5A
THE HOUSING CRUNCH
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2016
Seaside seeks to get a roof for those out on the street
Number of
working homeless
has skyrocketed
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE — Contrary to urban
legend, there are no buses depos-
iting homeless people in Seaside.
But in the nearest big city, Portland,
3,800 people sleep on the streets or
in shelters every night and another
12,000 people in overcrowded and
often unsafe conditions. In Clat-
sop County, the homeless popula-
tion tops 1,000; in 2013, nearly 400
homeless were counted in Seaside.
Wherever they come from, it is
the city’s obligation to serve them,
according to Alan Evans of the
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach
Center.
Helping Hands houses 174 peo-
ple for a night in four Oregon coun-
ties, with 60 of those beds in Sea-
side. Two-thirds of shelter beds are
fi lled by working people and the
other third by emergency service
clients, Evans said, with the goal of
transitioning them from shelters into
long-term housing.
There’s the rub: there’s not much
visitors to the center — even those
with vouchers for rent or other
expenses — can afford, he said. “We
cannot build housing fast enough
to deal with people falling out of
the system,” Evans said. “They’re
scared to death — there’s no hous-
ing, and people are falling out of the
system.”
Scarcity, hurdles
Availability is the issue. For
those with vouchers, which typically
cover rentals of about $700 a month,
availability in Seaside stands at sev-
en-tenths of 1 percent of all rentals.
Housing is at full capacity with
waiting lists, “and it’s going to get
worse before it gets better,” he said.
“Right now I have people who have
housing vouchers in my facility
who can’t fi nd an apartment, with a
voucher that says we’ll pay the rent.
The vouchers are, in some cases
enough, but a two-bedroom unit is
over $1,000 a month.”
“I just rented (out) an apartment
in Seaside for $940 — and that’s the
most ‘affordable’ I’ve got in Sea-
side.” Operations Director Bonnie
Belden-Doney of North Coast Rent-
als said. That price gets a two-bed-
room 1 1/2 bath on Necanicum
Drive.
“People are begging for homes,”
Belden-Doney said. “Usually I get
a 30-day notice when someone’s
moving,” she said. “I’ll post that
online 15 days before it’s vacant
and I usually have it rented within
a week.”
On the private market, in late
August, a one-bedroom, one-bath
rental was available on Craigslist
for $795 on Columbia Street and a
two-bedroom, two-bathroom apart-
ment on Avenue A for $1,100.
A construction project underway
on Avenue M “will be full in 10 min-
utes,” Evans said, and those most in
need are unlikely to win residence.
Landlords or building manag-
ers are able to take their pick of the
applications, which limits many
Evans said. “What do we do? I don’t
have an answer.”
NIMBY in Seaside?
Alan
Evans
Lianne
Thompson
‘People are
begging for
homes.’
Bonnie Belden-Doney
operations director of
North Coast Rentals
applicants.
Few rental agencies accept peo-
ple with prior evictions, bankrupt-
cies or serious legal issues.
Most rental or management com-
panies examine credit score, debt,
rental history and require renters to
earn three times the amount of the
rent. Deposits are 150 percent of
the rent. Some people can’t do that,
Belden-Doney said.
“Their stories will rip your heart
out,” Evans said. Last year, a woman
with two young buys was working
for $12 an hour, but when school got
out, she had to pay $7 an hour for
childcare. “You take her insurance
payment for her car, her telephone
payment for her cell phone, her car
payment, which was minimal, and
she’s got about $60 a week to pay
her rent, her utilities and her bills,”
The face of homelessness is
changing, Evans said. “Ten years
ago 95 percent of the people we saw
were addicted or ex-offenders and
had no place to go,” he said.
“Folks have been on the eco-
nomic precipice for over a decade,”
Clatsop County Commissioner
Lianne Thompson said in August.
“Some have fallen over. Some are
still at risk. What we are looking for
is an opportunity ladder. How do we
catch more people who can’t meet
the opportunity structure?”
That’s a question eluding easy
answer. Even well-funded programs
go awry without proper supervision,
planning and cooperation from the
community.
“You could build barracks for the
homeless, but people aren’t going to
want to stay there,” Evans said. “We
have to know how to run what we
want to run. We can’t just open.”
The community must be behind
it for it to be successful, City Coun-
cilor Jay Barber said.
An effort to develop a vacant
apartment building on Edgewood
Avenue in Seaside to transitional
housing received such severe oppo-
sition from neighbors the project
never got off the ground.
