Oregon lawmakers say bill would help guide housing policy

 

Saying homeownership is crucial to building wealth and stability, Oregon lawmakers want more than 30,000 more Oregonians to own homes by 2030.

The Oregon Senate on Tuesday in a 23-6 vote passed House Bill 2698, which would create a state goal to increase homeownership rates to 65% by 2030 – followed by an additional 1.65% for the next five, 10 and 15 years. It also mandates the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department create a dashboard tracking progress on homeownership rates across the state that include race and ethnicity data.

That’s to ensure Oregon is working toward closing homeownership gaps between different racial and ethnicity groups, bill sponsor Sen. Deb Patterson, D-Salem, said on the Senate floor. Census data analyzed by the Oregon Employment Department shows that while 67% of white Oregonians and 62% of Asian Oregonians own their homes, only 30% of Black Oregonians, 47% of Hispanic Oregonians and 51% of Native American Oregonians are homeowners.

Latest available data shows 63.4% of Oregonians own their homes, and the state ranks 39th in the nation for homeownership, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Neighboring Washington, California and Nevada have lower rates, while Idaho is higher.

Decades of declining housing construction, a rising population and stagnant wages — particularly in the mid-2000s — contributed to Oregon’s current housing crisis. Oregon has 242,000 low-income households, yet only 113,000 housing units are affordable and available to them, according to data from the housing and community services department.

“Home ownership is a priority for the majority of Oregonians,” Patterson said. “It’s a time-tested means of building generational wealth and promoting long term economic stability for Oregonians and the communities we share.”

While the bill doesn’t address all issues related to housing, she said setting goals is an important step to guide policy.

The bill already passed the House in a 42-8 vote. Now that it’s passed both chambers, it is headed to Gov. Tina Kotek’s desk where she can sign it into law, let it become law without her signature or veto it. It would take effect immediately.

‘We don’t have a supply’: Lawmakers say more needs to be done

While most senators supported the bill, some legislators raised concerns that the state of Oregon needs to prioritize policies to increase the state’s housing supply.

A report in January showed Oregon needs to build about 29,500 more homes each year, mostly in the Portland and Willamette Valley region, to meet the state’s housing demand.

“We can set goals, we can have dashboards… but until this state makes policy decisions to allow more supply, which means compromise with folks that don’t want to increase supply, then we are going to see this systemic problem continue,” said Sen. Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte.

Sen. Noah Robinson, R-Cave Junction, said he supports homeownership and wants to make progress toward increasing it. However, he said he doubts dashboard and setting goals are the right way to do so.

“I think we’re just going to spend a bunch of money publishing a tracker of where we’re hoping to go, and what we really need to do is change state laws and make it easy,” he said.