Bend YIMBY News - 6/23/2025
Bend / Oregon
For our monthly gathering in June, we’re going to join forces with the “Engage Deschutes” folks, since their event is one day after when ours would normally be, and the topic for June is Housing and Homelessness:
June 26th, 6 PM onwards, at the Unofficial Logging Company
Everyone is welcome!
Governor Kotek signed SB 974 into law which - hopefully - will speed up housing permitting: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/06/housing-permits-age-like-fine-wine-lawmaker-says-a-new-law-seeks-to-speed-approvals.html - this was one of state Senator Broadman’s bills.
Rick Russell’s non-profit Mountain View Community Development obtained some land to use for safe parking to help people on their way out of homelessness, thanks to a 2-1 (Adair and Chang in favor) vote by the Deschutes County Commission. YIMBYs wrote in to say ‘yes!’, and went to one of the hearings as well, but no public testimony was allowed during the hearing. More information on safe parking: https://bendbulletin.com/2025/06/12/safe-parking-homeless-shelter-sites-on-the-rise-in-bend/
Rick and company also have a couple of upcoming events on the subject of homelessness: https://signup.com/client/invitation2/secure/110242364202/f#/invitation
Sisters will be having a “conversation about houselessness” on June 24th: https://www.ci.sisters.or.us/administration/page/community-conversation-about-houselessness-june-24th
Bend YIMBYs were present at the Embrace Bend Civics Lab:
Elsewhere
An interesting post from the author of “Arbitrary Lines” about the arbitrary nature of many cities: https://substack.com/home/post/p-165565803
“My neighbors stood up to ICE. What they did next shows why California politics makes no sense” - https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/ice-immigration-san-diego-20358933.php - almost all of us know someone with this kind of political outlook.
Texas continues to make it easier to build housing: https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/16/texas-legislature-housing-bills/
Meanwhile, the governor of Connecticut vetoed their housing bill:
When you wonder why states like Texas are gaining electoral votes and states like California, New York and Connecticut are losing them, part of the answer is: housing.
