Parkside Place Celebration Remarks

October 20, 2025

I want to thank Hayden Homes for coordinating this event and inviting me to join you. Our work together ensuring every Oregonian has a safe home they can afford is important.

Too many Oregon families are struggling with the cost of living. They're forced to make impossible choices between staying in the communities they love – like incomparable Bend, Oregon – and finding a place they can afford.

This didn't happen overnight. Decades of underbuilding and red tape left Oregon with a severe housing shortage that drives up rents, home prices, and worsens our homelessness crisis. When I was sworn into office in 2023, Oregon had a shortage of 140,000 housing units.

But I have good news to share with you today.

Thanks to the dedication of people in this room, Oregon has over 46,000 new housing units underway. That’s possible because of infrastructure funding you helped advocate for that brings sewers, roads, and utilities online for builders to build. Because of those investments, land is made available for housing and direct construction financing.

This represents real progress. Progress made possible by bold, bipartisan policies. Progress made possible by state and local governments working hand in hand with private partners and nonprofits like Habitat for Humanity.

And this celebration right here? Parkside Place is proof that those numbers represent real change for real families.

Parkside Place is an example of how government can work hand in hand with private developers to achieve this monumental task. The homes that will be available to buy here will be more affordable to the people this community depends on – the nurses, teachers, and firefighters who are priced out of this market.

This development means homeownership will be a reality for more families in Bend because the people here knew they could make a difference in their community, and they kept working until they made it happen.

But our work is not finished – not by a long shot. We need to build approximately 30,000 more homes per year for the next decade to have a healthy housing market where everyone can afford a home.

Our economic prosperity depends on it. And we can't continue making progress on putting a roof over more Oregonians without our collective focus and persistence.

Today is not a victory lap. It is a moment to remind ourselves that we can do big things. But today – standing on this dirt and gravel where families will soon call home – we can see that when we work together, we can turn this tide.

Let's keep working and keep building a better Oregon for everyone.

Thank you.