PORTLAND — Dick Anderson, a Republican state senator from coastal Oregon, has a chart and a readymade joke to illustrate the housing crisis facing his state. Up until 2006, his figures show, home building was on an upward trajectory in Oregon. But once he retired from a career in housing finance in 2006, the numbers plummeted.
“From there on, the production went down,” Anderson said. “When I decided to hang up my spurs, that was the end of production in Oregon.”
Sure, his retirement coincided with a global financial meltdown and a home foreclosure crisis in the United States, but Anderson’s point is taken. Since the Great Recession, Oregon and many other states have failed to keep up with the demand for new homes. In Oregon alone, the state needs more than a half million new housing units to meet demand over the next two decades, according to a state needs analysis released in December.
More than 30% of the housing must be devoted to Oregon’s residents with the lowest incomes, the analysis found, and “will most likely require public funding or subsidy.”