Street Roots • June 15-21, 2018
Rural Housing
Page 9
OREGON COAST, fro m page 5
police department that’s set up for
25,000-person county and you have 75,000
people here on a weekend visiting, they can
get overwhelmed.”
Baertlein said police get bogged down
with calls for both emergencies and petty
annoyances, such as tourists parking in
people’s driveways, blocking them in or out.
“If they could just pretend like they are at
home,” he said, “if they wouldn’t do it at
home, then don’t do it here.”
Serving tourists while
living homeless
While checking out of the Wacoma Inn in
Lincoln City, Street Roots asked the woman
at the front desk, Nemoria Viallagomez,
what she thought about the coast’s housing
situation.
“I had to live in a tent,” she responded.
She said she moved to the area from Salt
Lake City about four years ago to live with
an aunt who had a job lined up. But the job
fell through, and her aunt never arrived.
Viallagomez quickly found consistent work
at area hotels, but couldn’t find anywhere to
live.
She and her 3-year-old son survived in a
tent for months, escaping the elements at
an area warming shelter that temporarily
opened during extreme temperatures. She
saved up and bought an RV for $1,000, but
soon discovered that most RV parks will
only allow newer vehicles. She eventually
found a parking spot at Agate Beach RV
Park, where she stayed for a couple of years.
After a three-year wait on a Section 8 list,
she’s finally in an apartment with her son,
who is now 6.
“If I won the lottery, I would build a
shelter here because that’s what the county
needs - a decent shelter,” Viallagomez said.
Stories such as hers are common along
the coast - just ask your server, bartender
or hotel housekeeper about housing next
time you visit.
You might hear about the people living in
storage units behind Aquarium Village in
Newport, of squatters inhabiting falling-down
and mold-ridden dilapidated buildings along
Highway 101 or of families making
campgrounds in the dunes their full-time
home, even with two working parents.
It’s not just service-industry and other
low-wage workers affected by the housing
shortage. Many white-collar professionals
are jumping ship because they don’t want to
be a doctor or teacher by day and a trailer
park or campsite dweller by night.
Lincoln County lost two mental health
supervisors in a row - who were hired at
about $80,000 a year plus benefits because
the new recruits could not find housing in
Newport.
“One gentleman had that position for nine
months and resigned,” said Lincoln County
Commissioner Claire Hall. “Loved the
community, loved his colleagues, loved the
work, but after months of living in camp
grounds, because he couldn’t find a place
that he considered decent on his income, he
left.... I hear that from so many business
owners, managers, public sector, private
sector. I was hearing it when I first ran for
office in 2004, and it’s only intensified. It is
probably the No. 1 barrier to workforce
recruitment and retention,” she said.
P H O T O S B Y E M IL Y G R E E N
Tillamook County Commissioner B ill Baertlein (left) wants to use transient lodging taxes to
help fu n d much-needed affordable housing. Jennifer Thiele (right) at the Tillamook Pioneer
M useum where she, works. Thiele was unable to fin d housing in Tillamook until she got on a
wuihisl jur un upurlrneni ihai had noi yei been buili. Now she spends 80 percent o f her income
on rent.
Jennifer Thiele, 26, was living in
Minnesota with her parents when the
Tillamook Pioneer Museum in Garibaldi
offered her a job as its new cultural
acquisitions educator. She had recently
graduated from the University of O reg o n
with a degree in American history, and it
was just the sort of job she was hoping to
get.
For months, she called apartment
complexes and scoured online ads, looking
for somewhere to live. Homes for sale were
too expensive and apartment complexes all
had wait lists of 30 people or more, she
said.
When she suggested buying an RV, her
parents were hesitant and thought perhaps
a motel would work.
Her father was having a hard time
believing the housing situation in Tillamook
could really be that bad, so he drove there
to help her look. He soon learned his
daughter was not exaggerating.
As he was driving along Highway 101 in
the midst of his search, he saw an active
construction site on the side of the road in
Garibaldi. He pulled over and asked to talk
to the foreman. He got his daughter on a
nearly-full list for the apartments that hadn’t
been built yet.
Today Thiele has an apartment in that
building, but it’s costing her 80 percent of
her income to rent.
“I budget meticulously,” she said.
“Everything is down to the pennies.”
Other community members said she’s
known to wrap up food that’s leftover at
museum events and take it home.
