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street roots
April 13, 2012
The State of Housing: A Portland Story
BY NICK FISH
CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST
his week I presented my fourth
housing budget to the City Council. It
is a good time to reflect on the
progress we have made together, the
challenges we face, and the opportunities
that lie ahead.
T
Building a
New House
I ran for City
Council on a platform
of changing the way
we deliver affordable
housing to struggling
families, the
homeless, and the
disabled. I pledged to
Nick Fish is the
work with
Portland City
government,
Commissioner in
nonprofit, business,
charge o f housing.
and faith community
partners to build a
new house, not just renovate the old one.
In 2010, Mayor Adams and I delivered on
that promise by officially launching a new
bureau — the Portland Housing Bureau. We
combined all the city’s housing programs
and funding sources under one roof. Why?
Because the old house was divided, and we
needed a new, sharper focus on the needs of
the growing number of people who cannot
afford to live in Portland.
Next, my team and I worked with
community partners to develop a Strategic
Plan, placing our values of equity and
opportunity at the heart of everything we
do. The new bureau would focus on three
priorities: ending homelessness, preserving
and building affordable housing, and closing
the minority homeownership gap.
.. _Tohold US. accountable, wo. for med. a . new
sleep on our streets or in shelters each
night.
We worked with the Veterans
Administration and Central City Concern to
remove bottlenecks in programs serving our
homeless veterans, and broke ground on
Gray’s Landing, dedicated housing for
veterans in South Waterfront.
I brought Portland’s first-ever Fair
Housing Action Plan to Council, and
Multnomah County Commissioner Deborah
Kafoury and I co-chaired a Section 8 Task
Force to reduce barriers to housing choice
throughout our community. Today, voucher
holders are more successful in renting
apartments, and a citizen committee is
working to implement our bold strategy to
combat discrimination in rental housing.
Partnering with tenant groups and
health care, housing and employment.
You wouldn’t choose to grow less food
during a famine. But that’s essentially what
the federal government is doing this year,
drastically reducing Portland’s share of
federal dollars. A number of Republican
candidates for President have even gone so
far as to threaten to abolish the Department
of Housing and Urban Development.
Closer to home, the City of Portland and
Multnomah County face significant budget
cuts, and the funds generated by urban
renewal districts are drying up.
President Abraham Lincoln, during
another crisis, challenged the nation to live
up to its highest ideals: “We can succeed
only by concert. It is not ‘Can any of us
imagine better?’ but, ‘Can we all do
better?’...The occasion is piled high with
Our Progress
Two years later, here’s what we’ve
accomplished:
Community advocates and I fought to
protect local funding for safety net services
like short-term rent assistance, which
prevents families from falling into
homelessness. Council voted to strengthen
the city’s commitment to using 30 percent
of urban renewal dollars to develop
affordable homes. The bureau won over $1
million in new federal money to assist
people living with HIV/AIDS.
Our ambitious campaign to preserve and
modernize hundreds of apartments occupied
by older adults and the disabled protected
federal subsidies for over 500 apartments —
subsidies worth more than $50 million over
the next 20 years.
Working with partners like Hacienda,
PCRI, Human Solutions, and Home
Forward, we have invested tens of millions
of dollars in quality, affordable homes in
neighborhoods throughout the city, from
Hillsdale to Cully, Lents to Arbor Lodge.
We opened the doors of the award
winning Bud Clark Commons, a one-stop
center combining shelter, affordable
apartments, and services to help people get
back on their feet. A cornerstone of our city-
county 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness, it
is good news for the 2,700 people who
Partnerships
Portland cannot be successful without
strong partnerships. We all have an
important role to play, whether it’s churches
offering shelter to homeless families;
outreach workers from JOIN saving lives on
the streets; Mercy Corps supporting
entrepreneurs in struggling neighborhoods;
or local governments working together to
streamline the delivery of basic services
that help people achieve self-sufficiency.
When government, the faith community,
businesses and non-profits link arms, we can
change lives and the direction of our city.
Opportunity
Swanks
upland
itaviH»
While many neighborhoods in Portland
are thriving, poverty continues to hold too
many of our families back. In a time of
limited resources, we must act intentionally
to extend the benefits of a livable
community to everyone, in every part of our
city.
We will invest in strong neighborhoods to
ensure that they include affordable homes
and remain open to all, and we will invest in
struggling neighborhoods to provide decent
and quality homes for families at every
income level.
