What's the advantage in having your company provide housing for you compared to buying it yourself? You see it happening for health insurance, but the only reason it makes sense is because it doesn't count as income so you save the taxes. This doesn't exist for housing so it really doesn't make any sense.
None unless you are faced with homelessness or this.
If company X is offering you a job, and you really need a job, and it's not enough to pay market rent, but X has company dorms available and it will be paid via a line item off of your paycheck, you might take it.
Anyone who needs this type of arrangement is likely going to get a refund at the end of the year anyway and doesn't care about the tax implications.
Amazon could start doing something like this to have labor for its warehouses if the housing market keeps pricing everyone out, for example. Maybe also office maintenance, food prep/delivery, etc. Didn't Foxconn house its workers at one point?
These could be the housing projects of the future if done at a big enough corporate scale. Would they decay into crime-ridden slums or would corporate housing police keep things in order, but in a dystopian manner?
There's a few other reasons to own your own place.
1) I kind of despise the housing market, but you do at least earn equity instead of throwing money away to a landlord.
2) If the company owns the place, your rent goes right back to your employer, making them an even stronger entity.
3) If you are at risk of losing your house by pissing off your boss, it means you'll usually adapt your behavior in a variety of ways dramatic and subtle to fit in.
4) Switching employers means you definitely need to move instead of just probably.
5) It's just a weird vibe when you live in a hive that isn't yours and is owned by the same entity that controls everything else in your life even if they were benevolent. They're daddy and you're baby, except they have little interest in you beyond pure self-interest.
