Last Updated on October 31, 2019

Theodore Thomas… said recently a friend, who was a freelance writer with a spotty income, was told his rent would increase to $500 per month. His apartment is 11-feet by 14-feet with a bathroom down the hall and no kitchen. This is outrageous. Subsequent to the rent increase, he could not pay and is now homeless, living in his car. This is classic example of market failure, which is equivalent to scalpers buying every $20 ticket for a popular concert and marking them up to $200. If they sell ten percent of those tickets, they break even and every ticket after that is profit. When the band arrives to find half of the theatre empty, they will believe no one likes them, which is not the case. The County’s $100,000 study on housing indicates there is more housing than people, yet there are more homeless people than ever before in all towns. Operators are getting in between homeowners and legitimate renters by converting housing units to short-term rentals, marking up the prices, and removing those units from the housing market. Removing units will increase prices. Any property owner will want to make as much money as their neighbor and they will raise rents. The more units that are built, the more units will be added to Airbnb. Operators will either evade taxes or pay the taxes, but the short term rentals will continue. The County has to ban whole unit short-term rentals.

The above is from the September 11, 2019 minutes of the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners meeting during the Business From the Public section.