PAGE 6 | July 15, 2016 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Who’s on our side?
By Tom Chamberlain Oregon AFL-CIO President
Portland: Where rent
empties workers’ pockets
Over the years, Portland has been recognized as one of Amer-
ica’s best cities in a number of categories: seniors, livability,
food, beer drinking, vegans, and year after year for the best
airport in the country. All of this is good. It all recognizes the
uniqueness of Portland.
Recently, Portland received another first: It leads the nation
with the fastest rising housing costs. Last year, Portland hous-
ing costs increased by 11.1 percent. According to a 2015-16
Wage Trend Report by the MBL Group, Portland Metro
wages increased by only 3 percent.
Lower-income households have been disproportionately
impacted. The rule of thumb of percentage income spent on
housing is 30 percent of a worker’s income. In Oregon, Fair
Market Rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $1,008 a month,
and $1,208 in the Portland Metropolitan Area. The average
Oregon renter is paying upwards of 50 percent of their income
on housing costs. To state the problem in a different way: A
minimum wage worker in Portland would have to work 100
hours per week to afford a two-bedroom apartment — if they
can find one. Oregon’s housing inventories are the lowest
since 2005, when Oregon had 400,000 less in population.
Oregon’s low inventory of housing has given landlords an
unbridled opportunity to reap large profits at the expense of
working people. It doesn’t matter if you live in Medford,
Bend, or Portland, workers are finding it harder and harder to
pay the bills, feed their kids, and now a housing market that
pushes them farther and farther from their workplace and es-
sential services.
Evictions and rampant rent increases are left unchecked by
a state which forbids rent control and until recently, forbade
inclusionary zoning.
In 1999, the Oregon Legislature passed legislation that pro-
hibited local jurisdictions from engaging in inclusionary poli-
cies. Inclusionary zoning policies are used across the United
States to develop and implement strategies that increase low
income and workforce housing inventories. For example,
cities can require that building developers dedicate a percent-
age of new housing units to low income and workforce hous-
ing.
The 2015 and 2016 Oregon Legislature passed four bills
which modified inclusionary zoning and created tax incen-
tives for the construction of workforce and low income hous-
ing, giving local governments a valuable tool to increase their
housing inventory.
While this legislation is a great start, we need much more.
The four bills incentivize developers to do the right thing and
build low income housing. The taxpayer is footing the bill.
Oregon must move to a model that mandates a percentage of
all new housing project be dedicated to low income and work-
force housing.
I am so proud of the Oregon AFL-CIO Executive Board,
who approved unanimously to move forward with the devel-
opment of our headquarters and building 100 to 120 low-in-
come and workforce housing units. The Oregon AFL-CIO’s
mission is to make the lives of working people better. That is
why our focus is on accomplishing that mission by raising the
minimum wage, expanding earned sick days, organizing
workers, providing unemployment benefits for locked out
workers, and building housing for working families.
Tom Chamberlain is president of the Oregon AFL-CIO, a 130,000-member-strong
federation of labor unions.
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