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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (June 1, 2018)
Street Roots • June 1-7, 2018 Rural Housing Page 5 PHOTOS BY EMILY GREEN Above: A local man constructs a house out o f pipecleaners and popsicle sticks at the Coos County Housing Sum m it on April 26 in North Bend, a town o f about 9,800 residents that borders Coos Bay. A t right: A cargo ship docked in North Bend is headed to China, where Oregon logs will be milled and sold. COOS COUNTY, from page 4 and the parents give up, alcohol and drug abuse come in and then there’s no one to set a good example for the next generation. This was a problem echoed up and down the coast by service providers. They said the idea that former loggers and seafood- industry workers could be retrained in tourism jobs is a joke. “You’re not going to take these very independent, tough talking and rough talking people and put them down as a maitre d’ in a restaurant,” said Lehman, laughing. But with the decline of those industries now more than 30 years passed - many residents, at the summit began to hoot, holler and cheer when North Bend City Councilor Timm Slater told the room that pride was important, “and part of that is let’s drop the attitude of being a victim.” But embracing service-industry and retail jobs is not necessarily the answer. Johnson said she assists people employed in those sectors who feel like no matter how hard they work, they just can’t get ahead. Melinda Torres, homeless liaison for the Coos Bay School District, said she watches her students fall into the same fast food and retail jobs their parents worked because, just like their parents, they don’t have the skills to do anything else. A shrinking workforce and stagnant incomes that, for the past few decades, have stemmed primarily from jobs in the hospitality industry, Coos County residents are facing their own, unique housing predicament Vacancy rates are higher than in many areas of Oregon, hovering around 3 percent for ownership and 7 percent for rentals, according to Buki and Eddington’s analysis. Fifteen percent of all housing units are considered vacant - they just aren’t all available because they’re vacation homes or they’re unfit for occupancy. “I’m not sure you have an affordability problem,” Buki told housing summit attendees. “What you have is a crappy stock problem - and a poverty problem that adds up and conspires to have lots of good stuff above $300,000 and very few good options below $200,000.” , Lehman agrees: “We have a lot of crappy rentals. That’s one of the common complaints you hear, ‘I’m paying good money and it’s sketchy.’” Nowhere to go but home their homes are often so outdated and falling apart, they’re undesirable or unsafe. Buki hammered-in his point about the plethora of dated, avocado-green-furnished houses so much that when Slater, the North Bend city councilor, took the stage, he began as if it were a confessional. “Hi, my ' Bilik ’ .. A main driver of Coos County’s housing shortfall is the aging face of the community. While the population has remained relatively level in number, its median age has increased markedly from ag£ '43 to'agte n a m e is T im m , a n d I b o u g h t m y h o u s e in • Hormeend 48 since 2000. . 1978.” Residents who are young enough to have children make up the smallest demographic, with Millennials comprising just 14 percent A collective crisis 8 of the population in 2016. More than 2,000 Most agree that finding suitable housing ■ of them have left Coos County to put down began to be an issue about 10 years ago - roots and raise their children elsewhere following the Great Recession. It only over the past 18 years. became a hot topic in recent years, however, This article is part of Street Meanwhile, Baby Boomers and the Silent as homelessness grew more visible and Roots’ Housing Rural Oregon Generation have grown to encompass 64 consensus built among employers that’s its series. In this edition we are percent of the population. Whereas the tough to retain out-of-town recruits when looking at Coos County. nation’s Baby Boomer population as a whole they can’t find a place to live. Read previous articles is shrinking as its members move into When Marka Turner moved to the region from the series at retirement and the great beyond, in Coos three years ago from Nevada with her news.streetroots.org. County, their numbers have actually husband, three kids and small dog, she said, increased in recent years. “we could not find anything.” Lehman said Coos Bay’s Marshfield High She had taken a job as the executive School has about half the student body that director of the North Bend City/Coos-Curry it did when he graduated from it in 1971, Housing Authorities and temporarily rented even though the town’s population has the agency’s former director’s vacant home, about it is building. grown. while he was in the process of selling it, Barbara Green moved to Coos Bay from The nationwide decline in residential care before moving into a hotel. “We ended up Portland’s hot real estate market with her facilities and nursing homes, along with buying, it was easier than trying to rent family in 2014, and she was surprised by longer lifespans, have resulted in a greater something,” she said. how difficult it was to find a home - not just percentage of elderly residents aging in Turner purchased a house in Bandon, one she could afford, but a home that was place across many American communities. where the housing stock is in a better state available in general. Green, like Turner, had With no new affordably-priced houses on of repair than in the Coos Bay-North Bend moved for a job. Her family lived with her the market, it creates a choke point in area where her office is located. brother-in-law for three months until they system: The elderly don’t downsize and stay “I know $300,000 may not sound like a were able to secure a small 2-bedroom home in place longer, keeping their homes off the lot coming out of Portland, but paying in a less-than-desirable part of town. Green market and unavailable for people looking $300,000 and then needing to put another said everyone warned her not to move into for their second home. And because those $50,000 or $100,000 into it to upgrade stuff, that neighborhood, but after living east of people are not moving out of their first was very discouraging,” she said. “And that’s 82nd Avenue in Portland, she said she homes, there is nothing available for first the story you will hear a lot from other wasn’t too worried about Coos Bay’s “worst time homebuyers. professionals, businesses: People won’t part of town.” In coastal areas, where many elderly flock come here - they can’t find housing. In Having lived in Coos County all his life, for their golden years, this phenomenon is Curry County, I know people who were in Lehman said he’s had his current home for only exacerbated - although the increase in an RV for six months until something years and never had any trouble securing median age is more largely attributed to housing, personally. His grown children and became available.” locals aging in place than beach-seeking On the bright side, she said, because the seniors on the move. problem has become so bad for so many See COOS COUNTY, page 7 When the elderly do move or pass away, people, momentum to actually do something About this senes 9
