Well that's absurd. I'm trying to cut you a break because you're new here, and you really don't know anything about our city. But you're exhibiting the kind of attitude that fuels the California hate here.

Let's just say that you finding Eugene cheap compared to new england, and how affordable it is on your grad stipend that ensures you don't have to worry about losing your job and becoming destitute, that doesn't help someone struggling to make ends meet.

The undeniable fact is that over the few years years housing costs in the city have gone up dramatically, and many people are struggling to find affordable housing. Combine that with a terrible job market, which you luckily will not have to contend with, and this city has gotten more difficult to survive in for our poorest residents. And it's only going to get worse, as more and more people like yourself move here, find the real estate so cheap, and drive the price up further due to limited supply and increasing demand. Combine that with an urban growth boundary and vocal opposition to denser multi-family housing, and you have a major problem.

I hope you can see how insensitive it is to respond to someone struggling with increasing housing costs by saying you don't know what they're talking about, they have it so good!

I own my house and am doing fine, and find housing here to be perfectly affordable. But I'm not blind, and I have compassion for those struggling, and I can clearly see the direction things are going and how much worse it's going to get, and it concerns me. Being new here, you probably don't grasp this. You likely don't know how much more expensive it's gotten. You don't know how hard it is to find a decent paying job here. You don't know how many people have been priced out of neighborhoods they've long lived in. And that's fine. But take some time to settle in and get to know this city and you will, hopefully, understand. And try to understand that housing being cheaper than where you came from does not help someone whose rent just went up $300 a month.