremely limited inventory for housing.”

“I think it all depends on what the economics are and what type of town would be looking to replicate this,” she added.