Apartment Choice

By Beth Jacobi The recommendations of the Bend 2030 housing workgroup , recently offered to Bend City Council , may not ease the housing burden of many of the people who live and work in Bend. The recommendations are designed to increase housing for those making $40,000 to $90,000 a year. But according to the Oregon Housing Alliance , the current mean renter wage in Deschutes County is $11.86 an hour (about $24,000 a year). Many tourism industry workers , teachers, police officers, health care workers , social service workers , and families with children are suffering from our housing crisis. Bend leads the nation for rent increases. Bend’s average home sales price is over $400,000, and homelessness has gone up 31 percent since 2015 (Point in Time Count, 2017). The Bend 2030 housing workgroup has some great ideas, but the recommendations don’t ensure the development of affordable housing . City leaders must reserve valuable subsidies and incentives, ( property tax waiver , system ...

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler promised during his 2016 campaign that he would tackle the city's affordable housing crisis if elected. His second day in office, he took over the housing bureau , putting himself in charge of its big decisions on top of his already ambitious workload. But eight months into his term, the mayor has little to show for it. No groundbreakings. A single deal to bring an affordable apartment complex to Northeast Portland . A key policy position on his staff vacant five months after his housing expert quit . He has yet to tell developers what the city will fund if they work to put roofs over needy Portlanders' heads. Wheeler's insistence on painstaking public involvement and the lack of housing expertise on his staff have hampered progress on what he said was an urgent priority. The mayor has also made no decisions about how the city should spend the largest pool of money ever available to address Portland's affordable housing shortage . Wheeler ...

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. – National Community Renaissance , one of the nation’s largest nonprofit community builders, and the City of San Clemente hosted a Grand Opening of the highly anticipated Las Palmas Village Apartments on Wednesday, March 2. Las Palmas provides 18 units of much- needed workforce housing for very low-income families in south Orange County . Located near San Clemente’s historic downtown, the community matches the city’s “ Spanish Village by the Sea” design style and will feature an onsite community resource center with computer stations, private underground parking , an outdoor courtyard garden area and private patios and balconies in select units. A 19th unit will be for the on-site manager. The community also will feature on-site economic mobility assistance through the Hope through Housing Foundation. “Las Palmas exemplifies a successful partnership with National Community Renaissance and others,” said Mayor Bob Baker . “I am proud that the City of San Clem...

Leonnel Davis sees change in Rochester and wonders what it means for her new neighbors. "I see growth in the community but not growth around where I live," she said. Up until about three months ago, Davis was living in a home in northeast Rochester, which she was hoping to buy through a contract for deed. However a pending divorce changed her plans, and she moved with her two grandchildren, one 12 and the other 15, to a three-bedroom apartment in the Andover Apartments complex in southeast Rochester. It wasn't the first choice for the 53-year-old grandmother, but searches for three-bedroom apartment kept coming with price tags as high as $1,900 a month in buildings near the city's core. "Who are they building that for? They couldn't be building it for me," she said, noting she pays $900 for rent in her new apartment as she points to needed repairs and cites safety concerns . "I'm on disability, and I'm a single grandparent....