A new regional housing council will included leaders from the three counties in Central Oregon and the cities within them. 

Rising cost of living, a competitive rental market and a dearth of available affordable housing and shelter have hallmarked Bend and much of Central Oregon in recent years, but a new regional housing council will convene leaders from throughout the region to address those issues and better advocate for funding.

The Regional Housing Council will include elected leaders from Crook, Deschutes and Jefferson counties and the cities within them alongside housing and homelessness officials. All will work with the goal of creating a cohesive “Central Oregon voice” while meeting the needs of Central Oregon cities of all sizes.

No other jurisdiction in the state is doing anything like this, according to Scott Aycock, the community and economic development director for COIC. He said the seeds of the idea for the new council took root roughly seven years ago.

“We’ll do better working it together than going it alone,” he said.

One of the first items on the council’s to-do list will be a significant update to High Desert Home, a 10-year plan created in 2015 to address homelessness in the Central Oregon. The plan has become obsolete in the years since it was created due to a lack of implementable strategies, according to Aycock.

Ultimately, creating a group in which cities as small as Culver and Metolius or as large as Bend, Redmond and Prineville can be heard is important, according to Tammy Baney, COIC’s executive director. That’s because Central Oregon has a regional housing market, and because many housing and homelessness services are administered regionally too, she said.

A lack of available land and low housing and commercial vacancy rates have pigeonholed many of the options for developing affordable housing and shelter, Baney said.

“We, unfortunately in our region, are not sitting on a lot of apartments or rental units that are not being utilized by the people who are here,” Baney said.

That has led jurisdictions in Deschutes and Jefferson counties to resuscitate motels and rental properties to function as housing on many different levels.

The new council intends to simultaneously highlight the needs of individual communities while creating regional priorities so Central Oregon gets its fair share of state funding, Baney said.

“That’s where a regional plan,” she said, “can be as beneficial to Bend as it can be to Culver and Metolius.”

Finding an affordable home is often difficult in Central Oregon

Central Oregon renters have few options when it comes to finding affordable living arrangements.

---

A solution to homelessness in Central Oregon? A first of its kind apartment building

Bend’s first permanent supportive housing development will mean Central Oregonians can transition out of homelessness.

---

What is affordable housing in Central Oregon?

Affordable housing means different things to people at different income levels.

---

Bend’s single-family median home price hits record $800,000 in July

The upper end of Bend’s housing market drove record-breaking median single-family home prices.