Would you live next to co-workers for the right price? This company is betting yes
Tommie Jones loves her job as a quality control inspector for Cook Medical in rural Spencer, Indiana. But she hasn't been able to find a place she can afford on her own, so at age 47, she's squeezed in with her sister's family.
When Cook announced a year ago that it would build hundreds of homes to sell to employees at below-market prices, Jones was among the first to sign up.
On a recent afternoon before her shift, she's bursting with excitement as she gets her first visit inside the nearly finished three-bedroom, two-bathroom ranch house. "It's so beautiful!" she says, walking around to check out every detail. She marvels at the Lazy Susan cabinet in the kitchen, the lush green view of the backyard and the size of the primary-bedroom closet.
"This is as big as my room now," she says.
Cook's move isn't purely philanthropic. As rents and home prices across the U.S. have skyrocketed, more companies are finding it harder to recruit and retain middle-income workers. Record-high job openings and low unemployment have made the competition worse, fueling staff shortages.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/02/1172301798/workers-affordable-housing-companies-building
Everything old is new again. Company towns. When I was a kid we lived in housing that had been built originally for shipyard workers but after WWII was converted to housing for veterans and GI Bill students with families.
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It’s the only one available through the company WiFi 
