BEND, OR -- Central Oregon’s affordable housing crisis is well documented. Bend is one of 14 entitlement cities in Oregon, qualifying for federal funds to try and alleviate the problem. This year, Bend will receive just over $445,000. That's $8,000 less than in 2016.
Jim Long, the city’s Affordable Housing Manager, says every area is receiving less, but the formulas used to allocate the funds puts Bend at a big disadvantage. "They actually have a category for rental housing constructed prior to 1950 occupied by low-income tenants, of which we have virtually no units meeting that criteria. But, that criteria actually rates higher than the percentage of your people in poverty or your vacancy rate."
He says the formula favors more urban areas. He tells KBND News, "I’m not by any means throwing any shade on Corvallis at all, but, for example, they have 70% of our size in population and they also have $23,000 higher per year, per capita income; but they get over 1.5 times the federal funding we do. Eugene, they’re not even twice our size; they get five times the amount of funding we do. Salem’s not even twice our size; they get 4.5 times the amount of funding we do." Portland has about 7.5 times the population of Bend, but gets almost 29 times the federal Community Planning and Development funds.
According to Long, no other entitlement city in Oregon gets less federal funding as a percentage of its population than Bend. "What it really means is that we have to scramble more. We’ve got to work harder with less resources from the feds. We have to come up with our own local resources; we have to come up with our own local programs. We just have to work harder to keep up. All that being said, the good news is we’ve arguable put up more affordable housing units in the last 10 years than any other city in Oregon, with the exception of Portland."
