A8
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
Housing vouchers going unused
Even with subsidy,
cost puts rentals out
of reach for many
By BRENNA VISSER
The Bulletin
BEND — Central Oregon
represented a new start for
Lisa Whiat.
Whiat, 56, came to Bend
roughly fi ve years ago after
fl eeing an abusive relationship
in Idaho. She just wanted to
disappear and start over.
Starting over proved diffi -
cult, though, in Central Ore-
gon’s notoriously expensive
housing market. After being
homeless for years, Whiat
secured a Section 8 housing
choice voucher — a federal
housing program that helps
qualifi ed recipients cover the
cost of rent.
But Whiat is still strug-
gling to fi nd anything she can
aff ord, with some rentals ask-
ing $500 more than she can
pay. It’s a situation growing
more common among those
who receive the federal hous-
ing vouchers. According to
Housing Works — Central
Oregon’s housing authority
— 40% of the vouchers are
currently being used because
rents are too high.
That essentially means for
every 100 vouchers issued,
only 40 get used, said Lesly
Gonzalez, the housing choice
voucher director for Housing
Works.
“The lack of aff ordable
housing is the biggest con-
cern,” Gonzalez said.
‘We need housing right
away’
There are places Whiat can
aff ord, but she continues to
be put on waitlist after wait-
list. Whiat is staying in a shel-
ter bed provided by the non-
profi t St. Vincent de Paul. She
hopes to fi nd a place where
she can be comfortable, and
perhaps grow some of her own
fl owers.
“We don’t need to be put
on waiting lists, we need
housing right away,” Whiat
said. “That’s why we apply
for things like this. Otherwise,
it could mean us going back
out and becoming homeless
again.
“I’m getting that hand up,”
Dean Guernsey/
The Bulletin
The Stillwater Crossing aff ordable housing apartments under construction at the south end of Bend in October.
Whiat continued. “I’m just
needing to be able to put it to
good use.”
The gap between what U.S.
Department of Housing and
Urban Development, or HUD,
off ers for rent assistance and
the actual price of rentals
has always been an issue to
some degree since Gonzalez
began working for the hous-
ing authority more than 15
years ago.
But what concerns Gonza-
lez now is the pace by which
rents are increasing.
Up to date data on rental
prices in Deschutes County is
diffi cult to estimate, accord-
ing to city of Bend Hous-
ing Director Lynne McCon-
nell and Damon Runberg,a
regional economist.
According to Dwellsy.
com, a private company that
tracks rents across the coun-
try, the median rent in Bend is
$2,200 as of March — a 10%,
or $205 increase from last
March.
Voucher amounts aren’t
staying stagnant either. In
2020, HUD raised its assess-
ment of what fair market rents
were by $150 — the largest
increase in a single year Gon-
zalez has ever seen.
Additionally, a housing
authority can pay up to 110%
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of what is established as fair
market rent for the year, and
up to 120% if the person is
disabled or needs another kind
of exception.
But still it’s not enough.
“Even with all of these
increases ... we still fi nd fam-
ilies are unable to fi nd aff ord-
able housing even with extra
support,” she said.
Traditionally more aff ord-
able options, such as mobile
home parks, are also becom-
ing less reliable, Gonza-
lez said. Rent for a space in
a mobile home park, which
used to go for roughly $300 a
month, now is creeping up to
$800 or $900 a month.
New development is com-
ing online in Bend, but most
of it is unaff ordable, she said.
Even so, the new development
allows people making more
income to move out of more
aff ordable units into newer
ones. But then property man-
agement companies are rais-
ing the rents of the old units
to fair market value, anyway,
she said.
This year, the waitlist
to receive a housing choice
voucher is 2,200 people long.
Roughly 100 vouchers have
been assigned off that wait-
list so far, she said. Typically
in past years, 400 to 500 are
distributed in a year, Gonza-
lez said. The average family
of four on this waitlist makes
$22,665 a year.
There are roughly 50
aff ordable housing projects in
Deschutes County that either
already exist or are in the pipe-
line, according to data from
Oregon Housing and Commu-
nity Services.
“If we have 2,200 appli-
cants on the waitlist, that’s
as many (aff ordable) units
we need in Central Oregon,”
Gonzalez said.
An emergency housing
voucher program, which was
funded through the American
Rescue Plan Act last year, is
seeing a higher degree of suc-
cess, Gonzalez said.
Out of the 96 emergency
vouchers allocated to Central
Oregon, 51 have been used for
housing, according to Johan-
nah Johnson-Weinberg, the
community outreach lead for
Thrive Central Oregon, a local
housing nonprofi t.
Several barriers contrib-
ute to the struggle of getting
housed, Johnson-Weinberg
said. A criminal history, a lack
of rental history, an eviction
record, and low to no credit all
can make fi nding a place diffi -
cult, even with extra help from
a voucher.
