Monday Mailing - September 27, 2021

RARE Monday Mailing Year 28 | Issue 03 27 September 2021

1. Housing and Homelessness are Issues in Rural Oregon, Too 2. The Big Dry: Drought, Water Shutoff ‘Tear at Fabric’ of Klamath Basin 3. The Labor Day Fires Burned Towns and Homes. Oregon Has a Plan to Avoid a Repeat.

4. Oregon Income Remains Strong 5. Bend City Council Approves Code Changes Aimed at Increasing Housing 6. Oregon Awarded Nearly $1 Million Federal Grant to Begin CAHOOTS-like Programs 7. Rural Counties with More Broadband Tended to Do Better in 2020 Census, Study Shows 8. Revitalizing the Main Street, Revitalizing the Community 9. Policy Brief: History’s Lessons Remain as Valuable as Ever 10. RESOURCE: Reenvisioning Rural America: How to Invest in the Strengths and Potential of Rural Communities

Quote of the Week: “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

- Dolly Parton

1.

Oregon Fast Fact Crater Lake is the deepest in the U.S. and was formed more than 6,500 years ago within the remains of an ancient volcano.

Housing and Homelessness are Issues in Rural Oregon, Too

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As in many large American cities, the homeless — advocates prefer to call them “houseless” — provide a jarring counterpoint to a Portland that otherwise sees itself as a selfassured center of wealth, health and progressive politics.

But every other corner of Oregon has its version of the social ills that sicken the Rose City.

Housing prices and rental costs have jumped beyond the reach of wages. Scores of jobs go unfilled, in some cases because prospective workers can’t afford to move. Rural towns find themselves hosting secretive campers in their parks or in surrounding public forests. Sparsely populated counties can’t offer the mental health and other services needed to aid so many broken people, the ones who talk a mile a minute about how they’re going to get something going real soon, but who seemingly aren’t going anywhere.

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Rural Oregon doesn’t get a pass this time. The economic vines grow and twist together out there, too.

Read the full story.

2. The Big Dry: Drought, Water Shutoff ‘Tear at Fabric’ of Klamath Basin The Other Oregon County roads stretch for miles past mostly dry, barren fields near Tulelake, Calif., where Cody Dodson farms alfalfa and grain with his stepfather, Frank Prosser.

In May, Dodson learned the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would shut off water to the Klamath Project, a sprawling irrigation system that serves 200,000 acres of farmland in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

The decision was prompted by what is now classified as an “exceptional” drought gripping the region. Federal regulators allotted no water for irrigators in 2021 so they could have enough to protect endangered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake and still provide enough in-stream flows for salmon and steelhead in the lower Klamath River.

Read the full story.

3. The Labor Day Fires Burned Towns and Homes. Oregon Has a Plan to Avoid a Repeat.

Oregon Public Broadcasting Aaron Blacklock is leading his crew in a team warm-up before they start their work day.

“If you could fill a pool with anything and jump into it, what would it be?” he asks the group as they stretch.

Normally, these Northwest Youth Corps crews work in the wilderness, maintaining trails or pulling weeds and replanting trees after wildfires.

But today, as they imagine jumping into a pool filled with Jell-O or pillow stuffing, they’re surrounded by homes. As they whack down a thicket of blackberry brambles and invasive weeds in the neighborhood forest with hedge trimmers and brush cutters, they look a lot like a landscaping crew.

They’re basically doing extreme yard work. Northwest Youth Corps Executive Director Jeff Parker said this is one of the ways Oregon plans to avoid the kind of fires that destroyed thousands of homes and killed nine people last Labor Day. Read the full story.

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4. Oregon Income Remains Strong

Oregon Office of Economic Analysis This morning the BEA released 2021q2 state estimates for personal income, which included some noticeable revisions which we’ll get into. As expected, incomes are down from the first quarter when the last of the recovery rebates was disbursed. However, incomes remain strong, and above pre-pandemic expectations even excluding the direct federal aid.

Here is how our office wrote up the income situation in our latest forecast.

The primary reason for the strong economic outlook are household balance sheets.

