Street Roots • April 3-9, 2015
Page 3
E d it o r ia l
City Council stands firm in URA housing vote
T
I
t was as if some long-lost, housing-positive energy
descended upon City Hall this past Wednesday.
It was the vote - or rather a series of votes - that
reminded onlookers that housing for all once was — and
should be again — a priority for our civic leaders,
developers and neighborhoods. It
was a City Council decision to
O
S m
rededicate the North Macadam
_______________ Urban Renewal Area - the last
downtown URA with significant
open land for housing development — to its original
promise to include low-income housing. This URA is the
city’s funding mechanism behind the South Waterfront
development, where high-end apartments are plentiful,
with more coming every year. It has been a boon for
developers and people who can shell out thousands
each month for a small apartment
But the city’s low-income obligations to the URA
funding — 270 low-income units — have never been met
and were soon to be abandoned. The Portland Housing
Bureau intended to drop its goal. It seemed the path of
least resistance.
To Commissioner Nick Fish, who challenged the
city’s intended plan, this was like “lowering the river
rather than raising the bridge.” On Wednesday, the City
Council passed his resolution to solidify its intent to
actually build new affordable housing in the city’s core.
It was paired with a set of amendments to the city’s
URA policies, brought forth by Mayor Charlie Hales
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E
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that dedicate more tax revenue from that area to
affordable housing.
Together, the City Council passed a collection of
policies that will prioritized the largest, up-front chunk
of change to build low-income housing this city has seen
in years: $47 million. It includes dedicated parcels of
land and specific housing unit quotas that exceed initial
URA goals. And it passed 5-0.
“It means housing went to the front of the line,” Fish
said after the meeting.
It’s about time.
Outside the sandstone walls of City Hall, more and
more Portlanders can’t afford to live in this city, and it is
on course to get much worse.
Incomes are moving at a glacial pace while housing
costs — particularly for renters — are skyrocketing
beyond any real logic. We live in a landlord economy.
Family incomes are consumed by housing costs, not to
mention older residents on fixed incomes.
During testimony for the resolution, speakers
testified to Hie city’s abysmal numbers: more than
20,000 units short for our lowest-income residents,
while we enjoy a surplus of higher-income housing. Yes
- a surplus. Even with vouchers for rent assistance,
there simply aren’t apartments available that people can
afford.
The affordable housing units in North Macadam are
years away, but at least now something will happen.
We’re still waiting on the other 20,000.
that you’ve
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S ta ff
Executive Director Israel Bayer
Let’s not lose our funk, Portland
in khaki pants, business suits and the latest expensive
entrification has been slowly eating away at our
cycling gear. There were no punk rockers or homeless
city for the past 20 years. Although during the
people, no black folks or kids dressed in miss-matched
past five years, with massive rental increases
and the gap between the rich and the poor widening, secondhand clothes. There were no street musicians
doesn’t it feel like we are on the verge of completely headed downtown to work for the day or construction
workers in denims. There was no funk. Everyone on the
losing all of our funk?
train was perfectly comfortable in their conformity. It
By that, I mean our culture.
made me pause and think about Gordly’s words more
Some would say Israel, what are
closely.
you talking about? Look at our city.
Understanding that many trains and buses
We have an urban core filled with
throughout the city that day would be filled with a wide
15-minute neighborhoods with
DIRECTOR'S bustling restaurants, quaint cafes,
variety of people and cultures gave me hope. Still, it
gave me pause, knowing that it was one example of how
DESK
microbreweries, great
quickly we are becoming an urban core with less grit
transportation, bike shops,
By Israel Bayer
and soul.
spectacular parks and access to
Many of the challenges that we face in our
quality food.
community have to do with access to jobs, housing,
That is, unless you are living in
equity and transportation. Until we have more resources
East Portland or are a low-income Portlander being
and begin to regulate all of our urban planning with
pushed out of the city.
these specific lenses, poor and middle-class people are
Obviously, people of color understand these realities
going to continue to be forced to abandon the urban
at a very deep level. —
core.
“I use the word grief to explain what I think my mom
Which creates another set of problems. If we can’t
and dad would be feeling right now,” says former
provide the necessary affordable housing in Portland’s
Oregon State Senator Avel Gordly in a recent and
urban core, and we don’t want to concentrate poverty in
powerful short-film called “Future: Portland,” produced
East Portland and Gresham, what are we going to do?
by Oregon Humanities. “When I’m driving up Williams
Poor people can’t simply disappear:
Avenue, I experience a physical pain.”
The sad reality is that the private market isn’t
“It was never intended that black people would enjoy
required to do the right thing when it comes to poverty.
living in this state at the end of the Oregon Trail,”
There is money to be made and lots of i t
Gordly goes on to say in the film. “In fact, there were
I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, think
exclusion laws that said they couldn’t. If you’re looking
about it. The Oregon Zoo is about to open a $57 million
at how a community will grow and prosper in a way that
dollar elephant exhibit, paid for largely by taxpayers, to
benefits everyone; if you continue on a trajectory, or a
house elephants for public viewing. Never mind that we
path that continues to exclude people based on race,
haven’t been able to find a pathway for long-term
ethnicity and income, that becomes an Achilles’ heal. It
resources for housing Portland’s own residents. Saying
will cripple and weaken all of the other so-called
that, I’ve got absolutely nothing against elephants. I love
opportunities people are envisioning. You won’t be able
them.
to get there because you have weakened one of the
I suppose my point is this: Unless we get our
limbs that you need to travel on the path.”
priorities Straight, Portland, we are going to lose our
I was reminded of it this week when traveling early
great city. A city that nurtures the funk and treasures
morning from North Portland to downtown on the Max.
it’s own residents, regardless of their race and class.
This particular train was full of white men and women
■
V
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach h im a t
israel@ streetroots.org
o r fo llow him on
Twitter@ israelbayer.
israel@streetroots.org
Managing Editor ioanne Zuhl
joanne@streetroots.org
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Volunteer, grace@streetroots.org
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W right
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