{"id":1039,"date":"2020-08-05T05:32:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T05:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wallawallatrends.org\/newsletter\/?page_id=1039"},"modified":"2022-12-05T23:22:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T23:22:06","slug":"2019q4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wallawallatrends.org\/newsletter\/2019q4\/","title":{"rendered":"Q4 2019 – Walla Walla Trends Newsletter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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News From The Port<\/h2>

Wallula Dodd Water System<\/h3>

By Paul Gerola, Economic Development Director<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Over the last several years, the Port has been working on developing a regional industrial water system for its Dodd Road Industrial Park and Wallula Gap Business Park properties in the western portion of Walla Walla County.\u00a0 The Dodd Road Industrial Park and the Wallula Gap Business Park combined are approximately 1,500+-acres of heavy and mixed industrial zoning which is ideal for heavy industrial business activity. The Port\u2019s Wallula Gap Business Park is also the largest industrially zoned property available in the State of Washington.<\/p>

Currently, the Port operates a Group A, non-transient, non-community water system in western Walla Walla County, known as the Wallula Dodd Water System. The water system presently serves six local businesses including approximately 75 percent of the Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. (Tyson) raw process water. The Port is preparing to develop two of its existing shallow alluvium wells for blending with its Dodd basalt well water, construct a 6.2 million-gallon reservoir, and install approximately 44,000 linear feet 24\u201d transmission mains from the wells to the reservoir and 4\u201d, 18\u201d, 24\u201d, and 30\u201d distribution mains from the reservoir to the users.\u00a0\u00a0 The project should be completed in the Fall 2020 at an estimated cost of $18 million.<\/p>

Click here to visit the Port of Walla Walla website<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Mapping the American Rental Housing Crisis<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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From the start of the housing bubble to now, there is virtually no place left in the U.S. unaffected by housing costs, regardless if you are currently looking to buy or rent. While there are many reasons for this occurring, the mainstream media has perhaps focused more on home buyers than on renters.<\/p>

Our neighbors to the south in Oregon made national news earlier this year as they were the first in the nation to impose rent control, adding weight to discussions in Washington State. Oregon\u2019s new law caps annual rent increases at 7%.<\/p>

While the 7% annual increase outpaces both inflation and wage growth, if Oregon\u2019s law was applied to Walla Walla County, $800 monthly rent during year-one would increase by just over 40% during the last 5-years. While slightly different than the average rent,\u00a0fair market rent for both one and two-bedroom apartments<\/a>\u00a0in Walla Walla County increased by 32% during the last 5-years.<\/p>

National inflation rates<\/a>\u00a0ranged from a low of 0.7% (in 2015) to a high of 3.0% (in 2011). Wages are even slower growing based upon the\u00a0Average Wage Index<\/a>\u00a0(AWI) offered by the U.S. Social Security Administration. Since 1984, the national annual average increased by approximately 3.52%, with the highest annual increase occurring in 1987 at 6.38%. Over the last 10-years (2009-2018), the average annual increase of the AWI was only 2.36% with the lowest annual increase (-1.51%) occurred in 2009, and the highest annual increase (3.62%) occurred in 2018.<\/p>

The Assisted Housing Initiative, a project of the Urban Institute has another way to show the housing cost burden of renters. Offering an interactive called\u00a0Mapping America\u2019s Rental Housing Crisis<\/em><\/a>, the project is self-described as the \u201cbest estimate of the affordable rental housing gap and federal assistance for extremely low-income (ELI) renter households at the county level in the United States.\u201d<\/p>

The main premise of the project is since 2000, rents have increased in the U.S. at the same time the number of renters in need of affordable housing has also increased.<\/p>

Using HUD and USDA housing assistance options on for the 5-year period of 2010-2014 in the U.S., there were approximately 11.775 million extremely low-income (ELI) households with only about 5.374 million adequate, affordable, and available housing units. The ratio produced by the most recent data available (2014) shows nationally, there were 46 adequate, affordable, and available housing units for every 100 ELI renter households (5,374,785-to-11,775,631).<\/p>

