Housing For Travel Nurses – Where To Stay On Travel Nurse Assignments

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Due to the unpredictable nature of their work, one of the biggest challenges being faced by most travel nurses is accommodation. They often struggle to find proper housing where they can stay and rest. Keisha Manning has experienced these hardships herself, and this prompted her to start NursesBnB, a housing locator specifically designed for travel nurses. Joining Jenny Finnell, she shares how this company was conceptualized and established in response to the urgent need for travel nurses today. Keisha also breaks down how they partner with legitimate homeowners to provide only the safest and most comfortable accommodations to traveling nurses.

Join NursesBnB campaign 500 for $500 or more where they are allowing 500 professionals to invest $500 or more into their company. This investment could return $5k or $50k in the next 5 years: https://wefunder.com/nursesbnb

Learn more about NursesBNB here: https://nursesbnb.com/home

Follow NursesBNB on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nursesbnb/

Join the Free CSPA Community! Connect with a network of Aspiring CRNAs, Nurse Anesthesia Residents, practicing CRNAs and CRNA Program Faculty Mentors here: https://www.cspaedu.com/community

Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped 1,000s of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join

Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email

Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com

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Housing For Travel Nurses – Where To Stay On Travel Nurse Assignments

I am bringing a very special guest to you, Keisha Manning, who has started a company called NursesBnB. Many of you are travel nurses. Many of you are navigating the complexity of finding housing. I had the privilege to connect with Keisha. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here, and thank you for having me.

Why NursesBnB?

I would love to know more about what inspired you to start NursesBnB.

I started NursesBnB because of a problem that I was having. My background is that I used to work as a travel nurse. The housing challenge was terrible. On one of my assignments, one of my colleagues could not find anywhere to stay, and he ended up sleeping in his car. After two nights, he quit the assignment. The housing challenge is something that we know about, but at that moment, when that happened to him, it was like it was a joke, “This person has to sleep in his car and he’s not homeless.” It rested on me for a whole month. I remember I came home and I told my husband about it because it was on my mind.

This is a gentleman. He is not like a young person. This person to me appeared to be in his 50s. It rested on me. That’s the reason why I went ahead and created NursesBnB. The other aspect of NursesBnB, why it was imperative that I created it was that as nurses, I felt like, and I saw where people were being scammed on the other platforms that we would book on. We would go and pay money over that website.

Travel Nurses: Many travel nurses are being scammed on various housing platforms. They pay money over these websites only to find that the supposed location does not have the property they paid for.

You talk to somebody. You pay them your money when you go and there is no property. It’s a nightmare out there. That’s the reason why I created NursesBnB, to give healthcare professionals an easier route to finding housing because hospitals take a hands-off approach to travel nurses. They’re like, “Here’s a job. You find your housing” for the most part. We want to come into the space because we are healthcare professionals. We are nurses. Most of the time, the problems that nurses face are not solved unless a nurse stands up and does it. That’s my reason for doing NursesBnB.

What Kind of Properties Are Available?

I love that. I love the problem you’re solving. It is definitely a pain point. I know I shared with you in private that where I work, we have students who are coming for their clinical rotations all the way from California to Ohio or from Arizona to Ohio. It’s often like a panic mode, “Where am I going to stay? How much is it going to cost? Is it going to be furnished? Is it going to be safe?” This is a huge gap that you’re filling. My next question is other than the fact that it’s secure and that it’s not a scam, what is unique about NursesBnB as far as the place that they stay? Do they come furnished? How can they uniquely suit the nurses’ needs who are needing temporary housing?

What we do is that we ensure that these homeowners own or have permission to list that property. That’s something that nobody else in the industry is doing. I know that other platforms might say that they’re doing it, but we are the originators of that. That’s where we started from the beginning. What that means is that all these homeowners have been thoroughly vetted. Whether it be a physician, a nurse, or a therapist, when they come to book, they don’t have to be wondering, “Who is this person?” They have the opportunity to speak to the owner prior to booking. They also have the opportunity to look at the safety rating of the area before they book, because we have all of that on the platform. That gives them peace of mind when they’re booking on NursesBnB versus booking on another platform, out there.

