Special Meeting of Bend City Council: Q&A with Dr. Gregg Colburn

On May 10, 2024, the Bend City Council held a special hybrid meeting in the City Council Chambers at Bend City Hall. The sole agenda item was a question-and-answer session with Dr. Gregg Colburn, author of "Homelessness is a Housing Problem," hosted by Building a Better Bend. Council members, city staff, and invited partners engaged in a dialogue about the root causes of homelessness, local housing challenges, and potential strategies. No formal votes or decisions were taken.

Discussion Items

• Musical Chairs Analogy: Dr. Colburn explained his metaphor: homelessness is like a game of musical chairs where individuals are vulnerable due to personal challenges (like a hurt ankle), but the root cause is a lack of chairs (housing). He emphasized that factors like poverty, addiction, and mental illness are precipitating events, not causes, and that they layer on top of insufficient housing supply.
• Local Housing Production: Council members noted that 90% of homes in Bend are built by for-profit developers, with 10% deed-restricted affordable housing. Bend has approximately 14 building permits per 1,000 residents, double that of Houston and five times San Francisco. Dr. Colburn praised these efforts but stressed the need to accelerate production to match population growth.
• Funding Challenges: A council member asked about generating revenue for crisis intervention, shelters, and capital investment. Dr. Colburn cited Seattle's billion-dollar housing levy (renewed every six years) as a successful local example, noting that crisis conditions often drive voter support. He also mentioned Portland's housing bond. He cautioned that local jurisdictions are often starved of resources and must rely on scarce federal and state funds.
• Bottleneck in Exiting Homelessness: The discussion highlighted that while Bend has expanded shelter and transitional housing, a lack of affordable housing units prevents people from exiting homelessness. Dr. Colburn compared this to a cranberry processing bottleneck: the system backs up because there is nowhere for people to move to.
• Effectiveness and Communication: A council member asked how to know if local efforts are enough. Dr. Colburn emphasized the need to communicate incremental wins and counterfactuals (what would have happened without intervention). He pointed to Denver's "House 1000" initiative, which housed a thousand people and built public goodwill, unlike Seattle, where lack of visible progress has eroded trust.
• Land Use and Growth Boundaries: Deschutes County Community Development Director Peter Gutowski asked about urban growth boundaries and population growth. Dr. Colburn showed slides comparing cities like Charlotte, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas (which have more land and lower homelessness) versus Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle. He argued that jurisdictions with fixed growth boundaries must either expand or densify to avoid housing crises, but noted that denser development is more environmentally sustainable.
• Incentives and Financing: Another staff member asked about effective incentives. Dr. Colburn recommended low-cost financing (e.g., 1–2% loans) to keep developers building during high interest rates. He cited Amazon and Microsoft's $2 billion housing loans in Seattle as a model, emphasizing that such loans are recycled and can be tied to affordability requirements.
• Competing for Federal Funds: Affordable housing staff asked how smaller communities like Bend can compete for federal resources. Dr. Colburn criticized outdated HUD formulas that favor older cities in the Midwest, and urged Oregon's congressional delegation to advocate for reform. He noted that political attention favors larger cities.
• Multifamily Absorption and Market Rate Housing: A council member raised concerns about multifamily absorption and community skepticism. Dr. Colburn argued that any new housing helps relieve pressure, but market-rate development alone is insufficient; it must be paired with affordable housing. He called for innovation in construction to reduce costs.
• Regional Collaboration: A council member asked about siloed bureaucracies and the need for collaboration across city, county, health, and school systems. Dr. Colburn highlighted the regional homelessness authority in King County as an example of breaking down silos, and noted that untreated homelessness is expensive, with costs distributed across emergency rooms, police, and fire.
• Mobility and “Our People” vs. “Their People”: Dr. Colburn addressed the narrative that homeless individuals come from elsewhere. He cited a UCSF study finding 90% of homeless Californians originated in California. He stressed that mobility is largely local, not cross-state, and that regional approaches are needed to avoid a race to the bottom.

Key Outcomes

• No formal votes or resolutions were adopted. The meeting was a learning and discussion session.
• Dr. Colburn reiterated that increasing housing supply is a necessary but not sufficient condition to solve homelessness; it must be combined with services and supportive housing.
• The council and staff gained insights into funding mechanisms (levies, bonds, low-cost loans), the importance of communicating incremental successes, and the need for regional and cross-sector collaboration.
• The meeting concluded with thanks to Dr. Colburn and the sponsors of the Building a Better Bend lecture series.