In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre and Marty sit down with Albany, Oregon Mayor Alex Johnson II to explore how one mid-sized city is quietly becoming a model for housing development done right. From cutting permit times from 18 weeks to two, to building homes across every income level, Mayor Johnson shares the hands-on leadership and community-driven strategies that are transforming Albany.

- How Albany overhauled its System Development Charges to incentivize middle-income and small-home construction

- The Housing Affordability Task Force that brought 47 community voices together to drive real policy change

- How permit timelines were cut from 18 weeks to two weeks and what that means for builders

- The full housing continuum Albany is building, from tiny home villages and veteran housing to starter homes and high-end apartments

- The personal story behind why housing became Mayor Johnson's driving mission

- How Albany is composting biosolids to generate city revenue and reduce costs

- The "If I Were Mayor" youth contest and how student input is shaping city planning

- How deferred SDC payments at occupancy are unlocking more development capital for builders

Resources and People Mentioned:

- Alexandra Ring, League of Oregon Cities

- Liz Irish, mortgage and residential housing professional

- Matthew Rutgers, Albany Community Development Director

- Sophie Adams, Albany Economic Development Manager

- Farm Workers Housing Development Corporation, Maria Aguera

- Hub City Village tiny home community

- Hayden Homes, Meadowlark development

- Valor Place, Linn Benton Housing Authority, Donna Holt

- First Story homeownership program

- Governor Kotek

- Senator Wyden and Senator Merkley

- Representative Gomberg

- Mayor Kyle Palmer, Silverton

- martyfulford.com and cynit.net, episode sponsors

- Music by Karen DeWolfe and Adrien Kriz

In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre and Marty sit down with Ryan McAlister, president of Gerding Builders and the first non-family member to lead the employee-owned construction firm, for a candid conversation about what it actually takes to build housing in Oregon. Ryan breaks down the development process from raw land to ribbon cutting, the real barriers slowing projects down, and why the housing crisis runs deeper than most people realize.

- The difference between market rate, affordable, and middle income housing, and how each is funded

- Why the condo liability problem is killing a key pathway to homeownership and what Oregon is doing about it

- What cottage cluster housing is, how it works, and why the first local example being rental-only is a missed opportunity

- The full development timeline for a large apartment project, from concept to construction

- Why Oregon affordable housing funding has been pre-allocated through 2027, creating a coming gap in new projects

- How power grid capacity has become one of the newest and most urgent constraints on housing development

- How local jurisdictions, permitting processes, and zoning requirements shape where and how fast projects get built

- Why the starter home market has collapsed and what that means for a generation trying to build wealth

Resources and people mentioned:

- Girding Builders

- Oregon House Bill 2001

- Representative Gomberg, Ways and Means Committee, Oregon State Legislature

- MUPTE (Municipal Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption)

- Oregon cottage cluster housing legislation (passed 2023)

- Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC)

- Opportunity Zones and census tract designations

- Marty Fulford at martyfulford.com and fulhouserealty.com

- Cynit.net, Cyber, IT and Auditing

In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre and her co-host sit down with Oregon State Representative David Gomberg, who represents House District 10 along the Oregon coast, to discuss the tangled relationship between housing, infrastructure funding, and state policy. Representative Gomberg brings his perspective from the powerful Ways and Means Committee to break down how Oregon is attempting to address a housing and infrastructure crisis with shrinking resources and growing demand.

- Why small coastal towns face disproportionate infrastructure burdens, including a $150 million dam replacement and a $12 million sewer crisis in a town of just 1,100 people

- How Oregon uses lottery bond funding to finance critical water and sewer projects and why that system has both strengths and serious limitations

- The state budget shortfall triggered by federal tax changes and reduced federal spending, and how it is forcing painful cuts to housing programs

- The impossible trade-offs lawmakers face when choosing between shelter funding, eviction prevention, and affordable housing development

- How one third of coastal housing stock sits vacant as second homes or short-term rentals, removing it entirely from the affordable housing market

- The tension between expanding urban growth boundaries, protecting farmland and forest, and creating enough buildable land for affordable housing

- Oregon's senior property tax deferral program as a tool to keep older residents in their homes without gutting local tax revenue

