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Street roots
Education * Dialogue * Independence
Northwest Oregon
gets Section 8
bailout from feds
F R O M STAFF REPORTS
f I 'ih e Northwest Oregon Housing
I
JL
Authority, which terminatedTiearly 300
families from it’s Section 8 program
this summer, will receive $800,000 from the ■
federal housing bureau to restore assistance
in the tri-county region,
* .
«
However, families who heeded letters to
find new housing options are now out of the
loop. .
At the end of May, 285 families were sent
letters from the Northwest OregonHousing
Authority informing them that their Section
8 would be discontinued in 30 days due, to a
shortage in funding. The shortfall came after
the housing authority exceeded the number
of vouchers it could issue» and then drained
it’s reserves covering the costs.
The federal Bureau of Housing and Urban
Development, which funds the Section 8
housing assistance voucher program through
public housing authorities, announced -earlier
this month that it will essentially bail out
NOHA and other authorities in similar '
situations. Following an application-request
process earlier this month, NOHA is I
' expected to receive $800,000 to restore
housing assistance to the families terminated
from the program.
But not everyone will get assistance.
NÓHA estimates 59 families who were
terminated went ahead and found other
housing arrangements. They will not be
eligible for the réstpred voucher funding,
according to George Sabot, executive director
Of Clatsop Community Action, which is
helping the housing authority Work with the
families.
“Those families are the one’s being told
we’re-not going to reinstate you because you
did what we told you to do,” Sabol said.
“These pepple m adethe arrangements they
had to make.”
Sabol said they do not know how many left
and became homeless, but he and others are
trying to reach out to everyone affected. The
families who stayed in their place will keep
them,, Sabol said.
¿ , NÓHA was one of many public housing
authorities across the country reporting '
serious chts to their Seetión 8 roles because
of the 2009 HUD funding allocations. HUD
banked a portion of those funds against
individual housing authorities accumulated
reserves, which in the case of NOHA, was
already spent on higher rents and vouchers
issued above Northwest Oregon’s limit of _
1,077. .
In July, NOHA brought in consultants from
the Housing Authority; of'.Portland to help
them sort out their situation. In a memo
issued.in response to those meetings, HAP
reported that the NOHA staff failed to
adequately track and issue vouchers for
housing assistance, and failed to understand
its funding spent on the vouchers even after
issuing vouchers well above available funding
levels. HAP’s memo included strategic
recommendations for evening out voucher
rates and preventing the situation from
happening in thefuture.
Even with the $800,000 infusion from
HUD, the Section 8 voucher waiting list is
expected to extend well into next year, with
those 59 families who left the program after
being terminated given first opportunity to j
return to the program.
NOHA Executive Director Carol Snell did
hot return our calPprior to press time.
HOUSING/from page 1
uman Solutions receives between 200
and 400 requests for rent assistant
vouchers each month, with the number
“edging” increasingly towards 400. Human
Solutions can only provide 40 vouchers a
month.
“The amount is so m uch less than what is
needed,” DeMaster says.
Shelley Dixon, the housing manager for
Transition Projects, Inc. who helps place
d ients into housing, estimates that 10
percent of the 200 people she has placed
into housing in the last two years were
placed in the downtown area. Dixon says
she remembers when, only a few years ago,
the majority of h er clients would be housed
downtown.
;
“I used to have a lot of clientsin each
building,” Dixon says.
“For a number of years, the majority of
people who we m eet who are homeless, we
m eet in downtown and the inner city area,”
says Marc John, the executive director of
JOIN. “But in term s of housing placement,
the vast majority of people we help into
housing are in the Cast side o r north
Portland, and in some cases, outside of the
city altogether.”
John says that JOIN’S retention team, .
which is responsible for assisting people
who recently entered housing and helping
them Stay housed, has clients living in outer
east Portland, Gresham, Beaverton, and
other communities in Washington county.
Jolin and Dixori says the scattering of low '
income people presents an additional
challenge: having the staff and time
necessary to m eet with people once, they
are housed, |
“The more dispersed people are
throughout the Community, the more time
and effort we’re spending to be with them ,
and the more effort it takes to get people to
services they need,” Jolin says:
H
3
*1 r't* l
may not,” says David Sheern, the policy
coordinator at the PDC who was the
principle author of the Inventory. Sheern
notes that the 2005 Inventory Counted
college student housing, while the 2008
Inventory omitted those numbers.
When asked for information that would
have clarified how affordable housing
declined by more than 22 percent, such as
whether specific buildings affordable to
those living at 0 to 50 percent MFI were
lost due to condo conversion, rent increase,
or demolition, Sheerri declined to give that
information, saying it might negatively
impact a property owner’s willingness to
Complete the surveys the inventory relies
on for its information in the future.
Susan Emmons, the executive director qf
Northwest Pilot Project, a housing agency
serving low-income and homeless elderly
people, finds the fact that the Inventory
says the No Net Loss Policy is being met
despite decline in housing for people living
at the low income levels misleading,
“It does seem to me that they’re using a
very loose interpretation to say that they
are meeting the No Net Loss Policy,”
Emmons says.
