Speech: On release of a housing needs assessment

Remarks upon the release of the Central Oregon
Workforce Housing Needs Assessment
delivered by Crook County Judge Scott R. Cooper, a
member of the Oregon State Housing Council at the
Bank of the Cascades, Bend Oregon, July 26, 2006

The List of Those Who Need Housing Help Might Surprise You

The 7-member Oregon State Housing Council of which I am pleased to be a member is the body in Oregon charged with recommending to the Governor and Legislature policy initiatives which will expand the supply of affordable housing throughout the State.

Core to our ability to achieve that mission is our ability to keep the focus of the State and local communities on the need for affordable housing—not just for vulnerable citizens traditionally served by housing agencies such as the mentally ill and low-income seniors—but also on the working class.

The people who need help in maintaining some semblance of balance between the cost of housing and the ability of working people to pay for it are all around us.

They are the clerks at Safeway and Rays and Thriftway. They are teachers educating our kids. They are secretaries and receptionists who are the heart and soul of any great company. They are the service technicians and journeymen who work for the electric company, the gas company and the cable and dish company.

None of us would suggest that these categories of workers are anything but hard-working Oregonians and Americans. But even with overtime, the salaries they make won’t keep pace with housing prices that exceed the ability of workers at the median income to pay by a factor of 2-4 times.

Let’s be honest: there was a time when many people thought affordable housing meant drug-infested inner-city projects for welfare recipients. That stereotype doesn’t reflect the reality of the affordable housing movement today. And the stereotype certainly doesn’t capture the needs of hard-working and responsible men and women and families who lack the credit and the income to buy that which every American dreams about: a home of their own. That’s why we use the term “workforce housing”: to connect in the public’s mind the vital importance of housing as a core element of the state and local economic development package.

Instead of the “projects” of yesterday, today’s affordable housing programs invest in:

Working with financial institutions such as Bank of the Cascades to provide mortgage guarantees which allow ordinary Oregonians to buydown interest rates and downpayments in order to secure mortgages affordable to working class Oregonians.

Encouraging innovative development which provides tax incentives to non-traditional developers of residential housing such as commercial developers to utilize spaces such as the floors above ground-level retail to provide affordable workforce housing.

Working with local communities to secure donations of surplus public lands and federal funding used to purchase property for “land-banks,” as a hedge for affordable housing developers against the high cost of acquiring raw land in communities where prices are rapidly escalating and availability of raw land is shrinking.

Assisting local communities through tax incentives and direct grants to rehab deteriorating buildings into housing units which are priced for workforce and which bring new life to blighted downtowns.

Working with citizens on projects such as the use of Individual Development Accounts, which use tax-incented corporate matching funds to match dollar for dollar savings by low-income consumers and allow them to grow their own downpayments over time.

Working with employers to find creative ways to tailor creative “win-win” benefit packages that include an affordable housing components. Simple examples of such initiatives include setting up automatic payroll deduction to help secure on-time, every-time payment for financial institutions in exchange for preferential interest rates, and providing up-front assistance to employees through employer-paid rental deposits, which relieve the employee of the need to come up with large cash balances but are secured by the employer’s ability to recover any potential loss through the final paycheck. Such benefits not help workers but also help employers by reducing turnover and positioning employers as desirable and attractive places to work.

At the State Housing Council we are pleased to be undertaking these and other initiatives to promote the importance of thinking about workforce housing needs as one of the many parts of the economic development effort that sustains and fuels the health and vitality of this region.

The effort to bring new capital to the region and to ensure balance between the region’s workforce and its lifestyle and economy is ongoing. Housing Works efforts through this report are supportive of the efforts of local policymakers who are trying to craft packages which make the most sense for our communities

I would like to thank Housing Works for this report and to thank the Bank of the Cascades for having the vision to fund it.. The report points out the need, and I am confident that policymakers working in conjunction with the forces of the free market and private enterprise can find viable and creative solutions to rise to the challenge

Somebody once said that failure lies not in falling on the floor. It lies in continuing to lay there without trying to get up. With this report, the slippery floor beneath us is identified. The challenge is to determine how and how soon we will be up and on our way.