- What Representative Gomberg would prioritize with a magic wand, starting with getting people off the streets and into stable, community-integrated housing

Resources and People Mentioned:

- Oregon Ways and Means Committee

- Oregon Legislative Fiscal Office

- League of Oregon Cities

- Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services

- SB 1599 - Oregon tax disconnect legislation from the 2025 short session

- SB 1537 - Governor's housing production bill, which created the Housing Accountability and Production Office (HAPA)

- Oregon Senior Property Tax Deferral Program

- Senator Ron Wyden (mentioned in reference to federal-local infrastructure coordination)

- martyfulford.com, fulhouserealty.com and cynit.net, partners of Housing Voices

- Music provided by Karen DeWolfe and Adrian Kriz

- HousingVoices.com

In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre and Marty sit down with Alexandra Ring, housing and land use lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, an organization representing all 241 cities across Oregon. Alexandra breaks down the complex realities of advocating for housing policy across vastly different communities, from large urban centers to small frontier towns, and explains why there is no single fix to Oregon's housing crisis.

- How the League of Oregon Cities represents 241 cities and sets its legislative priorities through a member-driven voting process

- Why infrastructure, particularly water and sewer systems, is the most common and urgent barrier to housing production across Oregon

- The impact of Measures 5 and 50 on local government budgets and why cities are being asked to do more with significantly less funding

- How small cities with limited planning capacity are disproportionately burdened by housing legislation designed for larger jurisdictions

- The challenge of holding cities accountable for housing outcomes when so many barriers are systemic and interconnected

- Why eminent domain is rarely a practical tool and what carrots and sticks actually look like in housing policy

- How community members can take direct action by engaging with their local city councilors, mayors, and planning commissions

- Why infrastructure funding remains the single most unifying priority for LOC member cities heading into the next legislative session

Resources and People Mentioned:

- League of Oregon Cities (loc.org)

- Oregon Housing and Community Services

- Housing Accountability and Production Office (HAPPO)

- Representative Gomberg, Housing Voices podcast guest

- Jamie McLeod Skinner, Housing Voices podcast guest

- Senators Wyden and Merkley, Representatives Bonamici and Benz

- Measures 5 and 50

- System Development Charges (SDCs)

- Multi-Unit Property Tax Exemption (MUPTE)

- Clackamas County (referenced for extended public office hours)

- martyfulford.com and cynit.net, episode partners

- Music by Karen DeWolfe and Adrian Kriz

Housing Voices hosts Bre Irish and Marty Fulford sit down with Dan Spatz, a longtime Columbia Gorge journalist, former development director at Columbia Gorge Community College, and former economic development officer for the City of The Dalles. Dan brings decades of on-the-ground experience to a candid conversation about why the Columbia Gorge is one of the most uniquely constrained housing markets in the Pacific Northwest and what it will take to move the needle.

- How the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area boundary creates a near-permanent cap on developable land, putting Oregon communities in direct conflict with state land use law

- The growing wealth gap between high-income part-time residents and the service workers who cannot afford to live near their jobs

- Why economic development depends far more on housing, childcare, and schools than most people realize

- How Columbia Gorge Community College identified housing and childcare as the top barriers to student enrollment and built on-campus residential housing to respond

- The collapse of a 20 million dollar EPA-funded regional childcare center after federal grant cancellation under the current administration

- The role of system development charges and zoning reform in either blocking or enabling affordable housing construction

- Wildfire risk, the Rowena fire, and the impossible tension between building standards, affordability, and climate reality

- Why Dan believes the core of the housing crisis is a federal spending and wealth distribution problem, not just a local planning failure

Resources and people mentioned:

- Columbia Gorge Community College

- Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area and the Gorge Commission

- Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD)

- EPA grant (Biden administration, canceled under current administration)

- Nate Stice, Oregon Governor Kotek's Regional Solutions team

- Representative Gomberg, Oregon Ways and Means Committee

- Josh and Matthew, City of The Dalles staff (residential buildout analysis)

- Gorge Discovery Center

- Gorge Technology Alliance

- Hood River Bridge (built 1924)

- President Eisenhower's farewell address on the military industrial complex

- Starlink satellite broadband

In this special crossover audio only episode, Housing Voices co-hosts Bre Irish and Marty Fulford join Virginia Stapleton and Chris Hoy of the Demobrats Podcast for a live conversation about Oregon’s housing crisis — and why housing touches nearly every part of our communities.

