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Housing Voices Housing Voices podcast brings people, policy, and practical solutions together to address one of our region’s most pressing challenges — housing.

10/24/2026

Title: 30,000 People Drive Into Corvallis for Work Every Day | HV20 Short7

Bre Irish asks whether the school district has been part of Corvallis's housing conversations. Dr. Ryan Noss says it has been talking for several years with Oregon State, the Boys & Girls Club, the city, and HP, mostly about employee housing.

Then comes the number: roughly 30,000 people commute into Corvallis every day. Bre Irish knows it firsthand from her drive to Lebanon on Highway 34. Marty Fulford ties it back to a recent conversation with 1000 Friends of Oregon: cars are a major driver of climate change, so a housing shortage is an environmental problem too.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/LHPIYJZZWGA

10/23/2026

Title: 200 to 300 Corvallis Students Face Housing Insecurity Every Year | HV20 Short6

Marty Fulford asks how many Corvallis students lack stable housing. Dr. Ryan Noss's answer: 200 to 300 in a typical school year, ranging from families doubling up to children with no shelter at all.

He walks Marty Fulford and Bre Irish through the safety net. Family support liaisons, gas and food help through the Corvallis Public Schools Foundation, and referrals when the city finds open apartments. Under the federal McKinney-Vento program, the district also buses kids in from surrounding towns every day so they can stay with the teachers and classmates they know.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/LHPIYJZZWGA

10/23/2026

70 Percent of Oregon's Housing Land: Single-Family Only

Mary Kyle McCurdy of 1000 Friends of Oregon gives the wonky answer to how Oregon's approach to growth has changed. Every city draws an urban growth boundary meant to hold about 20 years of land, but planners have learned that drawing the line isn't enough. What matters is how the land inside it gets zoned.

She tells Marty Fulford and Bre Irish that more than 70% of residential land in Oregon's towns and cities is zoned for single detached homes on lots of 5,000 square feet or more, the most expensive and land-hungry option. Duplexes, fourplexes, and small apartment buildings were largely outlawed from the 1950s on as a form of economic segregation and exclusionary zoning.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/1n1XtaUkrMk

10/22/2026

Title: A Home in Two Weeks for Under $100,000: Michael Andersen's Magic Wand | HV19 Short10

Asked for his one magic-wand fix, Michael Andersen of Sightline Institute says to let people live in a home on wheels on any residential lot. Portland and Eugene already allow it, but Eugene doesn't let owners charge rent. Total cost is under $100,000, site prep is under $15,000, and it can be ready in about two weeks.

Marty Fulford and Bre Irish note that preventing homelessness is far cheaper than getting people back out, and Michael's idea is aimed at people on the edge who need a place to go in the next few weeks. His challenge to listeners comes from his journalism days: read your local news, even if a subscription costs about $100 a year.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/qbBH5sxM1mw

10/22/2026

Title: No Out-of-State Money for Fewer Than 150 Homes, and What That Means for Small Towns | HV19 Short9

Michael Andersen previews an upcoming Sightline Institute report on middle housing, aging, and accessibility. One developer told him he can't get out-of-state financing for any project under 150 homes. Places like Lincoln City, Sisters, and Enterprise have prices high enough to support new building, but not 150 households looking to move in at once.

When Marty Fulford and Bre Irish ask for an advance look, Michael points to the 20-unit building as the answer for smaller cities. That means cutting the fixed costs that push developers toward bigger projects: elevators, second staircases, and plumbing. A building that size takes "a dental practice worth of wealth" to finance, not a banker in Connecticut.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/qbBH5sxM1mw

10/22/2026

Title: Five School Employees, One Grocery Store | HV20 Short5

Bre Irish asks about the people who keep a district running beyond teachers: bus drivers, custodians, classified staff. Dr. Ryan Noss starts with a story. He ran into four Corvallis School District employees in one grocery store, all of them spending their paychecks in the town where they work.

That's the ripple effect people forget when workers can't afford to live locally, he says. The district even wrote a provision into its collective bargaining agreements so staff who live in Albany can enroll their kids at the school where they work. Marty Fulford and Bre Irish hear that for classified staff, finding housing in Corvallis is even harder.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/LHPIYJZZWGA

10/22/2026

Why Oregon Doesn't Look Like Everywhere Else

Mary Kyle McCurdy, Associate Director of 1000 Friends of Oregon, looks back on more than three decades of land use work, from litigating over how cities accommodate growth to watching Oregonians embrace the core ideas of the state's planning program: protecting farm and forest land, compact towns and cities, walkable neighborhoods, and housing for all.

Talking with Marty Fulford and Bre Irish, she explains the sense of place that results. Not everyone can name urban growth boundaries, but people who travel to other states come home and notice the difference: mountains, coast, and high desert as the backdrop to daily life, instead of sprawl where everything looks like a cookie cutter.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/1n1XtaUkrMk

10/22/2026

Title: Is Corvallis the Canary in the Coal Mine? | HV20 Short4

Bre Irish lays out the "doom spiral": cut programs, consolidate, lose enrollment, lose state dollars, repeat. Would more housing help? Dr. Ryan Noss says he supports adding more housing in Corvallis, while admitting the community is on the fence. People want it, just not in their backyard.

His starkest line: when a town starts closing schools because it doesn't have vibrant neighborhoods full of kids, "that says a lot." Marty Fulford asks why young adults aren't having children, and Bre Irish answers from experience. Child care runs $1,400 to $2,000 a month, and Corvallis is a child care desert.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/LHPIYJZZWGA

10/21/2026

Title: $8 Million, Then $5 Million, Then School Closures | HV20 Short3

Corvallis cut about $8 million one year and $5 million the next, and was looking at another $3 million. Dr. Ryan Noss explains what that looks like in a building: blended second/third grade classrooms, and a music teacher split between two schools because neither had enough classes for a full schedule.

Bre Irish connects it to Measures 5 and 50 and the property-tax squeeze. Noss is direct: Oregon funds schools per student, so fewer students means less money. The one thing keeping Corvallis ahead of its neighbors, he says, is a local option levy the community has chosen to support.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/LHPIYJZZWGA

10/21/2026

Title: Required to Build It, Afraid to Advertise It: Oregon's Hidden Accessible Units | HV19 Short8

Buildings with more than 20 units have to include at least one Type A home, with a larger bathroom, wider doorways, and lower counters and cabinets. Buildings with 50 units need at least two. Michael Andersen of Sightline Institute says these homes are almost never advertised, because landlords and developers fear being sued for false advertising if a unit isn't fully accessible.

Marty Fulford and Bre Irish bring up their earlier conversation with Cassie Wilson of 1000 Friends of Oregon and ask how to make more of our housing accessible for the long term, since many of us will live long enough to need it. Michael's frustration sums it up: you're required to build it, but you're not allowed to tell anybody.

Hosted by Marty Fulford and Bre Irish | Housing Voices
Full Episode: https://youtu.be/qbBH5sxM1mw

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