In Walla Walla County during 2014, there were approximately 1,454 ELI households with 2,686 adequate, affordable, and available housing units. In its lowest terms, this is 39 adequate, affordable, and available housing units for every 100 ELI renter households in the county. It\u2019s estimated an ELI family of four during 2014 earned a maximum of $23,850.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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5 Facts About Crime Trends in the U.S.<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Perhaps one of the most common and safest positions in a political race is promising to be \u201ctough on crime\u201d. \u00a0Keeping communities safe is a paramount responsibility of government, often reflected as one of the top budget expenses of a local or county government.<\/p>

5 Facts About Crime in the U.S<\/a>., a recent report and interactive website from Pew Research, has two main points: serious crime has been decreasing across the U.S. for the last two decades or more, while at the same time, public perception is that crime has been increasing.<\/p>

Every year, law enforcement agencies across the U.S. submit their crime data to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who uses this information to produce the\u00a0Unified Crime Report (UCR)<\/a>. UCR crimes are considered serious and include violent (murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robbery) or property (burglary, larceny \/ theft, and motor vehicle theft). The UCR are actual counts and not estimates, but only the most serious crime is counted regardless if someone commits one crime in a single event, or multiple crimes are committed by one person in a single event.<\/p>

It\u2019s inevitable all research and data collection methodologies weaknesses, but UCR statistics have an added weakness: they must be\u00a0known to law enforcement<\/strong>. Therefore, the actual number of crimes is higher since not all crimes are reported. The most common way police learn of a crime is simply when someone reports it, but also if police witness a crime or learn of new crimes while investigating others. Also, the UCR only considers felonies, and excludes drug offenses such as manufacturing, trafficking, and possession. \u00a0<\/p>

Pew facts #1 and #2 refer to UCR data and clearly show a national decline in serious crime. Contrary to what the data indicates, Pew fact #3 uses the UCR and a variety of national surveys such as the\u00a0National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)<\/a>, the\u00a0National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)<\/a>, more than\u00a020-years of Gallup surveys<\/a>, and recent Pew Research Center surveys to confirm public perception of crime is each year is worse than the previous, regardless if data clearly shows serious crime in the U.S. has been steadily declining over the last two decades.<\/p>

Fact #4 is perhaps the most obvious of the\u00a05 Facts<\/em>\u00a0in how actual crime differs (by rate and type) from one geographical location to the next in the U.S.<\/p>

In the grand scheme of things, there are many reasons attributing to decreasing crime in the U.S. Since the consequences of being a victim can be incredibly damaging, it\u2019s easy to focus on how crime affects\u00a0us<\/em>\u00a0(actual victims or not) so we concentrate on what\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0could lose (everything\u00a0we<\/em>\u00a0love and cherish) rather than viewing crime through the broad scope of good data. \u00a0<\/p>

When the first four Pew facts on crime in the U.S. are better understood, perhaps Fact #5 becomes the scariest: most crimes are not reported to law enforcement, and of crimes actually reported, most are never solved or even result in an arrest.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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U.S. Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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It\u2019s been duly noted three of the biggest words in business are: location, location, and location. From one location to the next, differences can sometimes be drastic, even when two locations are within close proximity to each other.<\/p>

Every indicator on the Walla Walla Trends website tells us something about our location and how it affects us.\u00a0 But what about data for locations smaller than counties and cities? Zip-code and census tract-level data are becoming more and more available, but the smaller the surveyed population, the greater the margin of error.<\/p>

The U.S. Census defines a\u00a0census tract<\/em>\u00a0as a \u201csmall, relatively permanent statistical subdivision of a county\u201d with an average of approximately 4,000 residents each.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

What can local census tract-level data tell me about where I live compared to people a few blocks away, or on the other side of a river?<\/p>

The\u00a0U.S. Small-Area Life Expectancy Estimates<\/a>, a project partnership between the National Center for Health Statistics (part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, can\u00a0estimate how long you will live based on where you live.<\/em><\/p>

Entering any physical street address will bring up census tract-level data, so using the addresses for the City of Walla Walla (15 North 3rd Avenue, Walla Walla, Washington 99362), the life expectancy is as follows:\u00a0<\/p>