By Brett O’Keefe, Associated Civic News Press, Jefferson City, Mo.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Walmart has begun testing small onsite “pod hotels” inside portions of its warehouse facilities, allowing employees to sleep at work in what the company says is an effort to address rising housing costs and long commutes.
The pilot program, which launched quietly earlier this year at a warehouse outside Jefferson City, places compact sleeping pods in unused sections of company-owned buildings. The pods include a bed, ventilation, lighting, and limited storage, according to company materials reviewed by the local press.
Walmart officials describe the program as voluntary and temporary, aimed at workers who face long drives, unstable housing, or short-term financial strain.
“This is about flexibility and support,” said company spokesperson Andrea Collins. “We’re looking at ways to meet associates where they are, especially as housing affordability continues to challenge workers across the country.”
Employees pay a reduced nightly fee deducted from their paychecks, the company said. Walmart declined to specify the cost but said it is lower than average local rent.
Some workers, however, say the arrangement raises concerns about boundaries between work and personal life.
One warehouse employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the pods blur the line between rest and labor.
“You’re never really off the clock when you’re sleeping at work,” the employee said.
The worker also said employees staying in the pods are not allowed to use warehouse bathrooms until their scheduled shift begins, a policy the company said is tied to security and access controls.
“I’ve learned to hold it in until my shift starts,” the employee said.
Walmart confirmed that restroom access for pod users is limited outside of working hours but said alternative solutions are under review.
Labor advocates said the program reflects broader pressures facing low- and middle-income workers.
“When the solution to housing costs is sleeping at your job, something is fundamentally broken,” said Karen Delgado, a labor policy analyst with a Midwest workers’ rights group. “This shifts the burden of a national housing crisis onto employees.”
Walmart said early feedback from the pilot has been positive, citing internal surveys that show strong demand among some workers. Company officials said the Jefferson City program is serving as a model for potential expansion.
“If current trends continue, we anticipate rolling this out to additional locations in 2026 and 2027,” Collins said.
Local officials said they were aware of the pilot but emphasized that no zoning laws were violated, since the pods are located inside existing commercial structures.
Walmart employs more than 1.6 million workers in the United States, many of whom live in areas where rents have risen faster than wages. The company has raised starting pay in recent years, but critics argue the increases have not kept pace with housing and transportation costs.
For now, the pod hotels remain limited to a small number of facilities. Whether they become a common feature of Walmart warehouses nationwide may depend on how workers respond to the idea of sleeping just steps from the job they will clock into the next morning.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
I'll be the first to say this could go very wrong, but for someone that is already homeless, this might be a step up. Employment usually requires the ability to sleep in a secure location consistently. Next would be bathing facilities I would guess. We don't know if bathing areas are included, but some employers I've seen it. I would imagine it would be difficult for a homeless person to work a job at Walmart without these two things, but if this checks the box allowing them to gain employment, it could be a critical step up from them to get their own housing outside of this Walmart pilot.
If you think Walmart isn't going to take enough of their paycheck to make this the only option they can afford, I've got a bridge I'm trying to sell that I'd like to talk to you about.
The article already mentions how Walmart salaries aren't enough to afford rent, now you want people to save up for a better place AND pay their nightly storage fee?
Come on, man.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
Who would you hire to work at a warehouse distribution center you own?
This is the same man separated by time with the first before this Walmart pilot and the second after. Getting any kind of housing can be very hard. I certainly wouldn't blame someone that is homeless for taking advantage of this to get themselves back on track.
Am I suggesting that Walmart is the answer to homelessness? Hell no, but our society certainly isn't doing enough to address it, and homelessness is going to get worse in the near future.
This isn't a solution to homelessness either though, it's just legalising slavery via company towns and eventually, company scrip, which has been done before, and it doesn't work well for anyone but the company.
Go read how company towns have worked in the past, it always ends in indentured servitude.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
Oh I'm aware of history, so let me correct some of your mistaken statements:
Right, I already said that in the exact post you're responding to when I said "Am I suggesting that Walmart is the answer to homelessness? Hell no, but our society certainly isn’t doing enough to address it, and homelessness is going to get worse in the near future."
Not a company town. A company town is where the employer owns the housing, the factory, and all the stores. Jefferson City is the capitol of Missouri. Its not a huge city but even with that there are hundreds of other employers, stores, and tens of thousands of other houses not owned by Walmart. Not a company town
Regardless of how shitty the USA is now, they're not going to allow companies to issue their own currency. The US government doesn't like the competition.
Also, I'm kind of pissed at you for making me defend fucking Walmart, but facts are more important so here I am.
It's still a company town if the company owns the factory, and the only housing that its employees can afford. The end result is exactly the same, the employees become indebted to the company. Will wallmart allow people living in its cubes to find work elsewhere? Or will they have to choose between homelessness and working at wallmart?
As for scrip, all it takes is Wallmart to say "Your pay check now includes 7 cube tokens, valued at $X dollars, we'll reduce your pay by $X to make it fair".
And as for the US not allowing company currencies, you haven't been paying attention, they already do. Robux is well on down that path, and most microtransactions tokens are scrip-lite.
I'm sorry for upsetting you, but it's not me you should be mad at.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
In-game currency? Seriously? Let me know when you can pay for groceries, housing, or healthcare with Robux.
Forgetting your slippery slope hyperbole, what is your alternate proposal? Bar Walmart for providing a form of affordable housing and kick those folks back out on the street?
Roblox is paying third party developers in in-game currency. And that they can't use it to buy groceries is exactly the problem. Thats the problem with scrip, its worthless outside the "company town". They are doing real work, for not real money.
