Building homes in Chiloquin is a priority of the Klamath Tribes Planning Department
While many communities in the U.S. were managing the COVID-19 pandemic a few years ago, the Klamath Tribes was thinking about the looming housing crisis. Fast-forward to 2024, and we are now seeing the fruit of that forethought in downtown Chiloquin.
With three new senior housing units on track to be completed in the coming months and a new set of townhouses making winter preparations with hopes of welcoming families to their new homes in the spring, there’s a housing boom happening in Chiloquin.
Jared Hall, Planning Director for the Klamath Tribes, sat down to discuss all the working projects that address the more than 180 housing applications currently under review. He said it all started with the American Rescue Plan Act funding that came in just in time to start building the new housing and the tribal courthouse.
“We chalked it up, put it together an application, and it made it all the way to the ARPA internal approval process,” said Hall, “and Tribal Council approved us for $3 million to build out these two lots. And to maximize since the lots were small themselves, to maximize it, we chose the strategy of building multifamily units because you can get a lot more bodies in a multifamily unit than you could trying to build a single family.”
Hall explained that the courthouse was the most readily available project to start, which is why it is ready to come online first, with court staff taking up occupancy already and court proceedings to begin shortly. “That was one of the first projects that came aboard,” Hall said. “And we actually bought the tribal court building with CARES funds, which is the first supplemental funding that came from Congress when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. We used part of those dollars to actually buy that building because the tribal court was operating over here in what we call the annex building, and there just wasn’t enough space for them, and they were growing pretty rapidly. That building was purchased, but we didn’t have enough time to do any renovation, so they kind of just got shoved in there and had to open up their operation.”
The next build was the “Yahooskin Triplex” senior housing units for tribal elders on North 2nd Avenue in downtown Chiloquin. These units were designed as single-story homes in multifamily units to keep costs down and maximize grant funding while also considering the needs of senior residents.
Then, on the other side of the tribal maintenance building, right off Sprague Highway on the east side of town, downtown visitors will notice several two-story homes being built to house families.
The four homes will be townhouses with up to 1,800 square feet of space and a two-car garage. “Those will be able to fit low-income tribal families,” said Hall, “so we should be able to fit four families to address the housing crisis. So that’s kind of how it all started. And obviously the units come along pretty fast. We originally didn’t think we would have it up and running until next year, but we could possibly have it up and running before the end of this year. But I don’t want to make any guarantees.”
However, housing doesn’t stop in the downtown area. Hall said there are plans to continue the building boom over by the new courthouse, with a 55-acre property that can fit up to 25 single-family homes.
“There are four homes built. Our department built the road system about 23 years ago, and then about eight to 10 years later, they built four homes,” explained Hall, “and then a few years later, they built the community center. Around 2017, they built four additional homes, but they’re on homeownership agreements with HUD and the tribal housing department so those tribal families can actually purchase their homes. And that’s what is designed out there. They have eight filled, leaving roughly 16 lots left to be built out. And then that property will be fully built out. That’s what the master plan calls for.”
He said he is not privy to the building schedule on the 55-acre property, but with four new townhomes and three new senior units coming online in the next year that provides housing to as many as 50 people. He also said that Melita’s tribal housing adds to the total number of housing units. “I think another side project the planning had to do with is we applied for the grant to get Melita’s property purchased and then renovated the housing of the motel rooms,” he said. “And there’s 14 units there; three units here and four units here. So, you know, 21 units have come online since we started addressing the housing crisis-type issue a few years back. So that’s pretty good progress, especially knowing how much it takes to plan and manage construction.”
Hall said choosing to build new construction versus rehabbing older construction was ideal for aiding families needing homes. He said that older construction requires upkeep and redesign, while new construction will be free of mold, pests, and upgrades for at least the next decade. “You know, the icing on the cake is that a tribe member gets a brand-new house they get to move into,” he explained. “They don’t have to worry about mold; they don’t have to worry about dry rot; they don’t have to worry about rodents; they don’t have to worry about stuff breaking for quite some time. And so that helps the tribal family out, and it helps our housing maintenance crew out, so they can focus on their older stock and not have to worry about buying an older house that they’re going to have to go down there and constantly maintain.”
At the current rate of $ 300 square feet in housing construction costs, Hall said the Tribes had great foresight in getting ahead of the housing crisis plaguing the rest of the state by providing low-income housing at just the right time. “I know a lot of the federal agencies were super impressed with the Tribes addressing the housing crisis,” said Hall. “They said a lot of small communities still haven’t even got shovels in the ground yet. And they’ve been trying. They got money, but they’ve been trying to plan out housing projects, and they haven’t even got that far yet. They said it was inspiring to come to a small, rural Oregon town and see the amount of development going on. They said it was really inspiring to see.”
