Candidates forum brings out the polished and passionate
City Council contenders
weigh in on housing,
homeless issues
BY JOANNE ZUHL
STAFF WRITER
ew and familiar faces among the
candidates for City Council
addressed an invested audience on
issues of affordable housing and
homelessness Jan. 23.
The Candidates’ Forum on Housing
brought together the leading contenders for
the two council seats on the ballot next
spring. Commissioner Amanda Fritz,
Oregon Rep. Mary Nolan and Teressa
Raiford are contending for the
Commissioner 1 position, currently held by
Fritz. And Jeri Sundvall-Williams and Steve
Novick are vying for the Commissioner 4
position, which is being vacated by Randy
Leonard.
The panel fielded questions prepared by
the event sponsors on issues of
gentrification, job creation, funding for
affordable housing, civil rights for the poor,
and streamlining bureaucracy. Oregon
Opportunity Network, JOIN, 211info and
Street Roots sponsored the event, which
was held at the First Unitarian Church in
Downtown Portland.
One underlying theme through several of
the queries had to deal with preserving
what we have, and finding new resources for
what we need.
Novick, like all the candidates,
acknowledged the tough times ahead: The
city is facing an 8 percent spending
reduction in the next budget cycle, federal
and state funds are drying up, and the city’s
N
h o u sin g fu n d g e n e ra to r, ta x in c re m e n t
financing, is facing a major drop in revenue
in the coming years.
Novick put forward several options for
potential resources, including adopting a
local beer and wine, tax and a possible
prison dividend drawn from the savings of
sending fewer people to prison for shorter
terms. He also revisited a major theme of
his campaign: health care, as a measure of
prevention, cost savings and job creation.
“My biggest plank on jobs is making
Portland the best city in the world on
controlling health care costs.” Novick told
the audience. “It will make us a magnet for
business.”
Each candidate drew on his or her
P H O T O B Y IS R A E L B A Y E R
Candidates for City Council, left to right, Commissioner Amanda Fritz, Oregon Rep. Mary Nolan, Teressa Raiford, Jeri Sundvall-Williams and
Steve Novick at the Candidates Forum on Housing.
particular set of personal and professional
circumstances. Sundvall-Williams referenced
her personal struggles with the law, poverty,
and the challenges to secure low-income
housing and employment. She now works
for the city, and spoke pointedly on the laws
that penalize people who have no money.
“My greatest frustration with the city is
h o w p e o p le lik e m e g e t tr e a te d ,” Sundvall-
Williams said, noting the system of fines and
penalties for people who can’t afford basic
needs such as transportation. “One of my
biggest stressors is watching the
criminalization of people in poverty.”
On gentrification issues, Sundvall-Williams
called for better planning for areas targeted
for renewal. “We plan where our prosperity
is going to be; we don’t plan for where our
poverty pockets are going to be.”
Sundvall-Williams also called for greater
investment in prevention programs such as
drug and alcohol recovery programs and
mental health services, which would be cost
effective in preventing incarceration,
keeping families together, and encouraging
employment and sustainability.
Raiford delivered a message of inclusion -
getting people from all communities in
Portland at the table on issues that impact
their neighborhoods. The absence of that
inclusion has left many in some
communities feeling gentrified and
d ise n fra n c h ise d from th e p ro c e ss.
“If w e d o n ’t in c lu d e th e w h o le c o r e o f
Portland, than we’re still losing and missing
the point.”
Nolan spoke to creating a new culture in
the city, one that fosters job creation,
streamlines the bureaucracy for
development, and changes the behavior and
investments that have led to disparities in
neighborhoods.
“I think we get our heads out of City Hall
and into the neighborhoods,” she said when
asked about how to correct the negative
impacts of gentrification.
Nolan also called for making workforce
housing a greater priority.
“We’ve put a priority on really low-income
housing, and I understand the basis behind
that,” she said. “But what it has meant is
that we have a growing gap in houses for
families in the working class. We need to
put more energy into solving that problem.”
Fritz spoke frankly about her own role on
the City Council, particularly as a backer for
Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees the
P o rtla n d H o u sin g Bureau. She defended her
r ec o r d o n th e sid e w a lk m a n a g e m e n t
ordinance, limited car camping, and the
implementation of the new Office of Equity
and Human Rights. She said she would
continue to support the 30 percent set aside
for affordable housing, incentives to create
more low-income units, and efforts to find
another sustainable funding source for
housing. She also stressed prevention, in
mental health care, recovery and
employment, to keep people from falling
through the cracks.
“We need to be creating jobs within the
city to make sure people who have had
challenges can overcome them and get good
jobs,” Fritz said.
‘Drug impact zones' 244 people ligli ter a fte r exclusions
BY JOANNE ZUHL
STAFF WRITER
ix months into operation, the city’s
drug impact zone program has
excluded 244 defendants from the
city’s downtown and inner eastside
neighborhoods - nearly one in four of all
arrests for heroin, cocaine and marijuana in
the county during that period.
The $250,000 program, implemented in
June, allows the courts to exclude people
from three geographical areas for up to two
years, based upon their conviction. The
three DLAs - assigned for heroin, cocaine
and marijuana convictions - largely overlap
covering the Downtown, Old Town, and
Holladay Park neighborhoods.
The period ended in November, and the
city released the report just this month.
“When you look at the amount of crime
and the types of crime - it’s working,” said
Billy Prince, DIA prosecutor with the
Multnomah County District Attorney’s
office. Prince spoke to members of the Old
Town/Chinatown Livability Committee,
which led the cry last year to bring back
exclusions to the neighborhood.
Prince was referring specifically to a
S
sampling of 90 defendants who were
arrested in the Downtown and Old Town
neighborhoods who had histories of drug
dealing and violence.
Altogether, the report references 1,064
arrests involving heroin, cocaine and
marijuana throughout the county — 824 of
them outside of the three DLAs. Regardless
of where the arrest took place, a convicted
offender could be excluded from one or all
of the three areas downtown.
According to the report, 81 percent of
those arrested in the DLAs for dealing
resided outside the areas and had come into
the areas to sell the drugs. The vast
majority, 180, of the 244 exclusions are for
possession, with the remaining 60 for
dealing.
While most of those arrested in the DLAs
were white, 42 percent were people of color.
Among those arrested outside of the areas,
65 percent were white and 35 percent were
people of color.
The $250,000 appropriated for the
program pays for the DIA prosecutor as well
as overtime for a police walking beat in the
neighborhoods. The program also changed
policy, ramping up the criminality on heroin
and cocaine residue offenses from violations
to misdemeanors, making them eligible for
exclusion. Since that changed, 164 cases
that were formerly eligible for violation
treatment were issued as misdemeanors and
were eligible for exclusion as a term of
probation.
Depending on the case, some people
arrested on drug charges qualify for
Multnomah County’s STOP drug court
treatment program. Defendants enrolled in
STOP are not issued exclusions as long as
they are actively engaged in treatment. If
the defendant does not comply with the
STOP court terms, they receive a felony
conviction and can then be excluded.
Exclusions are not issued for people
sentenced to prison.
Exclusions may come with a list of
exceptions for people who need to be in one
of the DIAs either because they live there
or need the services in the neighborhood.
Nearly half of those issued exclusions
qualify for the city’s Service Coordination
Team program which helps chronic
offenders with integrated drug treatment,
housing and related services.