“We were a lot more focused on the
downtown area, and we’ve just had to
extend that,” Emmons says of Northwest
Pilot Project’s placement efforts.
“We’re not satisfied with the numbers,”
says Nick Fish, the City’s housing
commissioner, calling the. results of the
Inventory a “mixed bag.”
Fish points to five developments that he
says will increase the supply of units
affordable to people living at 0 to 30 percent
MFI by 572 units: '
• The Resource Access Center, slated to
open in 2011, will have 130 units.
• The Rose Quarter, scheduled to o p e n ,
itf 2010, will have 176.
• University Place will open in 2010 with
48 units
• T h e M arth a W a sh in g to n b u ild in g,
opening in 2010, will have 80 units.
• Pearl Family Housing will open in 2011
he inventory’s actual survey results of
LwitiT^ B unity.
rental operations found that there are
- “These five projects are coming on line
6,389 rental units counting as No Net Loss when private financing is really messed up,”
units in the central city area. That is well
says Margaret van Vliet, the new director of
below the 8,286 benchmark set in 2002
the. Portland Housing Bureau. “The fact that
when the No Net Loss policy was passed.
we’re still getting these five is good news.”
However, in projections of the survey
“What we have put in place is positive,”
results — to account for rental companies
Fish says, despite the nation’s recession and
that did not return surveys - the PDC says
the freezing of th e tax credit and credit
the No Net Loss policy is being met, with
markets, factors which, Fish says, are forces
nearly 8,500 unitsin the city center
working against and cannot be controlled by
affordable up to 60 percent MFI. The PDC
those involved in Portland’s housing policy
counts all of those units toward the No N et
and efforts to build affordable housing.
Loss policy.
„
Fish also thinks that the inventory should
“Statistical theory would say that what we ' not be looked to as a good indicator for
did was perfectly adequate,” Sheern says.
evaluating the success of Portland’s housing .
The only growth in affordable housing
policy. A decline in affordable housing for
counting as No Net Loss units was seen in
the poorest of the poor does not mean th at
housing affordable to people living between
Portland is failing to provide decent housing
51 percent to 60 percent of the median
for its citizens.
family income - people earning around
“It’s important to monitor the No Net
$29,400.
Loss Policy, but it’s important to step back
“The PDC report outlines that th ere still
and look at the forest from the trees,” Fish
aren’t new units for 0 to 30 percent,” says'
says. “A 3-year inventory doesn’t define the P
Julie Massa, the Portland Policy coordinator . success of a community wide strategy.”
for Oregon Opportunity Network. “The City
seems to be at conflict with itself to reach
its housing goals.”
he inventory’s findings raise problems
“Those percentages may reflect a
in addition to th e ’feet'that Portland’s
decrease in actual, num ber of units, but they
M
■
stock of low-income affordable housing is
declining.
More than 80 percent of the total No Net
Loss units have attached tenant or income
restrictions, such as Section 8 vouchers; In
other words, to live in certain buildings or .
certain units within buildings, an individual
would have to have a Section 8 voucher in
order to qualify. Only 19 percent of No Net
Loss units are open market units, or units
that have no such restriction.
“It (shows) .i. the importance of
restrictive covenants and public financing,”
Sheern says. Sheern says that having such
"The more dispersed people,
are throughout the
community, the more time
and effort we're spending to
be with them and the more
effort it takes to get people
to services they need."
— MARC JOLIN
E X E C U T IV E d ir e c t o r , jo in
restrictions attached to the building ensure
that the units will remain affordable, rather
than becoming the prey of market forces
that could increase the rent.
Those open-market forces have had a
tremendous impact. The PDC report found
that in the open market, the percentage of
rental units priced at or below 80 percent
MFI has decreased markedly over the last.
three years. The proportion of open-market
rental units priced above 120 percent MFI
increased by more than 27 percent, while
the proportion of open-market units
affordable below 50 percent MFI decreased
by more than 20 percent.
T h e in v e n to r y a ls o fo u n d th a t 7 7 p e r c e n t
'^o fth ecen tralcrty area’s N o NetUossTtnits
are single-resident occupancy units (SROs)
or studios. “Remarkably, only 3 percent of g
.all No Net Loss units are two- or three-
bedroom units and virtually all ofthose
larger units are located within the River
District,” the inventory states,
DeMaster ¿ays it is a mixed bag when it
comes to whether or not people are able to
find decent affordable housing in east
county. “Many times we see one or two
families combine into a single housing unit
in order to make ends meet,” she says.
Some interviewed for this article
suggested, that the rapid displacement of
poor people to East Portland and the
eastern parts of Multnomah County may
turn the area in tp a ghetto.
“People are really concerned to ... not let
the ghetto effect happen,” DeMaster says.
Fish makes no bones th at low-income
people are being displaced from the central
city area/N ot directly stating w hether or not
east Multnomah County is or will become a
ghetto, Fish did not dispute that poverty is
moving east. He also acknowledged that it
represents a trend that will most likely
continue.
-
“We need to invest in the infrastructure
of East Portland,” Fish says.
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