Street roots
3
April 25, 2014
Candidate Q&A Affordable Housing
^ C o m m is s io n e r Dah Saltzman and his
I
challenger Nicholas Caleb are running
Portland „Commissioner No. 3. Street
Roots posed three questions to the
candidates, on housing and homelessness.
Street Roots: Portland is ^experiencing an
affordable housing crisis. The affordable
housing inventory in the city’s core continues to
shrink despite a promise to preserve those units.
Meanwhile, the waiting list fo r a low-income
apartment remains very long or closed. What
are your ideas to increase the am ount o f
affordable housing fo r the lowest-income
households in Portland?
"W hile we certainly need to take
m e a n la f In! action on Increasing
a ffo rd a b le bowsing stocks we also
need to take a ctio n to Increase hew
« w e ll u n d e rp a id low-wage P ortlanders
can a ffo rd
Nicholas. Caleb is a Concordia University professor who
teaches government, cultural geography, environmental
sciences, introductory biology, environmental negotiations and
speech. ,
Dan Saltzman: One new way to create
more low-income affordable, housing and
resources is through an Affordable Housing
Incentive Zoning program. The city currently
has incentive zoning programs hut none that
are focused exclusively on affordable housing.
This development incentive will create more
affordable units, but it will also create funding
for low-incomé housing investments. I will ask
my City Council colleagues to support such a
program, next month. -
We also need to be sm arter about how we
make our investments in affordable housing.:
We need to be focused on lowering the cost
per unit for affordable housing. This year, for
the first tíme, I have, directed the housing
bureau to have maximum-cost thresholds for
its investments. In addition, we need to be
acquiring and rehabilitating existing housing
stock and turning it into affordable housing.
The acquisition and rehabilitation of
affordable housing is more than. 50 percent
less expensive than building new units.
Finally, we need to plan for an affordable
housing trust fund which would blend public
and private resources to fund affordable and
low-income housing for generations to come.
accessible to those who need it most, , instead
of what is most profitable for big developers.
Street Roots: From the media to political
The mayor’s recent announcement of $20
insiders to concerned.Portlanders, everyone has
million in additional funds for affordable
an opinion about how to end homelessness.
housing in the Interstate Urban Renewal '
What will you specifically do to build the
Area is welcome news, as communities of
political support in the community to tackle the
issue?
color continue to disproportionately suffer
from gentrification and displacement.
D a n Saltzm an: I have a history of building
However, if should hot be funded at the c o st*
of trimming, other affordable housing projects , support for issues that, affeet those most iu .
fr o m t h e b u d g e t. T h e le v e l o f o v e rs ig h t a n d
n e e d in o u r c o m m u n ity . T o illu s tr a te th is I
Nicholas Caleb: Portland Metro has one
of the lowest rental vacancy rates in the
country, and it’s no coincidence that >
homelessness has been on .the rise at the
same time. We need to take aggressive
action, including rent controls and anti
gentrification policies to keep lower-income
Poftlanders from being priced out of their
own neighborhoods and losing their homes.
The Portland Development Commission’s'
refusal to consider community demands for
affordable housing to be included in a
recently proposed subsidy to Trader Joe’s in
Northeast Portland was a potent reminder
that we need better oversight on public
development spending. The money would be
better spent on affordable housing than on
deep land discounts and subsidies for a well-
funded corporation. Otherwise, we can
expect to see more “affordable housing”
projects like the infamous Headwaters
development, occupied, by tenants who aré
not actually living in poverty. More
development money should be spent on rent-
controlled, truly affordable housing which is.
accountability in allocating development
resources to affordable housing projects has
deteriorated, and we need to make sure we
are directing our resources to meet our most
urgent heeds in providing affordable housing.
We need to address the crisis of affordable
housing both as a problem o f supply and a
problem of poverty wages. As we work to
improve access to affordable housing we need
to be working to mandate a $15-an-hour
minimum wage to keep precariously housed,
low-wage workers and their families off the
streets and free up funding to invest in
affordable housing. Fifteen dollars an hour
would likely lift tens of thousands of working
Portlanders out of poverty, help protect
communities of color from gentrification and
displacement, and provide meaningful ;
support to the women who make up almost
two-thirds of the minimum-wage workforce.
While we certainly need to take meaningful
action on increasing affordable housing stock,
we also need to take action to increase how
much underpaid low-wage Portlanders can
afford.
would point to my involvement in the
establishment, renewal and expansion of the
Portland Children’s Levy. The Levy has
produced results that have benefited
thousands of Portland’s children and families.
As Portland’s Housing Commissioner, I
want to see housing justice and that those
Who are experiencing homelessness are not _
viewed as though they are committing a
crime. It’s going to take establishing a broad
coalition to create, a consciousness around
the importance of housing justice. To do this
we must eliminates polarizing rhetoric and
focus on real actions and real results.
I intend to do this by working with a wide
variety of stakeholders including business
groups, nonprofit service providers and, most
importantly, with those who are experiencing
homelessness. I believe this approach is the
best course to build support on issues
surrounding homelessness, and I have the
track record to make it happen.
DIRECTOR'S DESK, fro m page 2
public'and insiders both know is that there
are not enough resources available to
tackle the issues of homelessness and
poverty in our community. What are the
answers?
In the short-term, the Women Into .
Housing Now program and the $1.7 million
going toward vulnerable people on the
streets should he continued.
The metro region should also be
dreaming bigger. It’s easy to think that
homelessness, and housing programs are
always getting money when you read the
headlines, but the reality is we’re begging
for crumbs and our system is slapped
together with a hodge-podge of different
funding mechanisms that don’t equal
actually tacking the program.
