Lyman Gettlep

The rhythms of summer are finally settling upon our beloved valley. The scent of apple blossoms punctuate the call of warblers around town, and the chorus of frogs calling at night injects a placid sense of calm and rightness into our pastoral world. This harmony, this virtue, is not known in 10,000 cities across our land. We are luckier than most.

Yet in the hovels of Portland and in the fetid streets of Frisco, people have found their own kind of peace. The broken city is built upon the pursuit of avarice, and the rot that eats the foundation of these communities feeds upon irresponsible individual choices. For many in these places peace is found in a bottle of brandy, and serenity comes at the tip of a needle. There is no hope there that gives the same sense of a freshly cut field of alfalfa basking in the sun; there is only desperation and lack of dignity.

The seeds of the contagion that ruined these cities are coming to our own fields if we don’t soon act. Wallowa County truly is one of the last, best places. It is our collective responsibility to chart a path different from the one that so many promised lands before us have taken.

If you’re paying attention, you know that there is a severe housing shortage here in Wallowa County. While the causes are many and the solutions are debatable, we know with certainty that this dilemma is not unique to us. America as an ideal is being tested and weighed by a new generation.

Extremist groups are rising like a king tide in this country, and many of them plant seeds of doubt about Americanism into the minds of our youth. If we fail this test our children will live in a very different place. Make no mistake, our country is ailing. Much of the hope for our collective resurrection as a bright beacon to the world lies in the foundations of rural America. It is only our values which can restore stability to the rotting walls within our society, and if we fail to make the American dream attainable it is these values that will be strewn into the ditches of history.

Affordable housing is not only the foundation of the American dream, but also the lifeblood that feeds the rest of our idealism. All prosperity, all peace, all justice, stems from this source which allows Americans to keep believing in the dream. It is this stability which keeps society and its many players functioning as if they were healthy body parts of an interconnected being. Many of us seem to have forgotten our own role in that system, how fortunate we are, and the responsibility we hold to help keep the rest of its parts healthy.

Advocating for free or subsidized housing is not the answer. Let’s be honest; Section 8 is a poverty trap in this county. However, if you’re in real estate, a politician or just a concerned citizen, ask yourself how you’re affecting housing availability here. Do you really need to continue playing the mark-it-up middle man just so that you can own another rental house? Do our values dictate that we increase rent just because we can get away with it? Inflation is affecting us all, but those who don’t own a home are often hit the hardest.

If you’re among the most unfortunate in our community, remember this … nobody owes you a damn thing. However, if you can be counted among the fortunate, you damned well ought to be giving back. The society that nurtured your success is dependent on more than just a fair market based economy. More than anything, it is dependent on functioning communities and good neighbors. Let us be clear: If you’ve already entered the American dream of home ownership, you are among the fortunate. If you’re on your third or fourth rental property, recognize you’re creating a supply side issue for those who can’t enter the market.

We live in a small town. We are dependent on each other for food, services, security, health care and so much more. The day is quickly coming when folks in this community are going to suffer because nurses, police officers, grocery workers, and firefighters can no longer afford to live here. Heck, there are already local restaurants that can’t stay open because they don’t have enough employees.

I have faith that the people of this county won’t sell out like so many other communities across the West have before. I have faith in the wholesomeness that lives in our dark, rich earth, and in the whispers of spirits that reside in the old Bowlby stone foundations of our community. There’s plenty of room here to ensure we allow access to the American dream for all the participants needed for a whole community.

We owe it to our neighbors who are struggling to take a hard look at zoning laws. Additionally, we should elect pro-growth leaders regardless of party affiliation, and start the work of recruiting developers to build the right kind of housing by offering appropriate incentives. Perhaps our best option is to let the markets work … for everybody. We can remove government intrusion into the real estate markets, and support people working to own a home by repealing or rewriting Senate Bill 100. This archaic Oregon law restricts parcel development on plots less than 160 acres. Email your legislators. We can have responsible development in this county which protects our views and natural resources while adding some badly needed housing.

I’ll leave you with this thought. If you’re a landlord in this county currently asking for $1,500 for rent, and you weren’t asking that much a year ago you should be ashamed of yourself. The market may allow you to kick people while they’re down and times are hard, but that doesn’t mean you should.

That extra money you’re making isn’t going to buy a competent emergency room nurse on the night your baby has a rollover on the North Highway. However, if you hadn’t marked up the rent so much perhaps that nurse would have stayed in your rental house. Most importantly, we’d all have a long-term valuable addition to our functioning and healthy community.