We are not a vacation platform. We don’t do that vacation rental. What I have said is that 80% of healthcare professionals are female. Instead of doing the monthly booking, there are some that might want to go for a stint, take a two-week job, you have to run back to your baby because we are in the field. If we know, you know. You take a two-week stint to make some money to go back home to your baby because maybe you’re coming off maternity leave, but you don’t want to go back full-time. We make it in a way so that they can rent for fourteen days. They can rent. We have a lot of other features that are unique to us, but those are our secret sauce. I can’t get into them.

I think that’s awesome that you offer that and the safety rating is huge because a lot of hospitals are in inner cities. I know that that’s definitely an issue that our students face and if they come from California or Arizona where do they stay that’s not too far away from the hospital that’s safe? Some of the students don’t have transportation a lot of times when they come here. Some of them are like, “Can I walk?” I’m like, “You don’t want to walk. That’s unsafe.” They want to be close enough potentially to be able to walk, but then where would that be to where that’s safe? I think that’s great that you guys take that into account. Are most of your places furnished?

All of them are furnished. If the property is not furnished, we are not going to publish it. Another thing is that sometimes we have a lot of properties that are not listed. I always say, “If you need a property and you’re not finding anything when you’re searching, reach out to us. Maybe we have something that we are going through.” Sometimes we have a backlog. We are vetting to ensure that they’re safe and we can speed up the process to give you that property to rent. Always reach out to us.

Travel Nurses: If you need a property and cannot find one that suits your preferences or work contract, NursesBnB will help find the best one for you.

Are they very accustomed to nurses working oddball shifts like night shifts and things of that nature?

That was one of the problems that the young man had the night when he was calling because the hotels wanted him to check in. What is the hotel check-in time?

It was 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon.

He was trying to explain to them, “I am leaving work at 7:30 to 8:00. Can you allow me to check in at 10:00 AM at the latest?” They said no. It was a very inhumane experience that he had that transformed everything. Our hosts are flexible. I want to say, all of them. It’s something that you can discuss directly with them, even though they might have a time that they want you to check in, you can always discuss with them and they can be flexible.

Flexibility with Travel Nurse Contracts

I’ve also heard from travel nurses too and I don’t know if you can speak to this or not, but sometimes their contract abruptly ends. The unpredictable nature of being a travel nurse is sometimes in the middle of a contract, “We’re done,” or sometimes I’ve heard the opposite where maybe things are going well, but they slash their pay. Maybe they’re like, “I’m not going to keep working for $10 less per hour.” They want to end their contract. I would think that would get muddy when it comes to housing that you have already maybe paid for, or now how are you going to get your money back for that as well. Is that stuff that you’ve thought about as well?

Yes. I’m an ICU nurse. We have thought about literally everything. We have a platform where we protect the nurse and the host. When they have booked somewhere for 3 months and they only stay 1 month, we have worked out a system that allows both parties to feel validated and vindicated. The nurse won’t feel like somebody rubbed her all her money, and the homeowner won’t feel like they did not get any money, even because of that person.

We have a system in place that works perfectly. I want to add that sometimes even if the contract ends abruptly, I’ve seen where people have gone, like they’re working in the ICU step down, what happened is that even though you have done the EKG test, the exam, you have to do an onsite EKG test for the hospital. If you fail that you have to pack your bags and go back. You’ve seen that at hospitals. You leave. You have started out your housing, you have done everything, and you’re there the first day you get your test, you fail it, you have to go. In those circumstances, we have processes on the platform that take care of that also.

I’ve never heard of that. You’re going to perform an EKG and you’re not confident in that?

The EKG tests that you do as an ICU nurse when you are going to ICU school, you have to look at the rhythm.

The competency test.

If you get less than 80, that’s a fail.

I don’t remember ever doing that. Maybe they didn’t do that after I got started.

Some hospitals do it. I’ve seen nurses bother their eyes out because it’s done before you even started. I’ve seen it so I know, and we have taken that into consideration too.

Building Community with Nurses BnB

That’s crazy. The reason that I love too, about what you’re doing is the fact that this is not a vacation home. These are not locations that people are like, “I’m going to visit Akron, Ohio, woo-hoo.” They’re necessary locations to hospitals and easy access. That’s key as well. I’m curious, and I don’t know if this is something that’s already developing, but I could see this becoming like a community, where you can also equally share and connect fellow travelers to help navigate. It’s a challenging role to fill, to be thrown in like the fire, the wolf’s den. Being able to buddy up, and know that you’re around and surrounded by a community of other travel nurses would be huge as well.

