St. John's Health owns the Hitching Post property and will utilize the
1.65 acres to meet the health, safety, and welfare needs of the community
by building workforce rental units for employees, staff on-call rooms,
and short-term lodging for out-of-town patients and families.
The project:
Provides vital proximate housing for key frontline and support staff at
the hospital
Addresses SJH recruitment and retention issues recently exacerbated by
the shortage of rentals, rental rate increases, and escalating home sale prices
Meets multiple essential lodging needs through a variety of unit types
Stabilizes SJH’s housing program and helps return currently leased
units to the community
The Hitching Post Workforce Housing Redevelopment Project directly supports
the health and safety needs of Teton County. It ensures the hospital can
continue to respond 24/7/365 to the community's medical emergencies and
other health needs. The project will increase up to five-fold the number
of essential workforce we can house at the
Hitching Post, property adjacent to St. John’s that has been owned and used by
SJH for housing for many years. The redevelopment will also expand the
number of overnight on-call rooms while continuing to provide short-term
lodging for out-of-area patients and families. SJH has more than 20 years
of experience managing SPET construction projects and has brought in all
our projects on-time and on-budget. In addition, we have been running
our own Lodging Department since 2001 and will soon be launching an innovative
new income-based employee rental program. This will help ensure our housing
is affordable to employees across the entire organization.
56% of our staff lives in the Jackson area. This has declined by 6 percentage
points in the past year alone as staff leave for more affordable options.
This has contributed to a nearly 10% job vacancy rate among all jobs at
St. John's.
Read more
facts about housing at St. John's.
About Funding
St. John’s will bring significant resources to the project. The project
is a 3-way partnership between the community, through SPET, and St. John’s
Health and the
St. John’s Health Foundation. With the Foundation, St. John’s will fund a minimum of 2/3 of the
project cost. Ongoing maintenance and operations costs, as well as any
construction overages, will be the financial responsibility of St. John’s,
not the Town of Jackson or Teton County.
Learn more from our
Housing Project FAQ.
SPET Ballot Initiative #6 was passed by Teton County voters in the November
2022 election.