It’s time for our region to act. Sure, we
could get bogged down in conversations
and petty politics about what is the ,best
"W® need to p la n fo r an a ffo rd a b le
boa slng tru s t la n d w lilc lt w o n li S le n i
p u b lic 'and p riv a te resources to fu n d
o ffo r i& liie and low -lncoine fconslng for
generations to com e,"
D an Saltzm an is currently serving his fourth term as a
Portland City Commissioner. He currently manages the
Portland H ousing Bureau, Portland, Fire & Rescue, the
Gateway Center fo r Domestic Violence Services and, the Portland
Children’s Levy.
path forward, but it’s going to take real
leadership to actually make it happen. Who
among our elected officials has got what is
takes to actual move on creating some kind
of ongoing recourse to support housing in
our community at the level we need?
The reality is that woman arid children
on the streets endure great pain, both
mentally and physically. They remain
•strong in the face of overwhelming odds.
It’s time for our elected leaders to show
the same kind of fortitude as the group of
women working together to remain safe on
the streets.
“My experience has been hell,” one of
the women told me. “I don’t have all the
answers, but I do know that no one in their
right mind would let hundreds of women
sleep on th e streets. Where’s the
leadership in this city?”
I would have to agree. Where is the
leadership?
experiencing homelessness: All Portlanders
have a right to the city. We need to stop
spending public dollars on enforcing policies
that undermine unhoused people’s ability to
survive day to day, as w hen vital personal
items such as blankets and even medication
are confiscated during campsite sweeps.
Criminalization of homelessness is
inhumane, does nothing to solve the problem
of homelessness, and damages the city’s
credibility with the very people we’re
attempting to help. Reviving sit-lie and
attempting to address this issue through the
Police Bureau with policies such as Prosper
Portland can only damage attempts to work
equitably with a diverse group of stakeholders
to find solutions responsive to the diversity of
needs among unhoused people. Wealthy
developers have had disproportionate
influence compared to unhoused people and
advocacy organizations in Right 2 Dream
Too’s ongoing negotiations with the City of
Portland. We need ito correct this disparity in
access to better address the diversity of ways
in which Portlanders experience
homelessness in partnership with the
community from the bottom up.
Street Roots: WZuzf is the city doing right
and what is it doing wrong in terms how it’s
prioritizing the use o f taxpayers money , on the
issue o f housing and homelessness?
Dan Saltzman: We need to do a better job
of acquiring and maintaining accurate data
that can drive our investments in housing and
homelessness programs. The city’s homeless
programs and the practices of our nonprofit
partners are among the best practices in the
country. The problem is that we don’t have
the adequate resources to m eet the needs of
those on, our streets, ! am committed to .
c o n tin u in g to fin d m o r e r e s o u r c e s a n d
o b ta in in g th e d a ta w e n e e d to a llo c a te
resources to our needs.
Nicholas. Caleb: For all the issues at work
in tile process, that the city is continuing to
work with Right 2 Dream Too is a step in the
right direction. We need to be doing more to
support and expand successful, cost-effective
and innovative community solutions like the
rest area model Right 2 Dream Too has
developed, and supporting effective
community-driven organizations and solutions
will allow us to better serve the diversity of
individual needs among people experiencing
homelessness.
Even within the status quo we can improve
our prioritization of public money. Not only
do we not have enough shelter space to meet
the needs of our homeless population, with
punishingly long waiting lists, but also we do
a particularly poor job in providing access for
women and families. We need to address this
disparity in our existing safety net services.
We should prioritize housing-first policies,
Nicholas Caleb: Any unhoused person or
which have consistently reduced chronic
advocate could tell you that there is no one
homelessness and public spending on health
narrative that accurately captures the many
care and incarceration, along with arrests for
different experiences of unhoused people.
offenses associated with criminalized
Our solutions to this problem cannot he “one
homelessness. It is less expensive to house
size fits all” if we expect to succeed. As we
unhoused people with supportive social
work to help unhoused Portlanders transition
services than it is to criminalize them,
back inside and work toward self-sufficiency
hospitalize them and neglect their needs (as
to the best of their ability, we need to take
Utah recently discovered). !
immediate action to end. the criminalization
More broadly, the deficiencies in our social
of homelessness in Portland.
safety net reflect poor priorities in the city’s
The findings in the Western Regional
Advocacy Project’s survey of homeless people use of taxpayer money in general. City
Council members should not be accepting
on their experiences with police, private
money from wealthy corporations like Nike
security and the criminal justice system "
and offering them millions in tax breaks and
speak for themselves. Overwhelming .
subsidies behind closed doors while we are
majorities of surveyed homeless people
struggling to meet profound and urgent
reported, “being harassed, cited or arrested”
human needs with too little funding. We
for “sleeping, sitting or lying on the sidewalk
should ribt be tolerating anything less than
or loitering or hanging out. Only 26 percent
living wages from large corporate employers
of the respondents said they knew of a safe
so we can save taxpayer money that would
place to sleep at night.” I am proud to
have gone to subsidizing poverty wages and
announce that Caleb for Council has.
put those savings toward ensuring housing
endorsed WRAP and its Homeless Bill of
Rights Campaign for Oregon. We should work , justice. I will not accept any corporate money
and have, limited all donors to $50 cash
to eraft policy on the city level, inspired by
contributions and so will not be beholden to
the solutions organizations like WRAP have
wealthy interests in prioritizing funding on
identified to ensure Portlanders are not
housing, homelessness or any other issue.
harassed and arrested simply for