That’s a great idea. That is something that we can definitely work on. We always say that it’s a community of healthcare professionals and homeowners who are helping healthcare professionals to come to their community. This is something that I want to debunk because a lot of people look at this as this is how they advertise it. I don’t know if you’re aware, of course, you are. That people look at nurses as cash cows. I don’t know what we did. I don’t know what we said, but they feel like we have a lot of money.

I don’t know where that ever came from either. Good point. That’s annoying to see on social media.

They want to have these high prices for their listing. I’m not against high prices because you have to pay your bills, but at the same time, you want to be reasonable to the people who are renting. You have to find a balance between both of them when you’re putting a price on your property because in reality, what this means is that if you live in this community, you are a part of the community. I’m talking about the homeowner. You are renting your house to someone who is going to come and serve your community. The difference between having safe staffing and unsafe staffing is your house. The difference between the nurse renting your house is the price.

You have to look a bit deeper into what you are doing when it comes on pricing than just looking at, “They have money.” You have to be careful because you can be helping to cause short staffing in your hospital because let’s face it. It’s your family that lives there. We need to have the nurses, doctors, therapists, sonographers, and all of them. We need to have them. The reality is that some of these communities don’t have enough of these professionals living there. There must have to be travelers.

It’s for us to think deeper when we think about renting to healthcare professionals.

That’s a great selling point one that I think would encourage a lot of homeowners to be like, “Of course.” I know we had mentioned when I talked to you on the phone before that a lot of the CRNAs and attending anesthesiologists that we work with have rental homes because this was a pain point for the students coming to rotate through our hospital, and they do. This is what I pay for my mortgage, go ahead and cover my mortgage. You can’t expect people not have to make any money from renting their property. A lot of people would see the cause and know that they want to do their part. I think that’s awesome. Honestly, if someone paid your mortgage, that’s still making money, because, in the end, it’s your asset.

That’s huge. You don’t have to take it out of your salary.

Notable Locations for Travel Nurses

That’s growing in value every year that you own it. That’s an amazing draw to doing this. I’m curious, and I didn’t ask you this, if nurses that are like, “This is amazing, I can’t wait to check you out and see if you offer in my city or my location.” Where would that be at this moment?

Nationwide we are scattered, but the places that we have the most concentration are Atlanta for one, the Los Angeles area, the San Diego area, Dallas and Houston, Texas, and some places in New York and I know we have Phoenix, Arizona, but we grow every day. I’m trying to remember, but I know that in the California region, we do have a lot. We have in Arizona also, but the concentration is in those areas that I mentioned, and a few more that I can’t recall right now.

That’s amazing. I even think this could be huge, like in rural areas too. Obviously, cities are a hotspot, but rural areas, to get nurses to come to these locations. In fact, I think I shared with you that I was asked to go to a locum in Sharon, PA. It’s a very small town. That hospital is probably on the brink of going out, but it serves such a major role in that rural community. Without it, the people that live there would not have access to medical. Having me, “Come work this twelve-week stint,” I’m like, “There’s no place around here that I would feel comfortable staying or even know to where to stay.” This could have a massive impact on rural communities to be able to provide access to care.

Impact on Rural Areas

That gives me goosebumps and chills because it’s super exciting to think about. I was commuting one hour each way so I could go do that assignment, but having access to NursesBnB in a small town like Sharon, PA would make a huge impact on the community of Sharon, PA. Kudos to you. This is wonderful. What else would you love to share about NursesBnbB? Where can people find you, follow you, and all those good things

I can speak about that, but I want to go back to your point of Sharon, PA. We are going to push this far and wide, and that was one of our things to ensure that the rural areas have coverage because I grew up in a rural community so I know what that is like. My sister was asthmatic so I know what that is. It was twenty minutes from the main road. You know an asthma patient cannot walk. We had to get people to lift her up, to take her to the main road, to take her to the hospital 45 minutes to 1 hour away.

