Governors push faster construction to meet housing needs

PORTLAND — Dick Anderson, a Republican state senator from coastal Oregon, has a chart and a readymade joke to illustrate the housing crisis facing his state. Up until 2006, his figures show, home building was on an upward trajectory in Oregon. But once he retired from a career in housing finance in 2006, the numbers plummeted. “From there on, the production went down,” Anderson said. “When I decided to hang up my spurs, that was the end of production in Oregon.” Sure, his retirement coincided with a global financial meltdown and a home foreclosure crisis in the United States, but…