4
street roots
Aug. 30, 2013
METRO, fro m page 3
strategy. The task force
called on Metro to
offer
tech n ical
assistance, facilitate dialogue on funding
sources and generally use more carrots,
rather than sticks, to encourage the creation
of more affordable housing.
The strategy set a voluntary goal of
developing over 90,000 units of affordable
housing across the region by 2017. Metro
struggled to get local governments to even
report on their efforts, and the agency hasn’t
tracked whether the 90,000-unit goal was
met.
“Though many jurisdictions considered
actions to promote affordable housing, few
adopted them,” reads a 2011 internal Metro
memo outlining the agency’s history on the
issue.
The reason why Toils down to money.
Metro spokesperson Jim Middaugh says
that the agency could find money for
affordable housing, not unlike how it’s
helping fund the Convention Center Hotel.
But doing so, he says, would be a tall order.
“I guess the bottom line is that if the only
way Metro Council could fund affordable
housing would be to go to voters,” he says.
“And the mood for those types of investments
is not an easy sell.”
Ted Reid, a senior regional planner at
Metro, says that the reason Metro has
skewed toward voluntary requirements with
affordable housing is because such housing
require subsidies, and the agency has been
committee was the creation of a new regional
affordable housing fund. Metro would
dedicate an initial $1 million to the fund that
would be used to leverage money from
public, private and charitable entities. The
fund would grow to between $10 and $20
million and would be loaned out at low-
interest rates to affordable housing
developments throughout the region.
Liberty, who championed the idea, says
that Metro Council voted to create the fund
on a 4-3 vote. However, when the economy
crashed in 2008 it made it much more
difficult for the fund to attract matching
capital. In 2009, the money was
reprogrammed.
In 2010, Liberty made a push for stronger
affordable housing requirements in Metro’s
growth planning guidelines, but the
requirements were watered down after push
back from real estate interests. Liberty left
council shortly after.
“I think Metro’s lack of courage has
resulted in it not fulfilling the role it should
have fulfilled,” says Liberty.
But despite some set backs, Metro has
taken some concrete steps to increase
affordable housing. Since 1998, Metro’s
Transit-Oriented Development program has
been using federal transportation dollars to
fund housing near light rail stations.
Meganne Steele, a senior development
project manager at Metro, notes in an e-mail
exchange that developing affordable housing
has been a goal of each project funded
■ through the program. She stated that of
the 2,800 housing units constructed to
date through the program, more than half
are
geared
toward
lower-income
households, and 662 are restricted for
households earning up to 60 percent of
median family income.
Gerry Uba, a project manager who has
worked at Metro for 26 years, doesn’t
think the agency’s affordable housing
efforts have been a wash.
“A ll th a t w o rk w a s n o t a failu re b e c a u s e
reluctant to place an unfunded mandate on
local jurisdictions.
“This is a topic where there has been a lot
of reluctance to use much political capital,”
says Reid. “We’ve always tended toward a
more voluntary approach.”
In 2006, another committee charged with
examining ways Metro could increase
affordable housing concluded its work. The
most significant idea that came out of the
educating the region outside of Portland
to be aware of the need for affordable
housing is a big accomplishment for this
region,” says Uba.
Uba says that requiring the suburbs to
at least consider encouraging the creation
of affordable housing has resulted in some
housing actually being built in the suburbs.
In August, Metro Council signed off on
Beaverton’s plans to exempt nonprofit
affordable housing developers, similar to
what has been done in Portland and Tigard.
“That is a big shift from the way things
have been in the past,” says Metro Councilor
Sam Chase. “It’s actually a tax exemption.
It’s not theoretical plans that say, “we want
more affordable housing.”
Before being elected to Metro Council in
2012, Chase worked for a variety of
organizations seeking to increase affordable
housing, as well for two Portland City Council
The strategy set a voluntary goal of developing
over 90,000 units of affordable housing across
the region by 2017. But Metro struggled to get
local governments to even report on their
efforts, and the agency hasn’t tracked whether
the 90,000-unit goal was met.
members, and was actively involved in the
push to get Metro to require more affordable
housing in the 1990s. He says that Metro
hasn’t been as proactive as it could have been
in securing affordable housing, but he’s
optimistic that it’s changing.
He points to Metro throwing its lobbying
weight behind a bill that squeaked through
the legislature that will prohibit landlords
from discriminating against participants of a
federal housing program.
In August, Metro launched its Equity
Strategy Advisory Committee, which is
intended to help the agency look more
intentionally at how all of its actions impact
disadvantaged groups, from its bonding
process to transportation planning to how it
spends money on natural areas.
“Metro’s been going for a long time without
applying that equity and poverty filter on how
they are serving everyone in our region, and
I think that filter is going to be really
helpful,” says Chase of his hopes for the
committee.
Chase wants to use a broad range of
strategies that aren’t exclusively related to
h o u s in g
th a t c o u ld lift u p
d isa d v a n ta g e d
groups, and expects the committee to help.
For example, with the construction of the
Convention Center Hotel, which he supports,
he says he plans to push Metro to make good
use of women and minority-owned contractors
on the project. Doing so, says Chase, could
go a long ways towards lifting up
disadvantaged groups.
If Metro does make this pivot it could
signal a change in the nature of the agency.
“Metro doesn’t like to deal with affordable
housing because it’s politically sensitive,”
says Liberty. “It’s about inequality; it deals
with social justice issues. They’re happier
dealing with park provisions.”
i
Thursday, September 5, 2013
6 to 8 p.m. Gallery Walk
8 to 9 p.m. Post-walk reception at Backspace
Please jo in us in a c e le b ra tio n o f a rtis tic expressio n. The fo llo w in g
o rg a n iza tio n s w ill p ro u d ly share th e w o rk s o f c lie n ts and frie n d s .
Pick up a m ap a t any lo c a tio n I
TPI, p:ear & PNCA - NW 6 th /lrv in g ■ Sisters o f the Road - NW 6th/Davis
Macdonald Center - NW 6th/CouchM Albina Community Bank - NW 10th /Glisan
Want to know more about your friendly neighborhood vendor?
Check out our vendor profiles at news.streetroots.org!
St Andrew Bessette, Luke-Dorf & De Paul Treatment Centers - NW 6th/Burnside
Central City Concern & Street Roots - NW Broadway/Burnside