“It’s understandable people have
these feelings,” Barber said. “We
understand the intimidation that
can come when you have 25 or 30
homeless people in a shelter. Our
plan is to try and locate our facilities
in areas that won’t bump up against
residential neighborhoods.”
Block grant sought
In October 2015, Seaside City
Council voted unanimously to be
the sponsoring agency for Helping
Hands on a Community Develop-
ment Block Grant, a program run
by the United States Department of
Housing and Urban Development.
“That grant will be happening
this fall, and it’s quite a process,”
Barber said.
The grant will be prepared by
Helping Hands and submitted by the
city on their behalf. “It’s a grant pro-
posal under the watchful eye of the
city so we’re both in agreement,”
he said. “We will start putting that
request together this fall.”
Funding could raise several hun-
dred thousand dollars for housing. If
the grant is successful and property
or buildings are acquired, the city
will own the facility and then lease
it to Helping Hands.
“The real resource is to bring the
federal funds in to make this really
work,” Barber said. “The grant
would centralize Helping Hands ser-
vices, improving emergency, reentry
housing, services to homeless peo-
ple in terms of medical insurance,
all those things that they desperately
needed that are scattered through
multiple sites through Seaside.”
“Homelessness is an issue that
should be dealt with on a level so that
our city is involved in it, our county
is involved in it,” Evans added.
“The resources need to be provided
by nonprofi ts and local government
together, because the responsibility
is ours as a community.”
Seaside: Not everyone agrees on the need to expand
Continued from Page 1A
“We’ve worked very well to be come
as popular a destination as we are, but
now we have to fi gure out how to get
workforce housing so they can live
in the area and go to work,” Johnson
said.
Clatsop Eco-
nomic Develop-
ment Resources
has cast the
problem in dire
terms .
“You know
where employ-
ees are living
Don
now?” Executive
Johnson
Director Kevin
Leahy
said.
“They’re living
at Fort Stevens.
They’re living
in campgrounds.
They’re living in
cars.”
Leahy said
there is a mis-
Kevin
conception that
Leahy
new construc-
tion is going to be “cheap housing.”
“People say, ‘There goes the
neighborhood,’” he said. “But this
is not focusing on Section 8 or sub-
sidized housing. This is for the ser-
vice workers. In our community,
Clatsop County’s median wage is 80
percent of the state of Oregon’s aver-
age. We know the struggles we have.
We know this great economy is also
increasing the rents we pay.”
Vacation homes cut in
The impact from vacation rentals
has cut into the available long-term
housing. Of the vacant rental stock,
the city reported in a 2011 analysis,
76 percent are vacation, recreational
or occasional use units.
“This segment of the market has
a strong impact on housing develop-
ment, availability and pricing in Sea-
side,” city staff wrote .
With so many people buying up
property and making them second
homes and vacation rentals, it’s taken
away from the pool of long-term
rentals for professionals and service
workers.
“The economy is doing better, and
if the economy is doing good, a lot
of the people who own houses want
to turn them into vacation homes as
opposed to full-time rentals,” Mor-
risey said. “So a lot of those fl ipped
and there’s not a lot of low-income
housing.”
Developers seek incentives
The 15-acre Blue Heron devel-
opment at Avenue S and Wahanna
stalled in 2006.
The project had preliminary
approval for 58 single-family homes.
Developer Max Ritchie recently
examined the possibility of a zon-
ing change that would allow for mul-
ti family units to provide workforce
housing. City offi cials discouraged
the idea, however, citing transpor-
tation issues, a lack of high-density
zoning near the site and anticipated
opposition from neighbors.
City of Seaside
census and
housing data
101
PACIFIC
103
Long
Beach
401
4
WAHKIAKUM
CLATSOP
Seaside
Area of focus
202
Cannon
Beach
26
TILLAMOOK
N
101
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Item
Seaside
Oregon
Population, 2015 est.
Population, 2010 est.
Population per square mile (2010)
Land area in square miles (2010)
Under age 18, 2015
Under age 18, 2010
65 years and over, 2015
65 years and over, 2010
High school graduate or higher, age 25 or older*
Bachelor’s degree or higher, age 25 or older*
In civilian labor force, age 16 or older*
Median household income (2014 dollars)*
Per capita income (2014 dollars)*
Housing units, 2015
Housing units, 2010
Owner-occupied housing units*
Median value, owner-occupied housing units*
Median selected monthly mortgage costs*
Median gross rent*
6,540
6,457
1,640.9
3.94
20.2% †
20%
20.4% †
17.4%
87.5%
23.2%
55.1%
$41,037
$27,127
4,501 †
4,638
47.1%
$285,900
$1,624
$872
4.03 million
3.83 million
39.9
95,988
21.4%
22.6%
16.4%
13.9%
89.5%
30.1%
62.4%
$50,521
$27,173
1.72 million
1.68 million
61.5%
$234,100
$1,591
$894
*2010-14
† 2014
estimate
Alan Kenaga/EO Media Group
Hotel manager is ‘fortunate’ to
fi nd an affordable apartment
It is diffi cult
to hire workers
isa Bonati moved to Seaside in
May 2015. In fi nding an apart-
ment, Bonati went through three dif-
ferent management companies, she
said, before fi nding a little place near
the beach.
