BEND and REDMOND, OR -- The City of Bend and the City of Redmond have jointly launched a survey to determine fair housing needs in each community.
Lynne McConnell, Affordable Housing Coordinator for the City of Bend, says this is the very beginning of the process to help these two cities learn how best to provide housing that's truly affordable. "A requirement of receiving some of our Federal funding is to put together a plan as to how we will spend that money over the next five years. This survey is the first step in that process, and we are looking to see what experiences folks in our region are having with finding housing and this will help us decide how to allocate funding going forward."
McConnell says when it comes to affordable housing, demand far outweighs supply. "Unfortunately, by the most recent data that the City of Bend has, we need approximately 16,000 additional units, just to meet the current demand, so we're a little bit behind. But, one of the questions we have is, is the type of housing that's being built meeting the needs?"
According to McConnell, the survey is the first step of a many-step process to determine how best to allocate Federal funds. "The next step in this process is, we will write individually, the City of Redmond and the City of Bend, a[n] assessment of fair housing and that will be presented to the public. Folks will have the opportunity to comment on it and let us know how they feel about the work that we've done and whether it really captured what they need and what they're looking for, and that we expect to have happen this summer, and then we'll go into a bigger dive on kind of next funding priorities, as well."
The online survey will be available until February 28th, at www.fairhousingsurvey2018.com.
