The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation recently approved grants totaling $855,000 for phase two of its three-year, $30 million Forest Futures Campaign, bringing the total grants deployed this year to about $2 million. Forest Futures is a comprehensive playbook that can be replicated by other communities to align local organizations around minimizing the risk of extreme wildfires through better preparation, investment in forest health and infrastructure, and diversifying local economies.

The forest floor is considered one of the most distinct features of the forest ecosystem. It contains various stages of vegetation from new to decomposition all above the soil’s surface. On one piece of land in the Glenshire area, it’s easy to identify. But just across the street the forest floor is overgrown. If a fire were to roar through here, there’s no question where it would take a hold.

In Northern California’s East Bay, the Moraga-Orinda Fire District sometimes goes nine months without rain. The area has lots of open space and high concentrations of brush along with decaying eucalyptus and Monterey pine trees. Add in high winds in the fall, and “the potential is there for a tremendously damaging fire,” says David Winnacker, chief of the fire district.

The housing crisis in North Lake Tahoe has hit new levels, with multiple organizations coming together to battle the increasing need to support homeless neighbors. “Speaking from a community point of view, and also from a spiritual point of view, your neighbor may not be the person who is residing on your street,” said Rev. Clare Novak with United in Action, a North Tahoe/Truckee coalition of faith-based organizations. “Your neighbor is a person in your community that you’re connected to, and these lines of community connection are so important.”

Following the worst fire season on record, California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara is taking aim at high insurance costs for residents in areas threatened by wildfires. “With more Californians rolling up their sleeves and reaching into their own pockets to protect their homes and businesses, insurance pricing must reflect their efforts,” said Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara in a news release. “Holding insurance companies accountable for accurately rating wildfire risk in the premiums they charge Californians will help save lives and reduce losses. My new regulations will help encourage a competitive insurance market for all by putting safety first and driving down costs for consumers.” At a meeting during last week’s Forest Futures Salon, the change in regulations, which is planned to go into effect this summer, was addressed by fire officials from around the region, along with officials from the California Department of Insurance.

After a few years of short-term renting her mom’s place in another part of town, Judy Zachariasen decided she was done. It was a hassle and she didn’t have time for the logistics anymore after getting a new job that required her to commute to Sacramento. Plus, the COVID-19 pandemic had hit. People were flocking to Truckee, a mountain town of roughly 16,000 people a few miles north of Lake Tahoe. The housing situation was deteriorating and Zachariasen knew she had a way to help out, however small.

As ski towns rush to meet the needs of their local workforce, many are beginning to adopt temporary housing plans which would accommodate van lifers who commonly populate ski towns both as tourists and local workers. The Mountain Housing Council discussed the examples of van life solutions in other ski towns as well as possible locations for workforce housing car camping sites at its January quarterly meeting.

As 2021 wound down in the days after Nov. 30’s “Giving Tuesday,“ the Give Back Tahoe campaign raised $100,000 more than it did over the same period last year. That followed the biggest single day of giving in the history of the event, which was launched by the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation in 2014. In total, TTCF, its donors and participating nonprofits raised just shy of $530,000.

Truckee’s cost of living has increased over the course of the pandemic. Much of the local workforce can’t qualify for affordable housing units established over the past year. The Below Market Rate Housing Program seeks to change that.

Winter has belatedly arrived at Tahoe, on the California-Nevada border, with roughly six feet of glorious snow, and ski resorts have finally opened after a very dry November. But this year, a warming climate isn’t the only challenge resorts will face. At California’s Sugar Bowl, a workforce shortage is creating problems.On December 12, season pass-holders received an email with the subject line “This Winter: Operations Update.” In it, they found a letter from Sugar Bowl CEO and president Greg Dallas breaking the news that the resort was cutting back on some guest services over the holidays because it simply doesn’t have enough staff. 

Give Back Tahoe, the end-of-year giving campaign hosted by the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation, returns for the eighth year with 60 organizations participating. Since 2014, Give Back Tahoe has raised more than $2.5 million in unrestricted funds for nonprofits serving the Tahoe Truckee area.

Last Tuesday, 1,675 people visited the website GiveBackTahoe.org, clicked a “Donate“ button, and gave money to more than 60 participating Lake Tahoe nonprofits. In that one day, Give Back Tahoe raised over $214,000. Some of these folks clicked a “Fundraise” button and created, in just a few minutes, their own campaign, which they could deploy to their friends via email, Facebook, Instagram, etc. The inclusion of this social media functionality is meant to turn this web portal into a “collective giving engine.”

Workforce housing at Lake Tahoe: It’s hard to find, it’s way too expensive, and it sometimes leaves 30 somethings stuffed together with a bunch of roommates like they are back in college.  Long term rental housing has been a problem for those who live and work in Tahoe for decades, but it was exasperated by Covid, and the subsequent real estate boom was caused when many Bay Area folks moved to the mountains because they no longer had to work in the city.

There are currently 9,528 local workforce households that are inadequately housed. The Mountain Housing Council wants to change that. The council was formed to help different organizations within the region come together to collaborate on solutions. At its July meeting the Mountain Housing Council declared a housing emergency in the region in order to address the immediate needs of workforce and community housing.

The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation this week provided a pair of updates on its summer efforts through the wildfire season, while also laying out plans moving ahead. Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation CEO Stacy Caldwell provided further details on the nonprofit’s recently announced three-year, $30 million Forest Futures Campaign, which aims to help prevent catastrophic forest fires in the region.

The Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation announced it has raised more than $1 million for the launch of Forest Futures, a multi-year campaign to stimulate the region’s economy, ensure a safer and more secure future for the Tahoe area, and create an actionable path forward to healthy forests everywhere.

Finding housing in the Truckee-Tahoe area has been a longstanding issue, but a number of local organizations are working to ease the burden of finding an affordable place to live in the region. Tuesday’s Good Morning Truckee session featured four speakers from various organizations. They discussed what they’re doing to help find and create affordable housing for the area’s workforce.