Dear League Members,
Housing affects nearly every aspect of community life-from affordability and economic opportunity to health, education, and neighborhood stability. If you care about these issues and would like to help explore practical solutions, we invite you to join us for one of our monthly Housing Committee meetings.
We meet the 2nd Thursday of each month (virtually), from 2:00-3:30 PM. If you are interested, contact me.
Why might you be interested? If you care about increasing the amount of low-income, affordable, and workforce housing available to our community and/or supporting those seeking to provide shelter for our unhoused population, we could use your ideas.
Currently, we are considering these projects:
- Fair Housing and Housing Discrimination. Collaborating with the Linn-Benton NAACP Housing Committee to explore issues around housing discrimination in Linn-Benton County. Is this an issue, and how can we know?
- Housing Growth and Homelessness Response. Engaging with the County Health Department and Development Services to learn more about state and local plans for addressing homelessness, building more low-income housing, and managing future housing growth.
- Rebuilding the Path to Home Ownership. Developing a program focused on the growing challenges facing stability and wealth-building. We will explore the barriers that have made home ownership increasingly difficult to achieve, including rising housing costs, limited starter-home inventory, financial challenges,and changing economic conditions, while examining practical solutions that could help restore access to home ownership for future generations.
- Understanding Housing and Homelessness Investments and Outcomes. Working with city, county, and state authorities to better understand how public investments in housing and homelessness programs are improving lives in our community.
Housing has been identified as one of our League’s top priorities for 2026-27, including expanding access to affordable housing and implementing strategies to end homelessness.
If these are topics that interest you, we would welcome your ideas and help.
Karyle Butcher, Chair, Housing Committee