By Tom Henderson • Staff Writer • 

Affordable housing bill stirs local discussion

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Comments

Coco

Thank you to Remy Drabkin for thinking of the residents of McMinnville. As a resident of McMinnville myself, I face the challenge of being able to afford living in the town in which I work. We will have to move out of town but continue to work in McMinnville because rent has gotten so expensive. I guess if you have wine money coming into McMinnville, who needs it's residents, right?

Mike

Maybe Mr. Perle doesn't have an low wage employees so he does have to worry about where they live. With tourism comes many many low wage service jobs. Where does Perle think all those restaurant and wine shop workers going to live? Tourism oriented business should be doing their own advertising. Having an available, knowledgeable work force has a huge impact whether tourism thrives. Bad service and the place gets a bad reputation. Perle should want good happy workers who can afford to live here.

Coco

They don't care where employees live, or if they can afford to live within the town they work. As long as they show up on time, business people will not care what they had to go through to get there.

Support affordable housing or risk having a community made up of very wealthy tourists and very financially depressed commuters.

john fritter

So on the same front page we brag about getting a $100k toilet in a 9.5 million dollar park and then complain about affordable housing? My simple mind see's a pretty simple solution. Sure wouldn't be the first time funds have been redirected. I'm sure I just don't have a clue but it seems like we spend a lot of money on things I would consider second, third or even farther down than affordable housing. I would think affordable housing would in the end help fund a lot of these other projects by putting more money in circulation as well as more tax dollars?

john fritter

Meant to say "and a 9.5 million dollar park budget".

gregtompkins

Why is homelessness so bad in illegal sanctuary states? I travel for my job to Seattle and Santa Cruz. I can’t even believe how bad homelessness is in all three west coast states. Being illegal sanctuary is making homelessness worse.

Jim

If the city council and county commissioners spent more time on bringing living wage jobs to the County and McMinnville nobody would have to worry about affordable housing. I’m sorry but tourism does not support jobs that pay great wages and have great benefits. With higher paying jobs you create a bigger tax base for all the “Pie in the Sky” projects our council and commissioners seem to be interested in right now.

Sponge

While "higher paying jobs" may "create a bigger tax base", since property taxes are the backbone of local governments, higher paying jobs allow people to buy more expensive homes, thus paying more property taxes, they also create a demand for higher end housing. Asking those governments to spend "more time bringing living wage jobs" to the area doesn't necessarily solve the problem, unless you believe all the low wage service workers will transition to the new higher wage jobs. Not gonna happen.

Coco

As a non-service, middle income range professional, I find it hard to find affordable and decent housing while being able to put away money for later on. It's nearly impossible. No, not nearly. It is impossible. With all the careful steps my family has taken to be responsible members of society, we most likely will end up depending on the ability of other people to pay into the system so I can get a check at the end of my life and not end up on the street. That said, yes, bring in more wine and tourist housing.

Jim

I’m still trying to figure out why the state of Oregon and McMinnville have to come up with affordable housing. When I was young and didn’t make a lot of money I rented a house in the country by Dayton because that’s what I could afford. People in this day and age think everybody owes them something. There are cheaper houses for sale and rent outside of McMinnville and the state of Oregon so live to your means.

Stella

When I was young I worked in downtown Portland Office and rode the bus to a Gresham apartment.

Affordable Housing is a "ending homelessness" key word.... google the Ten Year Plan To End Homelessness" Yamhill County Oregon. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

Google/Watch this video... all the answers:
"Seattle is Dying"

Stella

Enforcement then treatment.... repeat if necessary but quit enabling. Taxes will go down, quality of life will go up and anyone that can afford to live here will live here.

What will go away? "Services".... the reason we are in this problem. Churches can preach vs becoming a magnet for out of town drug addicts. Quit enabling Yamhill County

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