Street roots., November 06, 2015, Page 4, Image 4

Street Roots • Nov. 6-12, 2015
News
Page 4
NOWHERE TO HIDE
How Portland’s rental market is making a bad situation worse for domestic violence survivors
BY EMILY GREEN
"Landlords at this point have
jacked up their rents so high
that they are way outside of the
allowable expense for a vouched
If you're talking thousands of
dollars to move in, then there's
not a whole hell of a lot yon can
do? ?
STAFF WRITER
ortland’s cutthroat rental market is
forcing an increasing number of
domestic violence survivors to make a
tough choice: stay in an abusive relationship
or become homeless, according to local
advocates who specialize in assisting
survivors in crisis.
“We’ve got moms with 4-month-old babies
living on the streets. In that instance, I
recognize that person chose to do that
because of what they were facing in their
own home,” said Becky Beier, YWCA’s
Yolanda Project supervisor. “I would not
blame the person who stays because that’s
terrifying. But people are choosing between
those realities all the time.”
As it becomes more difficult to house
domestic violence survivors in Portland’s
competitive rental market, advocates said
new counseling approaches have emerged.
Beier said she’s attended training Sessions
where advocates learn how to tell survivors
B
TIME IN SHELTERS HAS INCREASED ..
Average days in domestic violence emergency shelters
120
Bradley Angle
100
West
Raphael
BECKY BEIER
YWCA*
YWCA'S YOLANDA PROJECT SUPERVISOR
I
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*The YWCA closed its
Multnomah County Shelter in 2012
said the county has 33 household units for
One woman seeking services at the
YWCA recently told Beier that when she felt
the tension building in her home, she’d
drive to a remote parking lot and sleep in
her car while her partner calmed down.
“As I’m sitting there listening to her,”
Beier said, “I know that what she’s doing to
keep herself safe every night - I don’t have
something better for her right now. There
isn’t any shelter space, and 1 can’t tell her,.
‘You don’t have to sleep in your car
anymore.’”
Beier said that previously, she might have
used a hotel voucher to keep a roof over the
woman’s head while she looked for an
apartment, but that isn’t an option anymore
because the hotel stay would likely be
months long.
“My program can’t absorb thousands of
dollars in hotel costs,” Beier said.
A timeline compiled for Street Roots by
Multnomah County’s Domestic Violence
Coordination Office shows a parallel
between average length of stay at local
domestic -violence shelters and the increase
in fair market rent.
In fiscal year 2010, the fair market rate of
a two-bedroom apartment in Multnomah
County, according to the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Development, was
$839 per month, while the average length of
stay at a domestic violence shelter was 47
nights. Five years later, that same apartment
is valued at $944 per month and the average
length of stay at a domestic violence shelter
is 70 nights. .
The fair market value, however, does not
reflect the reality of what’s actually available
in Portland’s rental market, where rent
increased more than 10 percent in the first
three quarters of 2015. A query of real
H they can afford, the longer other survivors
H have to wait to get in.
I
When the YWCA closed its Multnomah
I County shelter in 2013 due to lack of
E funding, the county lost 19 domestic
g violence shelter beds.
B
Multnomah County has about 10 shelter
B beds per 100,000 residents while the
F national average for cities of the same size
B is 14 to 17 beds per 100,000 residents, said
E Annie Neal, director at Multnomah County
g Domestic Violence Coordination Office. She
SOURCE: MULTNOMAH COUNTY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
COORDINATION OFFICE, SERVICEPOINT
... ALONG WITH RENTS
Median rent for all units in Portland
$1,800
$1,700
$1,600
$1,500
$1,400
$1,300
$1,200
SOURCE: ZILLOW RENT INDEX BY ZILLOW GROUP, INC
*
estate website Zillow.com for a two-bedroom
apartment between $0 and $944 per month
- the fair market value according to HUD,
yielded only two results, and both were east
of Interstate 205.
Additionally, Zillow Group, Inc. reports
the median rental cost in Portland was
$1,765 per month in September - $93 more
than HUD’s fair market value of a 4
bedroom unit, and Zillow was taking every
rental unit into account, from studio
apartments to large houses.
With many survivors looking for housing
for not only themselves, but their children
as well, the cost of securing an apartment
and moving in is easily upwards of $2,000.
The longer survivors and their children stay
in shelters while they try to secure housing
survivors and their children, with 78 beds
spread across those units.
t
. In the past several months, stays at the
Bradley Angle domestic violence shelter
have increased from eight weeks to 12
weeks, said Vanessa Yarie, emergency
services manager. “We still continue to get
I about five tb seven shelter requests a day
( that we cannot meet,” she said, including
| calls from survivors who are with their
abuser and can’t leave because they have
nowhere safe to go.
Raphael House, another local domestic
violence shelter, recently doubled its
maximum allowable length of stay from 60
to 120 days “and beyond,” said Christina
McGovney, shelter coordinator. “Stays are
more like five to six months if there is to be
a housing outcome at the end of the stay,”
she said.
In addition to a shortage of shelter beds,
other factors are compounding what
advocates are calling an already desperate
situation.
The Temporary Assistance for Domestic
Violence Survivors, or TA-DVS, program
provides funds advocates use to purchase
plane or bus tickets to get survivors
somewhere safe or to make payments to
hotels for temporary situations and to
landlords for first month’s rent or move-in
fees. But Beier said these funds don’t go as
far as they once did.
The TA-DVS grant allows for $1,200 over
90 days - an amount that hasn’t changed
since the program’s inception in 1996.
Because this grant became available
through Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families, it s available only to survivors who
have minor children.
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See SURVIVORS page 5