State loan will help build 16 rental cottages in Baker City
Oregon Housing and Community Services will back 16 one-bedroom cottages in Baker City, a small but targeted addition to the city’s strained rental stock.
A state loan from Oregon Housing and Community Services will help build 16 one-bedroom rental cottages in Baker City. The project is aimed at a narrow part of the market that is often hardest to serve in rural Oregon, where singles, older adults and workforce renters can struggle to find smaller units.
The cottage plan lands in a city where housing needs have already been spelled out in hard numbers. Baker City’s 2021 housing needs analysis said the city had about 4,315 households in 2020, roughly 440 more than in 2000, while average household size had fallen to about 2.23 people. That shift points to more demand for apartments and small rentals, not just larger homes. A 2022 Baker City Herald editorial said Baker County needs about 265 affordable homes.
The need goes beyond general affordability. New Directions Northwest said it serves 1,199 Baker County Medicaid behavioral health clients, about 7.1% of the county population, and a county behavioral health housing survey drew roughly 250 responses. That survey identified gaps in transitional housing and supportive housing for people with behavioral health conditions, underscoring how limited the rental market has been for residents with more complex needs.
Baker City has seen 16-unit housing ideas before. In 2020, the Baker City Planning Commission approved The Carriage Homes, a 16-unit complex with one- and two-bedroom units for renters 55 and older on 1.27 acres south of D Street and east of Clark Street. The new cottage project follows that same small-scale pattern, adding units one parcel at a time rather than through a large subdivision or apartment tower.
Oregon Housing and Community Services says its mission includes financing the building and preservation of affordable housing, and Baker County has already benefited from that state-backed approach. In October 2025, OHCS reported funding 79 new affordable housing units in Union and Baker counties, including a $10,335,000 loan tied to the Cascades Peaks Apartment project. The Baker City portion of that project covered 36 housing units in Elkhorn Village. For Baker City, 16 one-bedroom cottages will not solve the shortage, but they will add a type of housing the city has repeatedly said it lacks.
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