Albright, Theile’s employer, said
Tillamook seems to be headed in the
direction of more touristy coastal cities,
such as Seaside, where vacation rentals have
long been an issue.
“A lot of people don’t like that,” he said,
“there is a great resentment of that. But the
bottom line is that people coming for short
term stays now are taking housing that
Jennifer could have had five years ago.”
Enough is enough
With increased tourism driving Tillamook
County’s housing shortage, Commissioner
Baertlein thinks Using money collected from
transient lodging taxes for affordable
h o u sin g m ig h t m ak e s e n se . A fter all,
tourists like to eat at the restaurants and
shop in the stores where locals work, but
those locals need a place to live in order to
serve tourists.
He’s working on a bill for the 2019
session that he said would more “equitably
split up the monies” from the tax. If passed,
it could potentially serve as a funding
stream to build affordable housing in cities
struggling with the effects of vacation
rentals across the state. The bill’s details
are still being worked out.
But for the full potential of the lodging
tax to be realized, governments need to
ensure short-term rental owners are paying
the tax to begin with. That’s why Tillamook
County is buying a software program and
service that will pinpoint unlicensed Airbnbs
that aren’t paying it.
“They did a preliminary search in
Tillamook, and there were over 200,” said
Baertlein.
He estimates that in the unincorporated
areas of the county alone, $600,000 to
$700,000 in taxes and permit fees is going
uncollected. Plus, unlicensed rentals aren’t
getting inspected for safety.
“We’re going to be the guinea pig,” he
said, adding that if the software works, cities
in Tillamook County will likely follow suit
and do their own audits.
In January, the city of Newport formed an
ad-hoc committee to figure out what
regulations on vacation rentals should look
like - a move that many residents see as
long overdue.
According to Newport’s city planner,
Tokos, there are 195 licensed vacation
rentals in Newport. Like Tillamook,
Newport also had an independent company
search for unlicensed short-term rentals. It
showed about 80 to 85 percent were
compliant, he said.
Newport’s vacation rental committee is
considering placing a cap on the total
number of vacation rentals, limiting where
they can be located and their density.
The next step is public input, and then
city council and planners will vote on the
final recommendations in the fall.
Some coastal communities with
regulations in place, such as Gearhart and
Lincoln City, initially battled legal challenges
to limits and rules they applied to short
term rentals, and ultimately prevailed. But
the effectiveness of these regulations relies
heavily on compliance.
In Astoria, short-term rentals are only
allowed in residential areas if the owner
occupies the unit while guests are there.
But illegal rentals persist on sites such as
Airbnb. As recently as December, Astoria
City Council considered adding a permit
requirement to all Airbnb’s in an attempt to
figure out where they are for better tracking
and enforcement.
While it hashes out its own vacation
rental regulations, Newport may build its
way into a slightly better housing situation
over the next two years with the multiple
apartment complex projects it has in the
pipeline. Three projects will add about 200
new apartments, with the majority available
to people making 60 to 80 percent of the
median area income, according to local
government officials.
And the developments couldn’t come at a
b e tte r tim e . W ith a n ew S a m a rita n h o sp ita l
and a $58 million expansion o f Oregon State
University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center
under construction, locals have wondered
where workers filling all the new jobs at
these facilities will live.
But for Boxer, those units may not come
soon enough. After a long career working as
an affordable housing financier for U.S.
Bank and other financial institutions, she
said she doesn’t have the energy at her age
to keep vetting, hiring and retraining
employees at her café. In the meantime, she
sits on the city’s ad-hoc vacation rental
committee, and has been a vocal participant
at its meetings.
“I want to give the people who live and
work here, the opportunity to live and work
here,” she said. “I have just hired my 93rd
employee in 4 years and 3 months, and I am
absolutely sick to death of the turnover. I
just don’t want to do it anymore.”
*When Street Roots analyzed homes
purchased in Tillamook County, Lincoln City
and Newport between 2008 and 2018, we
found that 8 percent o f the purchasers’
permanent addresses in Lincoln City and
Newport, and 15 percent in Tillamook County,
were listed as a local P.O. box. We did not
count these purchasers as living at the property
they purchased, but we did count them as local
purchasers. I t’s possible some buyers with a
local PO. box may not actually be local. I t ’s
also possible that they are residing in the home
they purchased, but do not take their m ail
there. In Newport and Lincoln City, 142 o f the
properties purchased were vacant lots.
emily@streetroots. org
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