LA GRANDE — More than 200 government officials, builders, construction workers and architects met last week in La Grande to discuss housing in Eastern Oregon.

But before any of those discussions could occur, the organizers of the Northeast Oregon Housing Summit first had to find a venue large enough to accommodate all the people who wanted to attend.

In fact, the summit had to move twice to a larger location — a testament to the regional interest in the topic. The summit originally was scheduled for the Timber Ridge Apartments, an affordable housing complex in La Grande but eventually was held at the Blue Mountain Conference Center at the La Grande Armory.

But Timber Ridge remained part of the summit: After the panel discussions were over for the day, participants had the chance to tour the complex.

Before that, though, participants discussed the lay of the land for affordable housing, celebrated recent wins and pondered the challenges ahead.

“Housing prices (are) a statewide problem. We know that. We need to connect with folks in the region where they are at,” said Brian Hoop, the director of Housing Oregon, the Portland-based nonprofit that arranged the event.

Housing Oregon partnered with the Northeast Oregon Housing Authority, Umatilla County Housing Authority and the Housing Authority of Malheur and Harney County to put on the summit. 

The lay of the land

Union County Commissioner Paul Anderes and Umatilla County Commissioner Cindy Timmons shared anecdotes from their counties to illustrate the local impacts from the lack of affordable housing.

Anderes said that three issues inevitably get brought up at every meeting he attends. First, business owners are struggling to hire and retain employees. This leads into the second issue — housing. If employers do find people to hire, then potential employees struggle to find a place to live.

The Union County commissioner said that if the hurdles of hiring and housing are somehow overcome, the third issue arises — a lack of child care.

The lack of housing has become an economic development problem, according to Lisa Dawson, executive director of the Northeast Oregon Economic Development District. Through her work with entrepreneurs, small businesses and local cities, she said the need for workforce housing became clear — and a global calamity brought the issue into tighter focus. 

“When the pandemic hit, workforce housing became a crisis,” Dawson said.

Timmons recently met with a family who was getting ready to move into housing. For the last two years the whole family, including six children under the age of 8, lived in a 200-square-foot gooseneck RV.

“It’s taken that long to put all the pieces together to move into housing,” Timmons said.

She added that the family happily lived in the RV these past two years – before that, they were homeless and living under a tree on a path by the river.

Challenges and solutions

Some of the panels at the summit outlined how local leaders, government agencies and nonprofit organizations are working toward solutions.

There is a need for housing at all income levels, according to La Grande Community Development Director Mike Boquist. He said people in upper-income brackets, who might traditionally have built homes on parcels of land, are discovering they can’t afford the land or can’t pay the tab to get services such as water and sewer out to the parcel.

So instead, Boquist said, they are buying lots and houses that in the past would have been purchased by middle-income families. This trend then continues downward — leaving little to no housing at the lowest level.

Over the next 20 years, La Grande will need around 800 new dwelling units to accommodate projected residential growth, according to the city’s 2019 housing needs analysis.

The city is taking steps to incentivize housing production, Boquist said. In 2023 the city council adopted a new land development code. The new code aims to provide additional housing development and affordable housing options within La Grande and the urban growth boundary. While the new code included a variety of changes, two of the major changes involved implementing restrictions on short-term vacation rentals and decreasing minimum lot-size requirements.

Nils Christoffersen, the executive director of Wallowa Resources and a workforce housing-related subsidiary, Working Homes, pointed out that in Wallowa County, wage growth has diverged drastically from housing prices. In the city of Joseph, for example, median household income increased 28% between 2010 and 2022, while the median home sales price increased by 178% between 2012 and 2024.

Both Wallowa and Baker counties face unique challenges since they’re so reliant on recreation and tourism, Christoffersen said. In Wallowa County, for example, housing stock is lost to meet demand for second homes and vacation rentals. A recent report by the Rural Engagement & Vitality Center found that the city of Joseph had a 24% vacancy rate in houses — but that most of those vacant houses are for seasonal and recreational use.

Working Homes is attempting to fill the gap by creating housing solutions for the county’s workforce, according to Christoffersen. The organization is aiming to create housing options for people who make between 60% and 120% of the area median income.

One of the issues impacting housing development is a lack of subcontractors, Timmons said. The Umatilla County commissioner pointed to her own family’s experience operating Marv’s Glass Shop.

However, she said, communities and developers are taking steps to address the issue and the need for more subcontractors, with, for example, programs to train students in the construction trades.

“Developers have decided to grow their own because enough is enough,” she said.

The Northeast Oregon Housing Summit was made possible through funding from the Oregon Housing and Community Services, The Ford Family Foundation, Housing Production Partners, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Urban League of Portland.

The original version of this story misstated statistics about the city of Joseph. Median income in Joseph went up by 28% from 2010 to 2022; the original story incorrectly stated the first year in that range. The original story also incorrectly reported the vacancy rate for Joseph’s housing stock, which is 24%. The updated version of the story has been corrected.