Workforce Housing Solutions Summits and Working Groups

Missing middle workforce housing solutions summit

The MMHF has hosted three workforce housing solution summits in Portland (November 2022), Newberg (April 2023), and Bend (June 2023), OR with local partners. Each of these summits has launched working groups composed of attendees to directly address workforce housing production. Some support existing efforts, like the Newberg Workforce Housing Consortium’s request for workforce housing innovation proposals, but some generate completely new ideas. Please contact us directly if we can help plan a solutions summit in your area or if you want to be added to any of these efforts:

Portland

Wetlands working group: Launched from the November 2022 Portland Summit, the Wetlands Working Group seeks to streamline and add clarity and certainty to the State’s required wetlands delineation and mitigation requirements for new development in the Willamette Valley. To date, the effort is being advanced by a group of city leaders in the Valley who have similar workforce housing challenges and ground conditions.

Manufactured housing working group: Launched out of the Portland Summit, this effort seeks to create connections among manufactured housing stakeholders and innovators, and support R&D, policy work, and funding for innovation pilot projects.

Center for workforce housing innovation group: Temporarily on pause, this effort born out of the Portland Summit, seeks to create the country’s first center of excellence specifically for workforce housing innovation. Envisioned as a partnership between industry and academia, this center would incubate technologies, creative funding strategies, workforce education, and policy innovation.

Newberg

Mid-Valley policy advocacy group: Launched out of the Newberg Summit, this is a group of city leaders in the Willamette Valley working collectively to recommend and change state policies to enable more workforce housing development.

Bend

Bend revolving investment fund: This working group from the Bend Solutions Summit is focused on creating a revolving investment gap fund to build more workforce housing.

Employer consortium working group: The unified efforts of an employer consortium can be harnessed to increase the impact of scale and investment. This group will collaborate with Bend-area employers to set workforce housing goals and put them collectively in the driving seat to make decisions.

Construction and development funding: This group aims to increase funding to already successful local workforce development efforts in the construction and development industries.

Permit acceleration working group: Finding ways to increase the rate of permitting approvals will be helpful to accelerate housing production. This group will drive potential permitting resource and process solutions.

Condo defect law working group: Recognizing the need to reform the condo defect law to increase availability of workforce housing, this group is working to reform policies that would advance condos as a viable solution.

Central Oregon Childcare and Housing Taskforce: Workforce housing and childcare are two related needs for Oregon’s workforce. This group will work to incorporate incentives for childcare solutions to advance the creation of more workforce housing.