WALLOWA — For Whitney Murdoch, it all started in the town of Wallowa in the weeks following the August 2022 hailstorm that devastated the town, causing millions of dollars in damage to vehicles, businesses and homes.

She was working for the Blue Mountain Long-Term Recovery Group to help residents get the resources they needed to rebuild — and she decided to start looking for a place to live herself.

It took her most of a year.

At one point, frustrated by the search, Murdoch bought a camp trailer and set up in an RV park in Wallowa. There, she was surrounded by fellow residents, people who were working full-time jobs, but who also couldn’t find a place to live — including some of the contractors who were repairing hail-damaged homes.

Murdoch started asking questions about the shortage of housing and eventually was directed to Nils Christoffersen, the executive director of Wallowa Resources, a nonprofit organization based in Enterprise. Wallowa Resources was in the midst of launching a spinoff organization, Working Homes LLC, to work on solutions to the regional shortage of what’s known as workforce housing — in other words, homes that working people can afford.

Murdoch approached Christoffersen and started quizzing him.

“Look, I’m an essential worker,” she remembers telling him. “I can’t find any housing. What’s going on?”

It was the start of a conversation. Eventually, Murdoch said, Christoffersen asked her if she might be interested in a job at Working Homes.

And that, more or less, is how Murdoch became the project manager for Working Homes.

It still took her until October of this year to find a place to live.

It’s not a new story in Eastern Oregon: Employers throughout the region report serious difficulties recruiting and retaining workers for jobs that, in some cases, have been open for months, if not years. The housing shortage throughout the region is one of the main reasons those jobs remain vacant.

“You can’t have a thriving economy if you don’t have anywhere to put workers,” said Grace Donovan, executive director of the Rural Engagement and Vitality Center at Eastern Oregon University.

And it’s not just private sector businesses that are feeling the pinch.

“It’s the public sector, in the health care sector, in the nonprofit sector, that we’re having the same problems,” Christoffersen said. “And it became a recurring theme that, pretty much across the board, our local employers were struggling to recruit and retain staff.”

In Baker County, a shortage of nurses prompted Saint Alphonsus Health System to close the birth center at the Baker City hospital in late August this year.

In Grant County, the impact of the housing shortage on efforts to recruit new employees is a recurring theme for Cameron Marlowe, chief executive officer for the Blue Mountain Hospital District.

“I don’t think we are necessarily worse off than the majority of small, rural communities,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not hurting really bad.”

He said his human resources department regularly reports that a great candidate for a job has backed out of the offer because of a lack of housing in the community.

Long time coming

One of Gov. Tina Kotek’s first acts as governor, when she took office in January 2023, was to create the Housing Production Advisory Council, which will produce a set of recommendations about how the state can build 36,000 homes annually over the next decade. Oregon has averaged closer to 18,000 homes annually in recent years, exacerbating an existing shortage.

As early as 2008, Christoffersen said, Wallowa County officials had identified housing as an emerging issue and recognized that the county had an inadequate supply. Then the pressure on the county’s existing housing stock started to mount as residences were transformed into second homes or vacation rentals.

At the same time, Christoffersen said, “the market was increasingly building homes that were out of reach for a lot of people on Wallowa County wages.”

Eventually, he said, it became clear that the shortage of workforce housing was dragging down the county’s economy.

“This is a serious constraint to economic growth and opportunity in our county, because it’s limiting the ability of new or existing businesses or new startups to grow their businesses,” Christoffersen said.

And not just in Wallowa County.

In La Grande, it’s not unusual for employers to get grilled by potential employees about the housing situation in the city, said Timothy Bishop, the city’s economic development director.

What’s available? If they accept a job offer, will they be able to find and afford a place to live?

Bishop said he frequently hears from employers who want to expand their businesses but can’t secure the necessary employees. And housing issues also affect employee retention, he said.

“We’re struggling,” La Grande Community Development Director Mike Boquist said. “Right now we’re trying to find the ability to house the workforce for the businesses that are currently in our community that are looking to expand.”

Finding solutions

Just as it took years for the workforce housing shortage to fully emerge, experts agree that it will take years to solve.

But communities across Oregon already are trying different approaches.

Recently, the La Grande City Council held a series of work sessions dedicated to housing. While the city just overhauled its land development code, which should help encourage new housing, councilors and city staff are looking at other ways to incentivize developers to build in La Grande.

