By Lori Chavez-DeRemer

I have lived in the Portland area for almost two decades. It has been a privilege to watch this beautiful area flourish in so many positive ways. However, there are growing pains we must face.

While the metro population expands, this growth has conversely led to an undeniable increase of homeless citizens. We need to ask ourselves, "Why are more people becoming homeless?" Is it because they are dealing with mental illness, or can't make enough to own or rent a place to live? While these are serious complexities, one undeniable fact is the supply and demand issue that arises when those without homes are able to transition off the streets yet have no place to go.

Solving this issue comes with hurdles, such as the scarcity of developable land under our urban growth boundary, sufficient investment in infrastructure for housing, potential construction regulations and the need for an able workforce for the building trades. This all needs to be discussed to meet affordable housing needs - both for potential new residents and the homeless.

Basically, homes are too expensive to fully accommodate this large influx of residents. While new homes are being built, they're simply not being built fast enough for this population growth. Furthermore, the average salary needed to buy a home in Portland is $76,884, among the highest in the country.

Implementing rent control or mandatory inclusionary zoning may initially seem helpful, but eventually, this would only lead to even higher housing prices. These acts would create more demand within this already limited housing situation, and consequently, increase prices that would only exacerbate the problem.

Instead, we should build units that the markets allow and innovate in solving this crisis. This can be accomplished by relaxing or changing some our state's idiosyncratic and restrictive land use laws, namely the urban growth boundary that currently restricts the area for buildable land. For those unfamiliar with the restriction, the growth boundary exists to separate suburban neighborhoods from farmland, impeding any development on sacred and agricultural land.

I have focused on this issue as the mayor of Happy Valley. Preserving land is integral, but our region's growth boundary hinders our ability to build housing on completely buildable land. The current boundary not only limits housing, but also creates higher prices and in turn, more homelessness.

We must expand the urban growth boundary to account for this new population boom. Since I want to talk supply and demand, I also recognize that growth boundary expansions rely on changing other factors to work.

These factors include compensating labor industry workers better, decreasing property taxes and funding infrastructure improvement. These are seemingly unmanageable issues, but they sit at the forefront of every mayor's discussions across the country.

We must be pragmatic. Our citizens and businesses are counting on us to be real in our solutions and alleviate the current affordable housing and homelessness crisis.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the mayor of Happy Valley. Her opinions are her own.

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