This week, the City Council voted to
support neighborhood urban renewal
districts, which will bring new resources to
places like Parkrose and Cully. The newly-
created Office of Equity will help all of us be
more accountable. And through our budget
decisions, we should and must invest in
areas o f our city which are falling behind.
By talking openly about th e needs we
c itiz e n a d v is o r y b o d y, th e P o r tla n d H o u sin g
Advisory Commission, and asked new voices
from Portland’s communities of color to
serve. We also created a new bureau
management position charged with
measuring our progress.
But we did not build this new house to
win a planning award. These deliberate
steps will help us better serve struggling
families, the homeless and the disabled, and
to reduce historic disparities in communities
of color.
time has come to rally the community to
support a new dedicated funding source to
support this vital work.
landlords, we are improving the quality and
safety of rental apartments. Last year, the
Council authorized new funding for
inspectors to hold landlords accountable.
We are targeting our limited resources to
help people keep their homes, and to close
the minority homeownership gap. Too many
people of color have been victims of
discriminatory and predatory lending
practices in our community. Working with
community-based nonprofits like the African
American Alliance for Homeownership,
Habitat for Humanity, the Portland Housing
Center, NAYA and Proud Ground, we are
opening the doors of homeownership to all.
We are developing new approaches to
increase contracting opportunities for
minority, women-owned, and emerging small
businesses. In my own bureaus, I am setting
a high bar.
Challenges
Our house is bigger, the foundation is
stronger, and the front door is open to more
people. But we face new challenges: a rising
tide of need, and declining resources to
meet the need. Powerful forces, like
unemployment and rising rents, contribute
to poverty in our community, while our tools
are limited and our impact on the overall
housing market is relatively small.
More families are losing their homes to
foreclosure, more children are going to bed
hungry, more veterans are experiencing
homelessness, and too many people can’t
find work.
Portland is at risk of becoming a
community of rich and poor, with a strong
inner core and poverty moving east. New
census data and reports issued by the
Coalition for Communities of Color
document alarming disparities in education,
difficulty, and we must rise with the
occasion. As our case is new, so we must
think anew and act anew.”
There is no doubt that our occasion is
piled high with difficulty. The questions are:
will we, once again, rise with the occasion?
And are we prepared to think and act anew?
The Road Ahead
I am an optimist by nature. But I also
know that we cannot succeed without
investing in both people and places,
strengthening our partnerships, and
developing a new approach to fighting
poverty and creating opportunity for all.
Here are three of my priorities for the next
year:
Funding
It’s time to demand a renewed national
commitment to building strong communities
through housing - from ending
homelessness, building new homes, and
preventing foreclosures, to funding the basic
services adults and children need to lead
healthy and productive lives.
I will challenge our regional partners to
commit to building a more equitable and
sustainable regional community. Washington
and Clackamas counties represent more
than half of the population of the tri-county
area, but provide less than a third of the
affordable housing.
I will lead the City Council to invest in
long-term, cost-effective programs to lift
people out of poverty, strengthen
neighborhoods, and eliminate disparities.
While the city faces big cuts to its budget,
we must preserve safety net programs and
services for our most vulnerable.
But even this will not be enough. The
_
face, we can begin to address them more
equitably, building a stronger, more
prosperous Portland.
Conclusion
Our success is measured in the lives we
change, not in the plans we issue or the
policies we write.
Recently, a resident of Chaucer Court, an
apartment building the city helped to
preserve, shared his personal story with me:
“I looked up one day and I had run out of
road ... I realized I was facing a truly
horrible future; that my ascending years
would be fraught with struggle just to exist.
(Thanks to Transition Projects) I went
literally from a place of darkness to the joy
of a new beginning. ... It is fair and accurate
to say that what has been provided to me ...
is nothing short of a miracle.”
His story is our story: of new beginnings,
and of occasional miracles.
I am honored and grateful to work with so
many dedicated partners. Special thanks to
the employees of the Portland Housing
Bureau, our new leader, Director Traci
Manning, and our honor roll of government
partners: Mary McBride at HUD; Margaret
Van Vliet at the State; Commissioner
Deborah Kafoury at Multnomah County; and
Lee Moore and Steve Rudman at Home
Forward.
As a city commissioner, I am guided by a
simple conviction: that everyone in our
community, regardless of income, status or
zip code, deserves a safe and decent place
to call home.
Together, we achieve success one person,
one family at a time.
To learn more about the budget process and
city s housing budget, go to www.
portlandonline. com/phb/index.
cfm?&c=32341
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