8 BRAND STORY PRODUCED BY THE OREGON BUSINESS MARKETING DEPARTMENT For Drew and Julien Temps, buying a home in Oregon took more than two years. The young couple searched while growing careers, getting married and starting a family, all while multiple leads fell through in their quest to find an Oregon Community Foundation’s Building Hope Fund aims to make homeownership more attainable for middle-income Oregonians. Frantic House Search Shows Why Oregon Needs More Options PHOTO BY JASON HILL affordable home. In their hometown of Coquille, few houses fell within their price range or needs. “We’d find a house, and we’d think it would be a good option for us, and there would be stuff wrong with it, or it would be too hard to fix up,” Julien says. In La Grande, where Julien got a job with the fire department, they had to navigate a pricey rental market to secure a 10-month lease on what they thought would be a stopgap. When a two-bedroom house with a big yard came on the market that seemed like their dream starter home, they submitted an offer — only to have Drew go into early labor the next day as the sellers countered. “Julien was coming to me in the hospital with papers to sign,” Drew says. “I said, ‘This is not a good time!’” Six more months and several unsuccessful offers followed. The Temps were ultimately able to buy the La Grande home they had been renting. But their long search illustrates a common challenge for Oregonians who earn too much to qualify for most housing subsidies yet still struggle to afford homes on the private market. Referred to as the “missing middle,” these households include small-
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