WWW.
AUGUST 2 1 ,2 0 0 9
j— j
WHO’S RAKING
THE MUCK?
A n interview with Harper's
editor Ken Silverstein on the
state op investigative
journalism
■org
C E L E B R A T IN G
A DECADE OF
Education ♦ Dialogue ♦ Independence
limbo
Some o f
Portland's
motels hide
a troubling
side to
homelessness
BY REBECCA ROBINSON
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
he first thing you notice when you enter
Tiffany Shepard and Patricia Schafer’s
motel room is the darkness, especially in
, contrast to the blindingly brighfsummer sunshine
outside. The second is the fatigue on the women’s
faces, betraying the exhaustion that accompanies >
S
living in limbo with an 8-month-old child. Tiffany
looks'lovingly but wearily at the blanket-covered
’ crib in the corner, where a soft rustling
a n n o u n c e s t h e e n d o f h e r s o n C a d e r t ’g n ap a n d
the beginning of nonstop infant supervision.
The fractured family’s room off Sandy
Boulevard in outer N ortheast Portland is a
temporary residence; neither Tiffany nor Patricia
calls it a home. |
“It’s a roof over our heads,” says Patricia.
“That’s it;,”
Homelessness takes many forms in Portland,
but some are less visible than others. Tucked
away behind closed doors off busy thoroughfares
are the “hotel homeless,” people who have lost
their homes and are living week toweek in motel
rooms until they can find a permanent residence
- or until their money runs out.
Tiffany, Caden and Patricia, who is five months
pregnant, moved to Portland at the end of lylay
when theit housing situation in Salem fell apart.
Tiffany hints at financial and interpersonal strife
during a recent conversation^ but when asked to
P H O T O 8 Y K E N H A W K IN S W W W . K E N H A W K I N S X O M
Patricia Schafer, w ithC aden in the foreground. The two, along with Caden’s mom, Tiffany Shepard, have
been living in a motel room to avoid homelessness, while waiting to get in to stable housing.
See MOTEL, page 13
Loss of low-cost housing routing poor from downtown
City m aintains it is holding the line, even as a new report shows fewer options fo r the poorest
BY AMANDA WALDROUPE
: CONTRIBUTING WRITER
ffordable housing for Portland’s poorest
residents has declined significantly in the
city center, even as more high-end housing
increased.
According to the Central City Housing-
Inventory, released in July by the Portland
Development Commission, the city center lost
more than 22 percent of its lowest income housing
options, but gained nearly 12 percent more in the
number of units for higher incomes.
The result, according to those in the business of
placing people in affordable housing, has been a
shift of poverty froth the central city area to outer
parts of Portland and Multnomah County.
“Here in mid-county and in east county we are
seeing an increasing number of people seeking
low-cost affordable housing,” says Jean DeMaster,
executive director of Human Solutions. “And we
believe part of it is the lack of housing in the
central city areas and the decrease of housing in
a
the central city area.”
The sources interviewed for this article all point
toward a growing trend: the displacement of low-
income people, who can no longer find affordable
housing in the central city, to other parts of •
Portland and Multnomah County.
The increase of people looking for housing in
eastern parts of Multnomah County has been
happening for thelast three or four years,
DeMaster says, but Human Solutions saw a
^marked” increase in the last six months,
corresponding with the deepening of the
recession.
The inventory, published every three years,
monitors whether or not the city is adhering to its
“No Net Loss” policy. Passed in 2001, the No Net
Loss policy establishes that the same number of z
rental units available to people earning 60 percent
of MFI or below in 2002 would remain the same
through preservation or replacement That number
is 8,286.
The inventory says there are 15,601 total rental
units in the centralcity, an area defined as thè
downtown, the River District, Goose Hollow,
University Place, the South Waterfront area,
Central Eastside, the Lloyd District, and Lower
Albina.
Affordability is categorized according to the '
median family income, or MFI, for which a unit is
affordable. The federal Bureau of Housing and
Urban Development sets the affordability standard
that rent or mortgage consume no more than 30
percent of a household’s monthly income.
In Oregon, the median family income is $54,000
for a family of two. An individual earning zero to
30 percent of MFI — up to $14,700 —is considered
to be living in poverty.. In that price range, thè |
central city lost more than 22 percent of its
housing units. The nearly 12 percent increase
charted ih the inventory came in housing
affordable to people earning at least 120 percent
MFI, or $60,000 or above.
See HOUSING, page 3