Juneau has a new housing rental crisis. The community invited 5,000 people to come for an Ironman race.

With only around 1,000 hotel rooms, the city proposed a creative solution: Encouraging Juneau residents to go on vacation and rent their homes to athletes for a week. The race is Aug. 7.

One athlete, Michael Bissell, of Alabama, said he was late to the game when looking for a place to stay, but he got something arranged fairly painlessly.

“I was looking at hotels for about two weeks,” Bissell said. “And after no luck there like, seriously, none, I started on a Facebook page.”

Th...