As we have noted in other editorials, the shortage of affordable workforce housing in Wallowa County is not a problem that we’re going to be able to solve overnight. The roots of the problem date back decades, and it will take time to dig out of this particular hole.

And it’s most likely a problem that will require a number of answers. Considering the different housing needs in the county, there’s no way that a single silver bullet will do the job.

To that end, give credit to the Wallowa County Education Service District, which is in the midst of crafting a seemingly small but still significant part of the solution.

As Bill Bradshaw reports in today’s edition of the Chieftain, the ESD is building four apartments to be used as transitional housing for county educators. Like other employers throughout the county, school districts have been making job offers to prospective new employees, only to have those new hires turn them down — not because the employees didn’t want to work in the county, but because they couldn’t find places to live that they could afford.

These apartments will give a handful of those new employees a place to live while they start their jobs — not to mention time to find more permanent housing in the county.

It’s one solution to ease the county’s housing crunch — and it’s a model that could serve as an inspiration to other employers who are hard-pressed to lure new workers to the county. Employers that don’t have the resources of the ESD might be able to consider forming collective efforts with other local companies. Those efforts conceivably could be organized by a nonprofit entity such as Working Homes, the new organization spun off from Wallowa Resources to focus on workforce housing.

And here’s something that also bears repeating: This is an issue that’s going to require all sorts of different ideas. Not every idea will work. But we need to be willing to accept the occasional failure (as long as we learn from those failures) so that we can find the specific solutions that will work for Wallowa County.

Part of the overall solution, of course, involves getting a better sense of what our targets should be for creating workforce housing. A recent housing needs assessment done for the city of Enterprise concluded that the city will need 57 additional units over the next 20 years.

Now, you can quibble with the exact number recommended in the study, but a quick look at population numbers suggests the estimate is at least in the ballpark: The July 2022 population estimate from Portland State University’s Population Research Center pegged the city’s population at 2,126 souls, up 74 from the 2020 census number.

The population in the county as a whole also is growing: The PSU estimate for July 2022 for the county was 7,541, up from the 2020 census number of 7,391. That growth rate, by the way, is among the highest in Eastern Oregon. (If you’re interested, check out the online version of this editorial for a chart listing population figures for Wallowa County and its incorporated towns.)

Plans still are afoot to launch a countywide housing needs assessment and the information it gathers will help suggest the depth of our housing deficit. But we don’t really need to wait for those numbers to start crafting solutions: Although we can argue about the precise number of housing units needed in the county, everyone agrees that the answer is more than zero.

And one thing is for sure: Every addition — even if it’s just one or two, or, in this case, four — helps with this math.