Waitlist: More affordable housing coming to Bend

Like many in Bend, Kristin Holton has a familiar struggle.

“Obviously I’m practiced at this, because I’ve been desperately on a waitlist for 11 months. It’s been rough,” she said Monday.

Hilton is a single mom of four, sharing a one-bedroom place with three of her children. For her, and many others, affordable housing in the area has become more of a dream than a reality.

“It’s been a huge problem in Central Oregon for quite some time now,” said Sarah Prevatt, portfolio manager at Epic Property Management. “We’ve had less than 1 percent availability for a really, really long time.”

Two new complexes offering 53 townhouse units in Northeast Bend are in the works. The new developments will be on the corner of Daggett Lane and Moonlight Drive, near major employers, schools, parks and transportation. The two-to three-bedroom units will fall around the $600 to $700 range.

The desperate need for housing was made obvious by the steady stream of applicants who must hand-deliver their forms.

“We’re anticipating between 400 and 500 applications,” said Rodger Moore, the general manager of Epic Property Management.

The company says it’s working to handle the flood of interest as fairly as possible.

“All of the applications that we receive are going to be put into a software program that’s going to randomize them for us, and then give us our actual order of our waitlist, and then we’ll work off that,” Prevatt said.

Holton is hoping her application is among those chosen in the lottery.

“It would mean so much to have a place we can call our own,” she said. “My kids are great. Every night, we go to bed and say what we’re thankful for, what our favorite part of the day is and how we’re feeling. And my 8-year-old, she says she has the best life ever, and I need to hear that, because I feel like I’m failing because we don’t have a place to live.”

Everyone chosen should find out within the next few weeks, but it does depend on how many applications are received.

Applications will be accepted at Summit Park Apartments in Bend until 6 p.m. Thursday. Find more details in the announcement from Housing Works in the ‘Related story’ link on this article.