RE: Housing for Hire: Data collected on short term rentals will look into its effect on housing costs News, 12/9
Of course it does! It takes away from long-term renters. Single parents and average people in the work force. Many businesses are short staffed because people have nowhere affordable to live, so people are leaving Bend and those positions are not being filled. Many owners are more interested in making the most ridiculous amounts of money they can make with Airbnbs instead of having a long-term rental that would still pay the mortgage, but be a more humble amount to the greed that we see going on. Then you have people from other places not coming here to live, but they buy a house only to capitalize on the Airbnb market here and they are not invested in the community. They are just happy to make a profit. While the people that work and live here are struggling to find places to create homes and house their families. You don't need stats as you see it all over the community—if you're paying attention and care enough to look.
—Laura Purdy via facebook.com
Yes. Yes it does. $900 for a 350ft studio apartment. It's out of control. What happened to rent control. 9.9% rent increase starting next year. Jesus!
—Natasha Ray Spekktor via facebook.com
The study has obvious flaws—Bend does not have the 4th highest per capita, nor one of the most saturated. Their study includes Sunriver as part of Bend... The City of Bend has a fraction of the reported per capita short term rentals.
—Scott Breon via facebook.com
It's super easy to blame owners that accommodate tourists because everyone in town wants them to leave "Bend sucks, don't move here"... I'm not saying it doesn't add to the problem, but it's not the sole reason our housing market is out of whack. We really need to pay attention to these council members, what stat they use, what drives them. Former councilmen have used this platform for self serving purposes in the past and it goes totally unnoticed. They conduct these studies to fit their narrative, get majority likes and NEVER SOLVE THE PROBLEM. Time to solve the issues. As Scott Breon mentioned, they included Sunriver. Source Weekly, please pay attention to these studies and the information (bad information in, bad information out). You're certainly not helping—how about an article about the flip side and why owners turn their rentals into an Airbnb? There's also no mention of the millions, yes millions of annual revenue from tourists that help the City—would love to see them out that information out.
—Shannon Salber via facebook.com
Shannon Salber You are a property manager, so of course you agree with Chris! For the record, tourist dollars do more to help those who own companies who pander to, and offer services to tourists, than local residents. That money does absolutely nothing to help those of us who work or are retired and aren't involved with companies who benefit from tourism. A lot of these tourist friendly businesses are not even locally owned, so their profits never reach local coffers. Taxes locals pay is what sustains this town...not tourists!
—Kimberly Moore via bendsource.com
RE: Street Outreach Teams to Grow News, 12/9
Portland has spent $250 million in the last five years on the homeless problem and is projected to spend $1 billion in the next five years. They keep throwing money at the problem and the problem keeps getting worse and people suffer more. One thing is true, someone is getting rich, but the problem keeps getting worse.
—Robert Savarese via facebook.com
RE: The "Shoes" Protest Was About Something Not Happening in Bend. Is It a Frontload to a Bigger Fight? Opinion, 12/9
This editorial nailed it.
The writer thought it all the way through to the dire implications. I didn't, and got stuck in my initial reaction to this "protest": The monstrousness of conflating the Nazi terror that killed 20,000,000 people in Europe with American public health measures?
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." (Voltaire)
—Foster Fell via bendsource.com
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the editorial. Faux outrage is being used across America and, as the Voltaire comment above so beautifully states, we the people will lose our democracy if the minority is victorious in destroying democracy using fake news to promote "personal freedoms."
—Sherri Davison via bendsource.com
I've just read the "Opinion" article re: "shoes on the steps" and wish to thank you for printing it.
Your points about the pot-stirrers are excellent, and yet not often so well and simply defined. People on both sides of contemporary social issues feel all this, yet many seem not to grasp or acknowledge the deeper trends, or true meaning, of the constant disturbance.
Who benefits, beyond the next election cycle? That has to be the most meaningful question; and one answer is, rather obviously, Democracy's enemies.
It's a shame, and a dangerous one, that History is not the foremost subject in public-school education, for without a good appreciation of human nature as learned through knowledge of past affairs we shall hardly encourage a thoughtful and reasonable citizenry.
"Moms for Liberty" seems just another penny-ante version of McCarthyism, stirring up trouble for their own fame (or infamy), and, knowingly or not, the propaganda uses of real enemies both domestic and foreign.
Thank you, and keep 'em coming.
—Jeremy Lewis
Letter of the Week:
I share your lament about history—would if we could only go forward on that issue, not backward as some seem to want. Come on by for your gift card to Palate!
—Nicole Vulcan
