President Peter Courtney: Case Study

Dear Senate President Peter Courtney,
I live in Salem, Oregon and have been a resident of both Oregon and Salem my entire life. Over the last one to three years I have witnessed increases in rent and lack of affordable housing become a major issue among my friends, peers, and coworkers. It is almost daily that I hear about outrageous rent increases or multiple increases in a year – one hit close to home – my friend who’s living in a single occupant residency had their rent raised by over one hundred dollars. The second rent raise in the last year. For those like my friend who are part of Oregon’s working poor even a lower increase of one hundred dollars can be detrimental. Rent increases are normal and natural part of the market but the jump in both the frequency of increases and size of those increases have become out of control; for more than just Portland as I have watched it occur in areas like Salem. …show more content…
The issues we face are without a question a result of lack of supply with a rising demand. Many will say that we should let the market do its thing or try and bring in developers with incentives. A hands-off approach will not solve this issue as we can currently see with the continued increases in rents and numbers of those displaced in the last few years. While the incentives may help bring in more development and possibly affordable housing it will do little to protect Oregon families from displacement and gentrification as we wait for these policies to be written up and see if they’re even