“I was very fortunate to get this
place,” Bonati, manager of the Ashore
Hotel, said. “People are having a very
diffi cult time hiring people because
they’re aren’t any places to live on the
salaries they’re making.”
As a result, businesses are short-
staffed, which leads to a stressful
work environment.
“We’re short in housekeeping and
the front desk,” Bonati said. “We’re
having people coming from Adrift
Long Beach (Washington) to fi ll
in. If we didn’t have those people I
don’t know what we’d do. I’m hop-
ing they’ll start building some sort of
multifamily housing, maybe dormi-
tory housing for the summer, where
people could come and have room-
mates, just for the summer.”
— R.J. Marx
L
population growth, estimated to jump
from 6,500 in 2013 to more than
8,000 in 2030. Using revised fore-
casts, the amount was scaled back to
137.5 acres.
An urban growth boundary expan-
sion would be needed to acquire that
land, and offi cials are looking to the
east of U.S. Highway 101.
Four areas are under consider-
ation for expansion: the South Hills,
the Lewis and Clark Hills, the North
Hills and the East Hills.
The South Hills was found to
yield the greatest amount of units per
acre.
The East Hills was found to be
the largest area for potential growth,
“allowing for the widest range of
potential housing types.”
Not
everyone
agrees
on the need to expand.
Oregon Coast Alliance Land Use
Director Cameron LaFollette, who
lives in Seaside, said earlier this year
she was strongly opposed to expand-
ing the city’s urban growth boundary.
“It’s clear that Seaside does not
have the population increase or hous-
ing need for expansion,” LaFol-
lette said. “There is a great need for
affordable housing, but expanding
the hills by 200 acres — not an area
where affordable housing would go.
It is much more likely to be devel-
oped into second homes.”
Urban specialist Mia Nelson of
1000 Friends of Oregon told the city
in a 2015 letter that the housing need
could actually decrease within the
next 20 years. She advocated use of
existing stock rather than new land
for construction.
In April, the Seaside Planning
Department postponed the urban
growth boundary discussion until
new 14-year population fi gures
become available from the state next
year.
Meeting the need
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Ashore Hotel Manager Lisa Bonati was fortunate to find an af-
fordable apartment in Seaside, where housing is hard to find.
The Planning Department does
not have a list of affordable proj-
ects , according to offi cials, but a
26-unit apartment building on Ave-
nue M is the only apartment project
in development.
The City Council could con-
sider the reduction or waiver of sys-
tem development charges, like cit-
ies such as Portland, Grants Pass and
Roseburg have done as an incentive.
“If there could be some kind of
formula for discounted development
fees for people who are dedicating at
least a signifi cant portion of a facility
to low-income housing, that would
be a big step forward,” Barber said.
Community partnerships
Another hurdle to development
comes from the high fees for parks,
sewer, stormwater, transportation and
water levied by the city, about $9,000
per new unit.
“One of the reasons for the huge
unmet need of workforce housing in
Seaside is that the high cost of system
development charges deters builders
from taking on projects in the city,”
Ritchie said. “With such a huge
demand for housing, I think the city
should enact a temporary waiver of
system development fees to encour-
age builders to meet the housing
need.”
City Councilor Jay Barber agreed
that development fees can be a big
barrier.
“By the time a builder pays those
development fees, they can’t afford to
do that. It doesn’t pencil out, ” he said.
But if system development
charges are reduced, the difference
could be passed to taxpayers, Mor-
risey said.
“We’re not going to have Seaside
residents subsidize development,” he
added.
Expansion debate
A report delivered to the city
Planning Department early this year
by Otak Inc., showed Seaside would
need about 197 additional acres to
satisfy the city’s 20-year projected
Leahy said he hopes to bring more
housing online by working with
developers to form private and public
partnerships, including incentivizing
private development.
Clatsop Economic Develop-
ment Resources seeks to “deal with
perceptions and misconceptions”
by bringing more residents into the
discussion.
“Communities can be strength-
ened by providing housing affordable
to all income levels,” Leahy said.