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54 °F 5 Day Forecast Friday, November 28, 2003 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | eSouthernOregon | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People CLASSIFIEDS Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Find a Rental Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Email Story to a Friend October 22, 2003 Study paints grim affordable-housing picture By MEG LANDERS Mail Tribune A report on a growing housing crisis in the West singles out Medford and Missoula, Mont., as examples of just how quickly economic factors and booming real estate markets are destroying affordable housing. Federal housing and census data show Medford’s home prices have increased 40 percent in just five years, far outpacing local income growth. And the number of Medford families paying too much for their housing has increased 39 percent since 1990, according to the report entitled "You Can’t Eat the View: The Loss of Housing Affordability in the West." Local business, government and nonprofit leaders gathered Tuesday in Medford for the report’s official release, meeting afterward to find ways to address the problem. Deb Halliday, the report’s author, defines affordable housing as costing 30 percent or less of a family’s income. Advertisement "Three out of four houses in Medford are not affordable," she said Tuesday. Medford’s problem is so bad, Halliday writes in the report, that the city’s housing is less affordable for its residents than homes are for people who live in Seattle, Portland, Santa Barbara and Oakland or San Jose. Produced by the nonprofit Rural Collaborative, the report illustrates the dilemma and suggests a range of possible solutions for Medford and Missoula. More ideas came out of Tuesday’s brainstorming session. Suggestions include: Build more housing units on less land. Defer or waive system development charges (fees developers pay to help offset resulting increased expenses for city services) for affordable housing projects. Develop special grant programs for homebuyers. Bolster the role of Medford’s housing commission. Rural Collaborative is a nonprofit housing network based in Park City, Utah, that supports local and regional solutions to affordable housing in small cities and rural towns in Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Utah. Medford and Missoula have a lot of similarities, Halliday said. They are similar in size, have similar economic histories — including the recent change from a farming base, and both cities’ housing prices are outpacing wage increases. And they are representative of many other communities experiencing the same problems in the West, Halliday writes in her report. Jim Kuntz, housing inspector with the Housing Authority of Jackson County and member of Medford’s housing commission, said his office’s goals line up with Rural Collaborative’s values of trying to foster affordable housing. Kuntz said Medford’s affordability problem has broader effects than just making it more difficult to buy a home. If people can’t afford to live here and move to outlying communities and rural areas, that translates into other problems like increased traffic and congested intersections and freeways. Medford Councilwoman Claudette Moore said Tuesday’s brainstorming session was helpful because options were discussed, such as creating more high-density housing and developing an employer grant program for first-time homebuyers. "The problem is the cost of land is so high," said Moore, a real estate agent. The idea of waiving system development charges for affordable housing appears unlikely because the city’s policy has been that growth needs to pay for itself. Moore said it may be possible to defer the SDCs, however. Louise Dix, Medford’s neighborhood resource coordinator, helped facilitate the brainstorming session. She said the next step will be for the suggestions to go back to the Rural Collaborative and to Medford’s housing commission. She said there was also talk about assessing housing needs countywide. The event was organized by Oregon Action, a nonprofit social action group that puts affordable housing among its concerns. Reach reporter Meg Landersat 776-4481 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2003 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback 3 WEEKS FREE! 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