Consumers today have no shortage of firepower when it comes to their ability to spend, if they want to and/or feel safe enough doing so. Current incomes are higher than before the pandemic. Much of this increased income is thanks to direct federal aid. Here in Oregon, unemployment insurance has boosted incomes by more than $11 billion while the recovery rebates added nearly $13 billion. Combined this represents about an 11 percent boost to incomes in the state in the past 18 months. Federal policy has accomplished its job of keeping households above water during the pandemic. More encouragingly, underlying income that excludes the direct federal aid has not only recovered but has nearly regained its pre-pandemic trend.

Read the full story.

5. Bend City Council Approves Code Changes Aimed at Increasing Housing

The Bend Bulletin After a two-year-long process, Bend has become one of the first Oregon cities to be in compliance with a state law that pushes for the creation of more diverse types of housing.

In a unanimous vote, the Bend City Council on Wednesday preliminarily approved a large set of development code changes aimed at increasing the amount of, and diversity of housing in Bend. A final, official approval is expected from the council next month.

The code changes require that triplexes, duplexes and town homes be allowed in any residential zone where a single-family home is allowed. The package of code changes also lowers parking requirements for developers and includes more stringent regulation of short-term rentals.

Read the full story.

6. Oregon Awarded Nearly $1 Million Federal Grant to Begin CAHOOTS-like Programs

The Register-Guard Oregon is getting nearly $1 million in federal funds to support expanding community-based mobile crisis intervention services akin to Eugene's CAHOOTS.

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The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is awarding the grants funded by the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 economic stimulus package Congress passed in March.

Oregon is one of 20 states receiving part of $15 million in planning grant awards. CMS awarded Oregon’s Medicaid program $952,951.

Read the full story.

7. Rural Counties with More Broadband Tended to Do Better in 2020 Census, Study Shows The Daily Yonder Although most of the nation’s rural counties lost population from 2010 to 2020, our analysis of new Census data shows that rural counties with better broadband access tended to do better with population change than counties that lacked access.

We can’t say whether broadband access caused the population change or whether it was the other way around – counties with growing populations may have attracted more broadband service. But it’s clear that there’s a relationship between broadband and population change, our study shows.

Read the full story.

8. Revitalizing the Main Street, Revitalizing the Community The Daily Yonder When Michael Kourianos, the mayor of Price, Utah – population 8,300 – spoke with Sen. Mitt Romney about his community and its downtown, Kourianos recalls Romney giving him one piece of advice: “He said, ‘Mayor, the one thing that reflects on a community is empty buildings on Main Street,’” Kourianos recalled, adding: “That has always been a focus of mine – how do we change that mindset?”

So that is what Kourianos is working toward with the help of community members, businesses, and a host of agencies and organizations based in the state.

Read the full story.

9. Policy Brief: History’s Lessons Remain as Valuable as Ever

Oregon Business It would be understandable for people to think that organizations like the Oregon Historical Society (OHS) focus on the past. After all, our most public responsibility is to preserve and share the history of the people, places and events that have shaped Oregon RARE AmeriCorps Program Monday Mailing | Page 4 of 5

since time immemorial. The fact of the matter, however, is that OHS is all about the future.

By honestly educating individuals of all ages about history, we foster a better tomorrow.

These past 18 months have been historically challenging ones for all Oregonians — especially so for our K-12 students and teachers. In “normal” times, students on school field trips fill OHS’ museum, exploring our exhibitions and talking with volunteer docents, each other and their teachers about what they are learning. Since the COVID-19 pandemic prevented classrooms from visiting us in person, we have devoted much time and attention to delivering history directly to virtual classrooms. We’ve done this by offering K-12 curriculum, lesson plans, supplemental materials, and professional development workshops that help educators in the teaching of, and learning about, our complex history.

Read the full story.

10. RESOURCE – Reenvisioning Rural America: How to Invest in the Strengths and Potential of Rural Communities

The Urban Institute There is no single rural America. Its communities have diverse industries, cultures, and people. But definitions of these areas tend to lump them together under the catch-all of “not urban” and focus on what they are perceived as lacking. These practices result in the categorizing of rural communities by their challenges, not their strengths, and the obscuring of their varied realities.

Rural communities are much more than what they need. Many are rich in resources, diversity, and potential. By better understanding these strengths, policymakers from the local to the federal level, practitioners, and investors can build on communities’ potential to better target investment and support.

Access the resource.

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