The city is considering promoting housing development through funding a multimillion-dollar infrastructure project, which would construct a trunk line to bring water and sewer services to a large piece of land within the city limits. Developers have previously expressed interest in building subdivisions in the area, but a lack of connections to city water and sewer lines has limited growth and housing.

Council members are also considering waiving or reducing certain fees that developers normally have to pay. Residential building permits typically cost around 1% of the total project costs, which can add up for developers building multiple houses or a subdivision.

Earlier this year, the La Grande council waived roughly $26,000 in fees for the La Grande School District’s Tiger House Project.

The Tiger House Construction Program is a career program at La Grande High School in which students can develop the technical skills needed to be successful when pursuing a career in construction. The students are helping GCT Land Management of La Grande build a two-story townhouse duplex.

The approximately 2,000-square-foot structure is set to be completed by the end of the school year. When the duplex is sold, that money will go toward the project’s next build.

The duplex Tiger House students are now building will be purchased by Grande Ronde Hospital to be used as housing for new health care professionals it expects to be hiring in the future.

In Enterprise, the Wallowa County Education Service District has remodeled the upstairs floor of its downtown building to create four apartments to serve as transitional housing for educators.

“All of the districts have lost or have had rescinded acceptance of positions because they couldn’t find housing,” said Landon Braden, superintendent of the Education Service District.

In Grant County, Marlowe is trying a similar approach. The health care district owns a couple of homes, he said, and is planning to rent them out by the room.

“That’s kind of a drop in the bucket,” he said. “We don’t think that’s going to take care of all our needs, but that’s something in the short run that we’re looking at.”

The health care district also is considering the possible purchase a multi-unit building that could offer short-term housing for new employees while they search for permanent housing in the area. It’s easier, Marlowe said, for workers to find a place to live if they’re already in the community.

Meanwhile, city and county officials throughout the region are exploring accessory dwelling options — housing within existing properties — with several cities leaning into expanding tenant options for garages, basements and sheds as an alternative to standalone rentals.

As of November, planning departments across the region have recently collaborated to form the East Oregon Building Officials Association, hoping to create a stronger voice in policy changes that can hinder future housing development.

And Joseph is the first city in Oregon to be involved with Eastern Oregon University’s Rural Engagement and Vitality Center in a new program intended to help rural cities without much planning expertise. Most smaller cities in Eastern Oregon don’t have a full-time planner — in fact, might not have any planners — and that could be a constraint on building new housing in those communities.

The Rural Planning Program will tap the skills and knowledge of EOU faculty members and students to work with Joseph officials on the city’s buildable land inventory, coupled with policy analysis and code review — all work that will contribute to an update of the city’s comprehensive plan.

Homes for working people

Also in Wallowa County, Murdoch, the project manager for Working Homes, is one of the people working hard on one of its first three projects, a renovation of an old five-bedroom farm-style house that’s scheduled to be completed in January 2024. Working Homes plans to build two other houses on the site in the city of Wallowa in the spring of 2024.

Working Homes has two other projects in the works: It has a building in downtown Enterprise with 27 apartments under contract and wants to preserve those for workforce housing to protect them from being snapped up for condominiums or vacation rentals.

It also has a contract for a 20-acre parcel in Joseph that’s zoned for multifamily housing and is exploring possibilities for the land and also working to involve the community in planning the project. Murdoch said all these projects will emphasize workforce housing that can be afforded by people who are working full-time jobs.

It all keeps Murdoch busy, and that’s the way she likes it.

“I’m the jack of all trades,” she said. “I’m going to be working in that Wallowa house, sanding the windows and painting. I don’t get to sit in an office. If I want to get the house done, I’ve got to get down there.”

But she also appreciates the opportunity to keep tabs on other ideas and approaches she sees being tried throughout Eastern Oregon to ease the housing crunch.

“I think rural Oregon is a brotherhood,” she said. “We’re all in it. … One unique thing I have found is that people up here are so willing to share information, share solutions, attack problems together.”

Still, it’s work that will require time — years, says Marlowe, CEO of Grant County’s Blue Mountain Health District.

“It’s going to take a lot of people and a lot of time to really make a difference,” he said. “And with this workforce housing shortage, it’s going to take many, many years. But we’ve got to start today.”