Meta's Louisiana data center crews are claiming mobile homes before they reach the park

Rentals were scarce in Richland Parish before the crews came. "It's very rural here, so when there are fluctuating prices in the market, it doesn't really hit us because there are never enough houses for sale or rent," Angel Crawford told Business Insider ^[13]. She lives in Delhi, a town about 10 minutes west of Holly Ridge ^[11]. The mobile homes she and her husband brought in were spoken for early. "All the homes were secured by deposits from Meta workers before we even got them into the park," she said ^[7].

The board-deck version of the project is a jobs count: about 7,500 at the peak of construction and about 1,000 once the site is running ^[2]. That count leaves out where the peak crew sleeps. Holly Ridge, the unincorporated community near the site, has fewer than 2,000 residents, according to local outlets ^[3]. At peak, the construction workforce would outnumber it by more than 3.75 to one ^[16].

A skeptic would point to Monroe, the closest major regional city. It is about 30 minutes west and has more than twice the parish's population ^[4]. Crawford's tenants answer with drive times. "One of the big things my tenants tell me is that if they live in Dallas and it's 30 miles to work, it takes about 30 minutes. Well, in rural areas, 30 miles could take 60 minutes because of all the back roads and little towns you have to go through," she said ^[10]. The workday leaves little room for that drive. "Location is very important to Meta's workers because they work six to seven days a week and 12-plus hours a day. They leave around 4:30 in the morning, and they don't come home until 7 at night," she said ^[9]. That schedule gives her tenants about nine and a half hours between getting home and leaving again ^[18].

The harder planning question comes after the peak. Meta's own figures imply about 6,500 fewer jobs once construction ends ^[17]. For anyone staffing a remote build this size, the choice is between temporary beds that leave with the crews and permanent housing that has to find new tenants when they go. The Crawfords' homes are fully furnished four-bedroom, two-bathroom units. Angel said they give workers the option of staying with family or rooming with colleagues ^[14]. The couple's longer plan is aimed at residents. "We understood there wasn't enough housing for residents, and our dream of building more multifamily houses was right in line to do that," she said ^[15].

Business Insider's account rests on one landlord. It does not say whether Meta or its contractors have arranged housing for the peak workforce, or whether the shortage has slowed hiring or the schedule. In my view, housing is already a hard constraint on the worker's day. Whether it also constrains the project's timeline is not yet shown.