Do you know someone who has a hard time finding an affordable apartment in Bend?

We can tell you one reason why.

If you look at a map of where the state of Oregon invests its so-called LIFT money for housing, there are some tiny dots in Bend and big blobs elsewhere in the state.

The map shows Bend is not getting money to build many homes or apartments from this state program. In fact since the Legislature created the program in 2015, Bend received for rental construction: zero LIFT money.

Other communities got it. Bend got zero.

When we asked the agency running the program Oregon Housing and Community Services about LIFT, they even told us Bend did get money from LIFT for rental housing. It’s an understandable mistake and, to be fair, they were very helpful. After all, a map made from state data shows that Bend did get rental money. But that map is wrong. Bend did get awarded some funding for homes through LIFT. We should all be grateful for that. Bend got zero for rentals, OHCS later confirmed.

LIFT is only one of the many state and federal programs that aim to promote affordable housing. If Bend is getting zero for rentals from this program, though, we wanted to know why.

LIFT stands for Local Innovation Fast Track. Gov. John Kitzhaber had been pushing for more state investment in affordable housing. When Gov. Kate Brown replaced him in 2015, she kept pushing. The Legislature backed it and she signed the LIFT program into law.

Bend rental projects have not won in the scoring system.

The scoring is complicated. For instance, although the state scoring summary says 100 points are possible, there are more than 100 points possible. That’s because a project in a wildfire disaster area gets 5 bonus points.

Well, anyway, here is the list of things that give projects points:

• Serving communities of color (30 points)
• The level of LIFT subsidy per unit, with lower being better (15 points)
• Financial viability (11 points)
• Construction costs lower than industry norms (6 points)
• Units with more bedrooms (5 points)
• Rents affordable at lower area median income (5 points)
• Engagement of minority, women and/or emerging small businesses (5 points)
• Capacity of development team (5 points)
• Performance on related projects (5 points)
• Lead developer is a qualified culturally specific organization (5 points)
• Federal wildfire disaster area (5 points)
• Readiness to proceed (2 points)
• Innovation in building or
• finances (2 points)
• Efficiency in building or
• finance (2 points)
• Replicability of project (2 points)

We aren’t saying that system of scoring is wrong. It’s a political decision. It’s a policy choice. But that particular choice about scoring may mean Bend loses and keeps losing on LIFT money for rentals.

There are a handful of Bend projects who are in the running for money this year. We are going to be watching to see how they score, why they lose again — or maybe even win.