The discussion moves across the entire housing ecosystem, from homelessness and renter protections to homeownership, accessibility, transportation, infrastructure, development costs and the challenges communities face in simply building enough housing.

Bre and Marty bring both lived and professional perspectives to the conversation, exploring how housing affordability affects young people trying to buy their first home, seniors living on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, renters, landlords and people experiencing homelessness.

The group also tackles some of the harder questions: Why can’t we build housing faster? Can increasing supply alone solve affordability? How should Oregon balance renter protections with the realities facing small landlords? And what changes could actually make the system work better?

It’s a wide-ranging conversation about housing — not as a single problem, but as an interconnected system that affects the health, stability and future of our communities.

Housing Voices — Connecting communities for housing solutions.

In this episode of Housing Voices: Practical Solutions, hosts Marty and Bre sit down with Dan Easdale, Program Director of Corvallis Housing First, to pull back the curtain on what it actually takes to move someone from the street into stable, supported housing. Dan brings seven years of frontline experience to a candid, compassionate conversation about the Housing First model, the people it serves, and why the solutions are harder and more urgent than most people realize.

- What the Housing First model is, where it came from, and why low-barrier housing outperforms clean-and-sober requirements

- The wraparound case management services that make housing stick, including mental health, substance use support, and physical health care

- A detailed walkthrough of the journey from street to housing, including ID recovery, mailing addresses, Section 8 wait lists, and the barriers that derail progress

- The demographics of who is actually experiencing homelessness, including elderly residents on fixed incomes, families, and people with significant disabilities

- How the affordable housing crisis in Corvallis has created a four-year Section 8 wait list and what that means for real people

- The growing crisis of families experiencing homelessness and the lack of shelter options that keep families together

- A presentation Dan co-delivered in San Francisco on doing Housing First when behavioral health supports are critically scarce

- How Corvallis Housing First trains residents as peer supports and includes people with lived experience on its board

Resources and People Mentioned:

- Corvallis Housing First: corvallis housingfirst.org

- Lindsay Stallard, Development Director, Corvallis Housing First (volunteer inquiries)

- Unity Shelter (men's and women's shelter, Safe Place program)

- Community Outreach Inc. (COI), family shelter services

- Jackson Street Youth Services, youth up to age 25

- Corvallis Daytime Drop In Center

- Central City Concern, Portland (Andy Mendenhall, co-presenter)

- Benton County Flexible Housing Subsidy Pool

- Lynn Benton Housing Authority

- Anita Earl and Samaritan Health for medical respite partnership

- Housing Voices podcast partners: MartyFulford.com and Cynit.net

- Music by Karen DeWolfe and Adrienne Kriz

Housing Voices is a podcast hosted by Bre Irish and Marty Fulford that tackles the full spectrum of housing challenges facing Oregonians, from homelessness and disability access to wildfire recovery and senior care. In this milestone 10th episode roundtable, Bri and Marty are joined by the show's executive producers, Ed Fulford and Liz Irish, to reflect on the conversations, guests, and hard truths uncovered across their first season.

- The origins of Housing Voices, born out of a regional housing subcommittee that interviewed over 50 community leaders across Oregon

- The hidden complexity of housing policy and why no single solution fits the full spectrum of need

- Disability access failures in housing, including the outdated 2% accessibility requirement and the financial burden placed on disabled residents to modify their own units

- Wildfire recovery and the dangerous gap between the pace of destruction and the pace of rebuilding, including the work of Hope Community and Jamie McLeod Skinner

- The crisis of senior housing and the staggering cost of end-of-life care that is putting generational wealth out of reach for most families

- Homelessness as a financial and moral failure, including the real cost of criminalization versus prevention and the hidden population of people on the verge of losing housing

- The K-shaped economy and how rising costs, stagnant wages, and redlining continue to lock younger generations and marginalized communities out of homeownership

