I have spent the last 20 years working in the nonprofit and public sectors. My work has spanned addiction treatment, mental health, community action, shelter, and housing. As I’ve written about before, I was born into the service world. My parents ran a nonprofit and operated foster homes for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. This work is in my blood.
Because of that, I have witnessed NIMBY—Not In My Back Yard—up close for most of my life.
In the 1980s, as my parents founded Creative Alternatives and institutions across the country were closing their doors, people in our community supported the service but didn’t want it in their neighborhood. That was NIMBY.
When I later worked to create a mental health Clubhouse in Medford, neighbors feared it would become a hangout for people experiencing homelessness and create loitering issues. That was NIMBY.
Today, I am helping create Unity Homes in Eastern Oregon—an adult mental health foster care home. People reached out with concerns that we would be “shipping people in” from the State Hospital. That reaction was recent, familiar, and unmistakable. That was also NIMBY.
Most recently, we held a town hall meeting on the South Coast of Oregon, and NIMBY was present there as well.
NIMBY exists in every community. Some hide it better than others, but the sentiment is everywhere.
The real problem is the paralysis NIMBY creates. For years, it was possible for someone who had never met the people affected by a project to file an appeal and derail progress entirely. The State has begun to limit those pathways, but the damage caused by delay and fear remains.
NIMBY stops progress by creating fear—and fear keeps communities sick.
Most people do not like conflict. When NIMBY surfaces, the first instinct is often to step away or negotiate simply to keep the peace. I have been guilty of this at times in my career, and many others have as well. It’s human. It’s normal. But the long game requires a different approach.
Housing has to be built.
We are in a housing crisis, and choosing not to build because some people—already housed—do not like the idea should no longer be acceptable. That mindset is what allowed us to slide into this crisis over the past four or five decades. The hands that drove us here are not the hands that will fix it.
NIMBY is given power by failed policy frameworks that allowed fear and discomfort to outweigh collective responsibility for far too long.
Moving Beyond NIMBY
Moving beyond NIMBY does not mean ignoring concerns or silencing communities. It means refusing to let fear dictate outcomes. It means grounding decisions in data, fairness, and long-term community health rather than reaction and misinformation.
This is where SPARC sets the table for progress.
SPARC is not just a program or a project—it is a systems approach. It links housing, services, accountability, and community planning into a single continuum, so communities are not asked to take blind leaps of faith. It replaces fear with structure, fragmentation with coordination, and reaction with intention.
NIMBY thrives in uncertainty.
Systems reduce uncertainty.
That is how communities move forward—not by pretending NIMBY doesn’t exist, but by building systems strong enough that it no longer determines our future.
By Matthew Vorderstrasse, M.A., PHM
Executive Director, North Bend City & Coos-Curry Housing Authorities