Housing or jobs: Which comes first?

Susanna Julber, Consulting Planner, has been working with the Sisters City Council to help them formulate a long-term housing plan.

In her presentation at a council workshop, August 7 at City Hall, Julber pointed out what can happen to communities when a lack of affordable housing exists.

"A lack of affordable housing can cause distress on families who cannot easily find a place to live," she said. "It reduces supplies of low-cost labor sources and employers have difficulty recruiting and retaining their workforce.

"It can also negatively affect economic development efforts and reduce local school enrollment. It can also increase demands on transportation systems as workers travel longer distances between jobs and affordable housing. And it also can contribute to an unstable local economy."

Sisters appears to be suffering these symptoms right now, evidenced by the labeling in March as a "severely distressed community" by the state's Economic & Community Development Department.

Michael Anderson, economic analyst with the Oregon Economic & Community Development Department, based in Portland, explained back in March, "the agency uses both state and federal data that are available annually to look at counties statewide in four areas: percentage of the population with a bachelor's degree age 25 or higher; unemployment rate,;percentage of the population below poverty and per-capita income."

Sisters received the "severely distressed" designation for being below the state average in all four categories, according to the Economic & Community Development Department.

About 21 percent of Sisters' population age 25 or higher had a bachelor's degree in 2000, which fell below the threshold average of 25 percent statewide.

Sisters' unemployment rate of 5.7 percent in 2000 was above the threshold of 5.5 percent; its $17,847 per-capita income fell below the $19,000 per-capita income threshold; and 10.4 percent of the population were considered living in poverty, just above the 10 percent threshold, according to the data.

Although poverty doesn't appear on the surface in Sisters, it exists in pockets, said Michael Robillard, President of the Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce last March.

"There are a disturbing number of people who are utilizing our city's food banks," he said. "It is alarming. We need to strategize on getting businesses here that pay living-wage jobs."

There is a classic chicken and egg conundrum at play in Sisters: Which should come first - an affordable housing plan or an economic development plan emphasizing the attraction of employers with living/family-wage jobs?

City Council President Bill Merrill, during the August 7 housing plan workshop, spoke to this point:

"Do we continue to be an expanded tourist economy or do we concentrate on attracting people who can afford the more expensive homes, perhaps these are people who also have home-based employment with one or two employees?"

Right now in Sisters, no one person or group is creating or executing an economic development plan.

Merrill added "I don't know who or how it's (economic development) going to get done."

Councilor Shawna Bell understands the need but also sees the Council's mandated duties.

"We need to figure out how to attract and retain employers with living-wage jobs, but it is in our comprehensive plan that we have a 'housing plan' in place. This is why we are spending time on this plan," Bell said. "We cannot stop one to start the other but perhaps need to let the elected officials know that there is a strong sentiment for economic development so they will prioritize this at the goal-setting session for 2009-10. 

"Once it hits the top four to five goals for the city, then there is action taken.

Bell added, "The housing plan needs to continue forward for those people that need housing such as teachers, city employees, fire fighters, bank employees, etc.... We do have enough people working in our city that would like to live here that need homes in the $175-$225k range that we need to figure out how to make this price range of housing profitable for builders to consider this as a viable option for them."

Councilor Sharlene Weed agrees.

"It would be nice to attract living/family-wage jobs but at the moment it is a more desperate situation to house employees of businesses that are already here. Last I remember, well over half of Ray's Food Place employees did not live in Sisters... how many teachers, city, and service workers commute? The survey done by the Chamber last year reported that 67 percent of the town's employees were commuting. 

"We need to house the people that make our town work.  As gas prices rise, how many people are going to continue to commute to Sisters?  How many businesses will be able to provide enough pay to attract employees to drive from other towns?  Research shows that you need to earn $80,000 to afford the median priced home in Sisters.  How many folks that make our town run earn that kind of money?" said Weed.

Mayor Boyd, speaking to the common problems shared by communities, said, "We're not alone in this. Other towns are in the same boat. Show me the model of how to do it (economic development in other communities) and we'll look at it."

The City Council will continue to work on creating a Housing Plan with a target completion date of September 30.