GRANT COUNTY
CHAMBER OF
COMMERCE
May, 2022
MUSEUMS ARE OPEN!
• etc •
Well, the tourist season is officially
here! Four of the five of our local
A uniquie boutique featuring local
museums are now open. Kam Wah
artisans from Grant County
133 W. Main, John Day, OR
Chung officially opened May 1st, 541-620-2638
• etc.handmade@yahoo.com
the Grant County Historical Muse-
um and the Ranch and Rodeo Mu-
seum are also open for the season.
It is not yet known if DeWitt Muse-
um in Prairie City will be opening
this year. We sure hope it does be-
cause it is a treasure!
Chamber Gets New Sign
Cycle Oregon – Ride the
Painted Hills
September 11-17
TOM CHRISTENSEN
CHRISTENSEN
TOM
CONSTRUCTION
Have your seen our new sign with
the digital message board? We are
so happy with it! It was definitely
worth the wait. If you see Taci Phil-
brook, tell her what a great job she
did on the design. Thank you Taci!
(541) 410-0557 • (541) 575-0192
CCB# 106077
REMODELS • NEW CONSTRUCTION • POLE BUILDINGS
CONCRETE EXCAVATION • SHEET ROCK • SIDING
ROOFING • FENCES • DECKS • TELESCOPING FORKLIFT SERVICES
www.dukewarnerrealtyofeasternoregon.com
Lori Hickerson
Sally Knowles
Babette Larson
Principal Broker, GRI
Office: 541-575-2617
Broker, GRI
Office: 541-932-4493
Broker, GRI
Office: 541-987-2363
We still have a few jobs
to fill for the Painted Hills
Classic Ride. If you have a
group that would like to earn
some extra money this fall,
please let us know.
PIONEER FEED &
FARM SUPPLY
But organizations like
Thrive are specialists in nav-
igating these challenges, and
can often help clients over-
come them, she said.
The only thing they can’t
overcome is a rental market
that continues to skyrocket,
Johnson-Weinberg said.
“If a three bedroom (apart-
ment) is upwards of $2,500 or
more and someone’s voucher
is not that much, there’s no
way around that,” she said.
The emergency housing
voucher was a lifeline for
Fred Storm, a 64-year-old
Bend man who was homeless
for roughly three years before
being able to secure housing.
At one time a lawyer,
Storm struggled to keep sta-
ble housing while also bat-
tling a gambling addiction.
He eventually gave up that
career after getting in trouble
with the California State Bar
twice, he said.
He moved to Bend in 2016
to realize his life long dream
of living in a place he used to
vacation often. But his gam-
bling addiction led him to liv-
ing in his car starting the win-
ter of 2018.
“You hit rock bottom
when you wake up, and it’s
17 degrees, and you have to
spend $15 a night to keep
your car running so you don’t
freeze in the St. Charles park-
ing lot,” he said.
Before the pandemic,
Storm had been given rental
assistance
opportunities
twice from NeighborImpact,
but ran into barriers such as
long waitlists, high prices and
a housing record that showed
his previous eviction.
But after the emergency
housing voucher was intro-
duced, Storm was identi-
fi ed as a part of a vulnerable
population to qualify. Storm
receives dialysis three times
a week for end stage renal
disease, which aff ects the
kidneys.
With the coordinated
eff orts of several service pro-
viders, Storm was able to
move up the waitlist, move
out of his car and into an
aff ordable housing complex
called Legacy Landing by the
end of 2021.
“I was so happy I nearly
cried,” he said.
Storm credits the extra
resources that were given out
during the pandemic — the
emergency housing vouchers,
the extra unemployment ben-
efi ts and others — for why he
is off the streets today.
“The emergency housing
voucher from HUD was lit-
erally a life changing event,”
he said.
While the addition of
more aff ordable units is criti-
cal, it’s not the only thing that
is needed to help people stay
housed, said Stacey Witte,
the executive director of the
homeless outreach non profi t
REACH.
It is also important to
invest more into support ser-
vices that help transition peo-
ple who may have lived out-
side for years to build up
certain skills, like how to
keep track of bills and other
life skills, she said. While
systems are in place today
to help with this, more are
needed.
“We don’t want to get peo-
ple into housing and set them
up for failure, then in a year
they are back to being home-
less,” Witte said.
New aff ordable hous-
ing complexes, including
Canal Commons and Still-
water Crossing in Bend, are
also helping making a dent,
she said. But not much will
change until there is much,
much more.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Witte
said when asked what it’s
like to watch the people she
serves not be able to use their
vouchers. “They want it so
badly. They are working so
hard to get it. They are doing
everything that’s required and
it’s taking so long.”
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541-575-1263
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