Legislation that aims to encourage construction in Oregon communities squeezed by a housing shortage is an important step forward
Like Portland, rural communities across Oregon are experiencing a shortage of stable, affordable housing, most notably for low-income families.
But unlike Portland – where cranes loom large in neighborhood after neighborhood – finding someone ready to build in rural areas has proved a significant challenge.
What is a boon to developers in the City of Roses doesn’t even pencil out in a smaller, less competitive community such as Cave Junction, for example, nestled in Josephine County where the poverty rate reaches nearly 20 percent. Or in Junction City, where in this March 2-8 edition we talk with people scraping to make ends meet, and using food pantries to fill the gap.
In addition to suppressed wages and job opportunities leftover from the Great Recession, and on top of a housing void left when the bubble burst and construction came to a halt, rural communities are having a hard time finding someone simply to do the work. The fallout? There are home improvement grants to rehabilitate housing for rural communities through the USDA, but they go nowhere if a homeowner can’t get the required estimates to apply. And the limited number of those workers available causes project delays and increased costs as subcontractors travel across the state to reach worksites.
“Across the state, but particularly in areas outside of the I-5 corridor, the counties and cities have heard that there are fewer licensed sub-contractors to bid on work for housing developments,” according to a statement from the League of Oregon Cities, which testified in Salem in support of a new policy. “This shortage has two impacts; one is that the cost to hire these licensed trades is higher than normal, driving up construction and housing costs, and second it delays projects moving forward as developers look for available trades to provide plumbing and electrical installments.”
This week, lawmakers advanced a bill that seeks to put more electricians, plumbers and other subcontractors to work in rural communities. House Bill 4144, championed by Gov. Kate Brown’s office, will waive some licensing fees for qualified, experienced contractors and provide a path of financial support for small business owners provided they contract outside of the Willamette Valley. The ultimate goal, according to the Governor’s Office, is to expand the industry workforce along with the availability of affordable housing. Another goal is to spur small businesses and contractors to hang their shingle in small communities across the state.
This is an important step forward, and one that will not cost taxpayers a penny. This isn’t charity, but a bureaucratic adjustment to the systemic and national nature of our housing crisis, one that counters the popular notion of measuring housing support according to the deserving or the undeserving.
For many families, money is part of the problem, but so is simply having access to safe and stable housing. Whereas 5 percent is considered a balanced vacancy rate for rental units, rural counties such as Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson are seeing rental vacancy rates at less than 1 percent, according to a state audit.
There are market forces, indeed, but there are also stagnant incomes for lifelong Oregonians due to a lack of economic opportunities. The disparity between household income and the price of housing is far greater in rural Oregon than the rest of the nation as a whole, according to the state Office of Economic Analysis. And across Oregon, people are aging into an expensive future with incomes frozen in the past. This isn’t about pulling up a bootstrap or two – this is a systemic problem.
Our report on the Lane County food pantry and the Oregon Food Bank (in the March 2-8 edition of Street Roots) highlights why this is more than a local problem. The pressure of housing instability pushes against all of our resources. The charitable services intended for what were once temporary extremes are now stretched to cover a new normal. What was adequate before is inadequate today. What supporters gave last year won’t cover what is needed in the next. Fundamentally, crisis assistance cannot absorb the large-scale failures in our housing market.
The success of the subcontractor initiative can be amplified by additional actions now waiting the Legislature’s approval. Lawmakers can bolster this work by passing an increase to the document recording fee from $20 to $60. It is the state’s only ongoing, stable source of funding for affordable housing and was recently a key source for allocating nearly $9 million to build housing for Oregon veterans.
We take another step forward with House Joint Resolution 201, recently passed by the House. The resolution refers to voters a constitutional amendment that would create an exemption for affordable housing around local bonding laws, giving local governments the flexibility to combine funding sources to house low-income individuals and families.
It’s common sense for local governments to be able to leverage the maximum funding available to support one of our most pressing needs: housing.
Street Roots is an award-winning, nonprofit, weekly newspaper focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. Our newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Learn more about Street Roots