- Bri's announcement that she is running for Corvallis City Council Ward 1, bringing the lessons of Housing Voices directly into local government

Resources and People Mentioned:

- Representative Gomberg, Vice Chair of the Ways and Means Committee

- Jamie McLeod Skinner, wildfire recovery leader in southern Oregon

- Nathan Wildfire, missing middle housing advocate

- Ryan McAllister, development process expert

- Jennifer Bustamante, senior housing and end-of-life care specialist

- Sean, guest focused on homelessness, shame, and reintegration

- Eric McGuire, educator discussing housing's impact on children and schools

- Hope Community, Eugene-based housing manufacturer partnered with St. Vincent de Paul

- Missing Middle Housing Fund

- SaidCorp

- Viny Moses, community support organization

- Cassie, Housing Voices guest who documented accessibility challenges in her apartment

- The Ark (guests Misha and Abby), disability housing advocates

- Book referenced: "There Are No Accidents"

- Partners: MartyFulford.com and Cynit.net

- Music: Karen DeWolfe and Adrian Kriz

- Housing Voices website: housingvoices.com

In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre Irish and Marty Fulford continue their conversation with veteran educator Eric McGuire, exploring the devastating intersection of housing instability, poverty, and public education in Oregon. Eric draws on nearly three decades in the classroom across multiple districts to paint a candid picture of what teachers and students are actually experiencing on the ground.

- How declining teacher benefits, stagnant wages, and rising housing costs are driving educators out of the profession before year five

- Why teachers of color are leaving Oregon classrooms at disproportionate rates

- The stark difference between how wealthy and high-poverty school districts handle students experiencing houselessness

- What the McKinney-Vento program is and why language barriers prevent many eligible families from accessing it

- How housing instability affects a child's most foundational learning skills, including the ability to hold a pencil or turn a page

- The concept of moral harm and how it silently burns out teachers who feel powerless to change broken systems

- Why school district boundaries in Oregon are rooted in redlining and how that history still shapes educational equity today

- Oregon's Senate Bill 141 and why no educators were involved in writing a bill designed to hold educators accountable

Resources and People Mentioned:

- McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (federal program supporting housing-insecure students)

- Oregon Department of Education Education Advancement Council report

- Teaching with Poverty in Mind (book referenced by Eric McGuire)

- Oregon Center for Public Policy (OCPP)

- PSU Gender, Race and Nations program

- Senate Bill 141 (Oregon educator accountability legislation)

- Stanford Children and Foundation for a Better Oregon (identified as authors of SB 141)

- John Wasilinski (referenced from a previous Housing Voices episode)

- Juan Carlos (previous Housing Voices guest, economist)

- MartyFulford.com and Cynit.net (show partners)

- Music by Karen DeWolfe and Adrien Kriz

In this episode of Housing Voices, hosts Bre Irish and Marty Fulford sit down with Eric McGuire, a 33-year veteran teacher, school board candidate, and union advocate, to unpack the deeply tangled relationship between the housing crisis and the state of public education in Oregon. The conversation connects property tax shortfalls, outdated school funding models, and housing insecurity to real outcomes for students, teachers, and communities.

- How Oregon's Measure 5 and Measure 50 locked school funding in place since 1991 and what that means today

- Why Oregon is the only state that uses census data to calculate education funding, and why that hurts students

- The visible signs of housing insecurity that teachers witness daily in their classrooms, including sleep deprivation, hunger, and lack of clothing

- Why teachers themselves are being priced out of the communities where they teach

- The hidden cost of multi-unit property tax exemptions and who ultimately foots the bill

- Eric's personal journey from classroom teacher to school board candidate and podcast host

- The Overton window concept and how political will around housing and taxation is slowly shifting

- Why community organizations, not just schools, may be the key to reaching families affected by housing instability

Resources and People Mentioned:

- Oregon Education Association (OEA)

- Oregon Center for Public Policy

- McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act

- Oregon Voices Podcast, hosted by Eric McGuire and Katherine Watkins

- The Student Success Act

- Scene on Radio Podcast

- Chenjerai Komanika

- Latino Network

- Marty Bulford.com

- Cynet.net