Two Years. Multiple Offers. A Frantic Search for a Place to Call Home

Drew and Julien Temps’ two-year search for a home reveals why Oregon needs more middle-income housing — and why Oregon Community Foundation launched the Building Hope Fund.

LA GRANDE, Ore. — Drew Temps tried to deliver her baby and an offer on a house — at the same time.

She was adorable, the lavender house on La Grande’s North Umatilla Street. Two bedrooms. A big yard. After more than a year of searching, it seemed Drew and Julien Temps had at long last found the perfect starter home for a young family new to Eastern Oregon.

Back in their hometown of Coquille on Oregon’s South Coast, few homes fell in their price range. Promising leads dried up. One charming blue three-bedroom sold to an all-cash buyer. They simply couldn’t compete.

So, when the lavender house hit the market in October 2025, it felt like their best chance to settle down before the baby arrived. With Drew still weeks away from her due date, they submitted an offer — and waited.
A day later, the contractions started.

A shortage counted in out-priced families and lost opportunity

Oregon’s shortage of middle-income housing becomes real the moment you meet families like Drew and Julien’s. 

According to the State of Oregon’s Housing Needs Analysis, Oregon must build 30,000 units of housing each year to keep up with demand. The state builds less than half of that.

Northeast Oregon, where the Temps live, falls short by about 529 homes a year. In 20 years, the region will be short 6,500 homes affordable for buyers making between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, the range the Temps fall in.

“The shortage of middle-income homes is holding Oregon back,” says Megan Loeb, Oregon Community Foundation Senior Program Officer for Economic Vitality and Housing. “Housing is an economic engine. Without it, small business owners can’t expand because their employees can’t find housing. Jobs sit vacant. Families are spending upwards of 40 percent of their income on rent. They can’t build stability or wealth.”

Building Hope for Oregon’s missing middle housing

Oregon Community Foundation wants to fill the middle-housing gap and make families’ lives easier and more affordable through the Building Hope Fund. The goal of the Building Hope Fund is to build 10,000 homes for Oregonians in the next 10 years by lending money to developers with projects ready to build but stuck for lack of affordable financing. The thinking: Developers borrow for less, jumpstart new construction and sell the homes at prices attainable to middle-income families like the Temps. 

Housing construction in Redmond, Oregon

OCF launched the Building Hope Fund with a $100 million investment and seeks additional investment and donations to grow it.

Searching for a place to start a family

Drew and Julien were so determined to buy a home that they put in their first offer months before they married in 2024.  

They first looked in Coos County, Oregon, where the U.S. Census Bureau says the median per capita income is $36,605. The median listing price there at the time of their search was about $360,000 — $110,000 more than the Temps could comfortably afford.

“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.

Then Julien accepted a job with the La Grande Fire Department, and the couple lived eight hours apart for most of Drew’s second trimester while they searched for a place to call home. Even renting proved difficult in La Grande, the site of Eastern Oregon University. 

Rents and availability shocked Julien, who was living in a camper trailer and finding two- and three-bedroom homes priced between $1,800 and $2,200. In August, he found a home on Facebook.

“We had 25 people in line, and we were second in line to view this,” he said. “That’s how crazy it is here with rentals.”

They settled into rental with a 10-month lease, unpacking as little as possible, knowing they’d spend the fall and winter aggressively searching for a permanent home. 

The lavender house seemed like a godsend.

A baby arrives. But the house?

The baby couldn’t really be coming three weeks early, they thought.

The baby was, in fact, coming three weeks early — right as the owners of the lavender house countered their offer. 

Drew’s labor intensified long before the pain meds kicked in.

“Julien was coming to me in the hospital with papers to sign,” she says. “I said, ‘This is not a good time.’” 
He was adorable, the little boy with big eyes and brown hair.

But the lavender house was not meant to be.

Finally, home

Several unsuccessful offers and six frantic months later, the Temps’ landlord notified them that he’d be selling their house at the end of their lease.

Drew had just been promoted to manager of The Local, the coffee shop where she’d been a part-time barista. That change meant her salary was enough to bump their price range up to a hair over $300,000 and buy the house they were leasing. 

“We always said we’d buy this house if they offered it at the right price,” Julien says, “and they offered it at the right price.”

Sitting on the front porch of their own home, reflecting on the more than two years it took them to find it, the Temps have one piece of advice for the thousands of Oregon families still searching:

“Be patient.”

Be part of the solution

Here’s how you can support the Building Hope Fund:

• Explore partnership opportunities, email info@oregoncf.org.
• If you have a donor advised fund and would like to support the Building Hope Fund, please contact your donor relations officer.
• If you're new to OCF, our philanthropic advisors can help you make the most of your giving.
• Make a gift online.