The government (or another 3rd party) should be supplying the affordable housing. Having the employer house the employee just hands way too power to the employer. If wallmart wants to build these pods and sell them to a government entity to operate, then great, that's fine. But if wallmart operates them, then this is a terrible idea.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
If what you're saying is true (I'm not going to research it myself), then contact the IRS. What Roblox would be doing is tax evasion and the government will come down on them hard.
I completely agree, but the government isn't nor is anyone else.
So since the government isn't building the housing we both want, you'd tell the homeless person its better for them to be homeless than to be in company owned housing?
I don't know if it is tax evasion (I am not a US tax expert), as it would be up to the receiver of the Robux to declare it as income and pay tax? Correct me if I am wrong there, but from a cursory google, you can be taxed on all kinds of income, including bartering, so it should be possible to pay taxes on it. As for whether it is true, there was a long YT video, and a few news articles about it some time ago. Cant find the original, but here is some discussion, and the top comment links to the original video:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034
TLDW: Mod/item developers are paid in Robux, which can theoretically be converted back to dollars, but it was quite difficult to do so. It is well down the path towards being a scrip, and despite the publicity, nothing happened to the company.
I would at least be completely honest with the person, and tell them that the choice is either be homeless or effectively owned by Walmart. But I don't think its correct to frame this as a binary choice, there are other options. Homeless shelters do exist, even if there aren't enough, and Walmart could donate these cubes to a shelter organization to operate them independently.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
You're mostly right, but missing a few key pieces of US tax law. Roblox can hire the developers you're referring to either as W-2 employees, which would require Roblox to withold taxes (and pay into our nation pension system called Social Security). The other way is to hire the developers as "independent contractors", but this means Roblox would be required to hire them as 1099, which means they Roblox doesn't have to withhold taxes, but does have to report the money they're paying to the contractor. The contractor would then be obligated to pay the taxes on all earnings themselves.
If Roblox is neither 1099'ing these devs nor W-2'ing them, yet Roblox is employing them and paying them, then Roblox would be in violation of US tax law, and the IRS (Internal Revenue System) which handles individual and corporate taxation in the USA, would come in with enforcement resulting in potentially heavy fines and additional audit requirements to Roblox for years to come.
I would be surprised if a homeless person would not be aware of homeless shelters. If you look into homelessness, you'll find there are some very real concerns with shelters and some elect to not use them. Others are simply at capacity and more homeless remain unhoused.
That assumes Walmart is trying so solve homelessness. Walmart isn't. Walmart is looking to increase its staffing pool. A reduction in homelessness is unintended side effect.
The article said they don't even have access to a toilet unless they are on the clock, so No, no showering facilities.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
The context in the article where that line was taken was meaning: access to toilets after leaving the DC and accessing the new housing.
An employer isn't going to stop you from relieving yourself immediately after you clock out.
I'm not sure about your personal work experience, but for folks that work jobs that get you dirty many employers offer shower facilities on-site for employee use. The article says this housing pilot project is in a Walmart distribution center (warehouse). A quick google search shows that many Walmart DCs have employee shower facilities available. Here's evidence of that from an indeed poster:
source
Now, I don't know for sure that this DC where the pilot is taking place has showers. I also don't know if those using the housing are allowed to use the showers. However, the possibility exist, and I think Walmart would want its folks sleeping in company owned sleep pods to be bathed, so I think its highly likely that they chose a pilot location with showers, and I would guess they would allow the folks using these sleep pods to bath. It is not in Walmart's interest to have dirty/stinky workers showing up the next morning for work.
Maybe, but I also know that you'll never get far by counting on Walmart's respect for humanity, especially its own workers.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
In this case I'm not. If we take the most cynical view I don't think Walmart would be offering this for the benefit of its workers. That just happens to be a side effect.
Human labor is expensive. The available workforce that is both housed and has their own bathing facilities have demands on short commute to work, consistently rising wages, preferential hours, and preferential tasks. Even with these demands, employee turnover is very high increasing repeated training costs for replacements. This new pilot would allow Walmart to access another pool of labor that would be willing to forgo those things. However, there are certain hygiene demands that Walmart has of all of its workers irrespective of where they source the labor. Being well slept and bathed are two of these. Walmart can provide the facilities for these two things at a low cost to Walmart. Showers already exist and DCs so just some operational costs there and the real estate for the housing is already company owned as its in an unused warehouse. The only new costs are the sleeping pods, which are likely not expensive in volume to Walmart should this pilot be expanded, and they are charging a small fee to their employees using them further offsetting the cost to Walmart corporate.
The end result are additional workers that were not fit to work at Walmart before, but are now, and provide benefits to Walmart to increase the labor supply to its locations especially where acquiring required staffing has been difficult.
And now they are slaves to Walmart, relying on Walmart for their pay, and housing. One wrong move, and their delicate house of cards collapses, and they are homeless.
That makes them extremely vulnerable to exploitation by supervisors, managers, and Walmart itself.
Instead, Walmart and other Big Box retailers who have run countless small businesses out of operation, should be forced to fund and supplement low income independent housing for low income workers, no matter where they work. Those stores do a lot to suppress wages and the lives of hard-working Americans. At least 50% of their profits should be spent on funding and supplementing housing and transportation for the working poor.
EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.
I take a different view that minimum wage should be increased so workers could afford to buy their own housing.
However, until either of our ideas for increasing working housing through legislation are passed, I'm not going to try to stop Walmart from providing housing to those that have none. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
That's definitely a valid perspective.