I totally understand and know what it’s like in a rural community, and that’s one of our passions also to ensure that rural communities have the coverage that they need because we cannot afford to let healthcare die. It’s not for the people at the top, it’s for the people at the bottom because the people at the top can go anywhere to get it, but the people at the bottom have to use what’s close to them. That’s what it’s about. We are not going to cry here.

You are totally melting my heart. I think this is great and you’re filling a void. I am grateful that you as a nurse are coming forward to do this. You have the insights, the knowledge and you know what the pain points are and you’re currently living them. This is amazing and hats off to you. This is exciting. I’m glad I got to have you on the show. Everyone, you have to check out NursesBnB. This is a huge solution to your pain point. We have many travelers in our community. We have many SRNAs and nurses who are out there having to do out-of-state clinical sites. This is earth-shattering and a great opportunity. Definitely, check out your website. I would love for you to share how they can connect with you and learn more.

We are on LinkedIn, Instagram, and it’s NursesBNB. I am on LinkedIn at @KeishaM. I need to revive my Instagram. We’re on Facebook and TikTok. We are @Midterm.Housing_F on TikTok. I want to mention also that I am going to have an event coming up. I’m going to give you the information about how to innovate in healthcare. I’m going to be doing a free event and I want the nurses to attend to understand what is there in front of them nobody will do it unless somebody stands up and does it because guess what? They don’t care.

They’re not feeling it so they don’t know. They don’t care. They have their other problems to deal with. It’s for us to stand up, take that button, and do the work. I’m going to keep it a free event. I’m going to have the information for you. That’s where you can find me. Go ahead and join the community because we are going full speed ahead.

This is an innovation healthcare webinar. I resonate with the fact that you have to fix problems that you are actively living. We got to stand up, we got to do it. I equally felt that same push and that pull. If you would’ve asked me a few years ago, “Will you start a business?” I’d be like, “No, me? Are you kidding me? Heck no.” Here I am. It’s because there was a problem that I felt like I had to solve for my fellow nurses.

I felt like, “If I don’t do it, who will?” I knew uniquely that I could. Will it be easy? No. Will it be painful? Probably. You got to do it. We owe it to our fellow nurses, to ourselves to be the ones to sign up. What I’ve also seen in my time on LinkedIn and exploring different business pathways, there are people out there trying to solve our problems, but they are not nurses and they do not know. Guess what? They go out there and find nurses to pick their brains continuously so they can try to solve our problem. But at the end of the day, it’s not a nurse running the company. I think that needs to change. Don’t get me wrong. Take hats off to people out there. They’re still trying to solve a problem. Kudos to them.

I want to empower nurses to be those people. You can be a CEO or a business owner. Anything is learnable. Just download podcasts or binge on the internet. You can figure things out. You figure out the bedside. You can figure out the business. I love to empower nurses to, “Yes, you can be a boss. You are a boss. You’re already a boss. You’re the boss in the medical setting. Turn it into a business setting.” I would love to empower people reading that, “Yes, you can.” Kudos to you, Keisha. You’re a breath of fresh air. Thank you so much for being on our show. I’m excited to stay in touch with you and see how things go and here to be a beacon of light to help you in that mission that you’re on.

Thank you.

Important Links

FREE! 8 Steps to Becoming a CRNA: https://www.cspaedu.com/ruxzegbt

Join NursesBnB campaign 500 for $500 or more where they are allowing 500 professionals to invest $500 or more into their company. This investment could return $5k or $50k in the next 5 years: https://wefunder.com/nursesbnb

Learn more about NursesBNB here: https://nursesbnb.com/home

Follow NursesBNB on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nursesbnb/

Join the Free CSPA Community! Connect with a network of Aspiring CRNAs, Nurse Anesthesia Residents, practicing CRNAs and CRNA Program Faculty Mentors here: https://www.cspaedu.com/community

Get access to application & interview preparation resources plus ICU Educational Workshops that have helped 1,000s of nurses accelerate their CRNA success. Become a member of CRNA School Prep Academy: https://cspaedu.com/join

Get CRNA School insights sent straight to your inbox! Sign up for the CSPA email newsletter: https://www.cspaedu.com/podcast-email

Book a mock interview, resume or personal statement critique, transcript review and more: www.teachrn.com