Headline: Innovative company reinvents company town. Visionary leaders hope to drive employees into debt and eventually forced servitude.
You can't image where the connection to company towns could come from in an article about people renting from their employers?
You didn't read the article. The homes are for sale, not for rent.
I know it violates the guidelines but I suggest you actually read the article and reply to that, rather than just making things up in your head and replying to the fantasy.
How deliciously ironic. How about, from the very article itself:
"So a growing number of employers around the country have decided to build their own housing for workers, mostly for them to rent but sometimes to buy. "
In fact, the line you quoted is from the first of exactly two paragraphs in the entire story that mentions any other companies (and the second is a historical reference).
Companies can give prizes or awards on top of paying their usual wages with actual money, but as soon as they start paying people less because they're compensating them with fake money it's a problem.