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Overcast. Low 54F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph..
Overcast. Low 54F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.
Firefighters trek across a field in front of Salmon River Mobile Village in Otis in September 2020, the day after the mandatory evacuation order for the Echo Mountain fire was lifted. (File photo)
The Lincoln County Board of Commissioners last week approved a resolution transferring a tax-foreclosed property in Otis to Habitat for Humanity of Lincoln County, bringing one of dozens of wildfire-displaced families in temporary living conditions a step closer to a permanent home.
Commissioners approved a quit-claim deed during their regular meeting Aug. 3, giving the local Habitat for Humanity organization all rights to a property at 4220 Salmon River Highway. There were two caveats under which it could be returned to county ownership, Assistant County Counsel Brian Gardner told the board.
“The process of it becoming low-income housing would need to be complete within five years,” he said, or ownership would revert, as it would if the property stopped being used as low-income housing during its foreseeable life of 30 years.
“Low-income housing,” a federal designation, is reserved for those making 80 percent or less of the median family income, adjusted for family size, in a given area. The median household income in Lincoln County was $50,775 from 2016-2020. According to U.S. Housing and Urban Development rules, if an area’s median income is less than the statewide non-metropolitan median, $65,800 in Oregon, the statewide figure is used.
Commissioners approved the transaction with little discussion last week, as Gardner, the local Habitat chief and a state consultant, provided details during the board’s previous meeting.
Gardner said the county acquired the property after its owners accrued $2,500 in delinquent property taxes, and the 0.52-acre lot has an assessed value of $54,950. County records indicate it was acquired in 2020, and the last tax payment was made in 2015.
Under state law, the county attorney said, only three things can be done to dispose of such a foreclosed property — it can be sold at auction, donated for low-income housing or donated for child care or social services. Otherwise, the county can only hold the property — it’s not allowed to develop it for its own use.
“It doesn’t do us any good to have foreclosed properties on our rolls,” Gardner said. “We can’t improve them. We can’t do anything with them. We basically have the option of selling them or keeping them but not being able to do anything with them, which can create a liability issue, or with this proposal, having some assurance of it being developed in an efficient and speedy process.”
Commissioner Kaety Jacobson noted this project was somewhat unique, as the state government would work with Habitat to rapidly develop the property for a survivor of the 2020 Echo Mountain fire, which destroyed almost 300 homes along the Highway 18 corridor west of Rose Lodge.
Thomas Kemper, a consultant hired by Oregon Housing and Community Services, joined the meeting by video. He said he and his partner, Bruce Wood, were contracted to develop affordable transitional and permanent housing in wildfire impacted counties, including Jackson, Lane, Lincoln and Marion.
He said the state purchased 140 modular housing units, currently sitting in Jackson County and Idaho, and they’ve committed to send two to Lincoln County, preferably to be located in the Otis burn area. They’ll also foot development costs.
“The intent is that we would actually donate the modular unit to a local nonprofit and provide the funding for getting it placed,” including infrastructure and foundation, Kemper said. “It’s dedicated to a wildfire survivor with a household income of 80 percent or less. The critical issue is it has to be done very quickly. The expectation is that this would occur within two to three months.”
Lucinda Taylor, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Lincoln County, said that timeline wasn’t feasible.
“We have confirmed that we would have to go through the quiet title process on this property in order to get title insurance on it,” Taylor said. “That will take three months. But, as soon as that process is done, we would be ready to have our contractor already in place, and all of the permits in place, and everything rolling concurrently in order to get it moving.”
Taylor noted a contractor would have to install a septic system, as the property was remote from any sewer. She said her organization’s board of directors already preliminarily signed on to the project and was ready to hold an email vote to formally accept the donation, should commissioners approve it.
The Habitat director told the News-Times Monday the organization is still seeking bids from multiple contractors in order to meet the requirements of the state funding. They haven’t selected the family who will be moving in once the house is placed.
“I have talked to disaster case workers about some basic criteria, and they’ve confirmed that there are a number of individuals who would qualify,” Taylor said. “We’ll put together an application.”
To qualify, applicants will probably have to have owned their home — though not necessarily the land, Taylor said.
“So, it could be somebody who was in one of the trailer parks that were destroyed that is not being rebuilt,” she said. (After more than a year in the dark about their small community’s fate, former residents of Salmon River Mobile Village, where 29 of 31 homes were destroyed, learned earlier this year the new owner would not rebuild for the same purpose.)
We know that there are a number of households impacted by the wildfire that would qualify (for low-income housing),” Taylor said. “We are going to do some outreach so we let anyone who might be eligible know so they can apply, then it’s basically a lottery system from there.”
Once the family is selected, it will be given the home at no cost for the building or associated construction, with a title restriction that says it can only be sold as low-income housing. Habitat would ideally retain title to the land with the same sale restriction, Taylor said.
Nobody knows exactly how many Echo Mountain wildfire survivors are still in temporary housing. A rough estimate is about 30 families, or from 50 to 100 people.
Bethany Grace Howe, who worked with wildfire survivors since immediately after the disaster, first as a resource navigator contracted by the county, then director of a relief nonprofit and then through an Oregon Department of Human Services Emergency Management Unit, said approximately 135 families have returned to a dwelling on their property in Otis.
Of the remaining approximately 165 households — which could mean from one person to multiple adults and children — about 10 are still in some state-supported temporary housing, such as a hotel. Howe said probably half of those were just waiting for their homes to be complete or delivered, facing long supply-chain-driven delays.
“Probably 20 are households that have not been able to secure any kind of long-term housing but are no longer, or very close to no longer, being serviced by any formal relief effort because their (mental health, substance use or other issue) has impeded their ability to be their own advocate,” Howe said.
She said her estimate for how many families left the area and found permanent housing elsewhere, 40 to 50, was “a guess piled on top of a guess” — based on her knowledge of how many fire-impacted properties have sold and how many people went to other counties and continued to receive state wildfire aid, as well as those who informed her they were leaving.
“Those numbers are still evolving,” Howe said. “I’m still talking to people who fell under the category of, ‘we’ve got this figured out, we’ve got an apartment, we got a place to live, we’re restarting our lives,’ and they’ve let me know in the past few weeks that it’s just too much, that they need to go. They need a new start.”
Commissioner Jacobson noted there are also about 10 families still temporarily housed in Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers on Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians land in Lincoln City.
“When you ask how many are still temporarily housed, that’s not an easy number,” Jacobson said, as some of the 300 properties that burned included more than one household at the time, sometimes living in a trailer or vehicle and not eligible for wildfire housing relief and thus not tracked by agencies.
“And some people who have gone back are living in a trailer or a fifth-wheel,” Jacobson said. “They’re back at their property, but I wouldn’t call that permanent housing. It’s difficult to know how many, but what’s important is that we know we still have many people still in need of a home, and we need more resources to assist them.”
Jacobson pointed to other ongoing housing projects for wildfire survivors, including one administered by the Lincoln County Housing Authority for fixed-income, largely senior, housing in a former hotel. She also said Kemper, the state housing consultant, was working on the development of a tiny home village in the Otis area, and the county is already in the process of taking title to another tax foreclosed property, which would be the site of the second modular home Kemper mentioned during the meeting.
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