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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 5, 2016)
Street Roots • August 5-11,2016 SHUT OUT, from page 4 to increase by roughly 35 percent, o r $17.4 million. Of those additional funds, $2.5 million will be used for eviction prevention services and an additional $14.9 million in rental assistance and housing placement services. This includes dedicated funds from the city of Portland, Multnomah County, Home Forward, City of Gresham and th e U.S. D epartm ent of Housing and Urban Development’s Continuum of Care program. According to the Portland Housing Bureau, median household income, indexed for inflation, declined by 8 percent between 2000 and 2014, while median ren t has increased by almost 30 percent. B ut in Portland’s white-hot housing m arket with a vacancy rate of less than 2 percent and new development primarily catering to only the w ealthiest of renters, rental assistance can’t keep up. “Rental assistance is limited because it is tied to the dynamics and th e geography of the private market,” said Andy Miller, the executive director of Human Solutions, the social service agency th at serves homeless families and operates th e only year-round shelter in Multnomah County. “And those dynamics are not working for housing stability right now.” “Families are needing longer periods of support. The monthly level of support is greater, so the total cost in term s of public dollars per household is higher. You’re also seeing longer lengths of time to find (housing),” said Marc Jolin, th e director of t h e J o in t Office of Homeless Services. “The big thing th at has changed is how rapidly rents are rising and th e growing deficit for housing for very low income people.” According to Zumper’s National Rent Report, released this month, th e average price for a one-bedroom apartm ent in Portland is now $1,400, a 2.9 percent increase in one month. Colling said situations like th e one Jam es Brown and Denise William faced are becoming more common. “In th e last two years, the bulk of my job has switched,” Colling said, from helping hom eless people move into housing to preserving affordable housing. “I have a lot of people who are News Page 5 stably housed th at I’m trying to find new m onth and th e agency provided an average housing for, more than I ever have.” of seven m onths of assistance to its clients. Miller said th at Human Solutions’ shelter During th e agency’s 2015-2016 fiscal year, num bers are 30 percent higher than last th e average ren t its clients paid increased by year. Nearly half of those people, Human 12 percent, to approximately $900 a month. Solutions estim ates, are homeless for the The average rental assistance payment first time in th eir lives and cite eviction as Human Solutions provided increased to th e reason for th eir homelessness. $763 a month. The average length of “The demand for service is greater than assistance climbed to eight months. it has ever been,” Stacy Borke, the director And in th e last year, Miller said, the of housing services for Transition Projects, average ren t th at Human Solutions is Inc., the social service agency th at runs the helping pay has increased by 11 percent, Bud Clark C enter and serves homeless, and th e average amount of assistance the single adults. Even agency is providing though the recession, has increased by 7 according to the percent. federal government, “We run out of "We ran ont of assistance regu ended in 2009, “wait assistance regularly,” la rly. The notion th a t fo lks are lists, for shelters are Miller said. “The longer than they have not choosing to seek assistance notion th at folks are ever been,” Borke is not borne ont by onr experi not choosing to seek said. ence. We have to shnt down onr assistance is not The “newly borne out by our phone lines a ll the tim e ." hom eless,” as service experience. We have A1MOV MILLER providers call them , H U M A N SO LU TIO N S to shut down our are not in need of the phone lines all the social services time.” typically associated O ther agencies tell with homelessness, similar stories. Borke said that the average like case management, addiction or mental monthly ren t payment Transition .Projects health counseling. “It’s an issue of poverty. helps its clients pay — w hether they have a They literally ju st can’t afford (the rent) Section 8 voucher or pay fair-market ren t — anymore,” said Shannon Singleton, the has increased by 34 percent. executive director of JOIN. Last year, Singleton said JOIN ran out of “T here is a clear connection between the rental assistance dollars six m onths into its increasing rents and people winding up fiscal year, in D ecem ber 2015. It received hom eless,” Jolin said. additional funding after th e City of Portland Because of higher rents, rental assistance and M ultnom ah County provided m ore funds are being used to help fewer people resources for rental assistance. “We have an absolute shortage of housing.” Singleton said there needs to be more housing units with restricted ren t increases. “We really do lack units for folks who are the lowest income ranges,” she said. “If there isn’t something done to create more housing, we’ll continue to see the migration of poor folks farther and farther east or into Beaverton and Hillsboro. Possibly Vancouver.” Borke believes housing instability and hom elessness for Portland’s poorest citizens won’t end until thousands of units are built that are affordable for people with only a few hundred dollars for r e n t “It’s a tough subject,” she said. “B ut it has to exist. Because people’s incomes are not increasing at the sam e rate that the cost of housing is.” Colling is currently trying to find housing for a single m other who paid $1,300 a month in rent. The ren t was increased to $1,700 a month. It will be raised again this fall. H er daughter is disabled; they have a service dog that needs a big yard. She is on a Section 8 voucher, Colling said, and is “worried about it not qualifying.” Situations like hers, Colling said, is stressful. “We would much rath er spend the majority of our time getting people off the street,” he said. Brown said he and his fiancée are happy with the apartm ent they’re living in. He serves on the board of Potluck in th e Park, She said th at JOIN is seeing higher num bers of people become stably housed for a few m onths but then come back within a few m onths for m ore assistance because of an increase in rent, work hours were cut, or, like Brown and William, the move-in costs are too high. “I think a couple years ago, the move-in costs would still have been a b arrier for people living in poverty, but they wouldn’t have needed the ongoing assistance,” she said. The solution, providers say, is simple. “Adding units to the mix is what is going to improve this, for everybody,” Borke said. Portland is much longer. “It m akes it hard,” he said. “But we (do it) without batting an eye.” Some of the fear he felt when he was evicted, though, has not gone away. “The thing that scares m e to this day is that this apartm ent building we live in (now), th at same company is going to come and buy this complex and kick us out again,” he said. “And we’ll just have to move farther and farther and farther out. It’s scary.” Until he had been evicted, it was a thought that had never entered his mind before. for longer stretches of time. According to Multnomah County, two years ago, approximately $5,000 was spent to place one family in housing and provide ren t assistance for six months. Now, it takes between $6,000 and $8,500 to provide the sam e service. Human Solutions rental assistance budget for th e 2016-2017 fiscal year is th e same as last year’s: $2.3 million dollars. Miller estim ates th at amount of money will provide assistance to 73 percent of th e households th at Human Solutions assisted last year. . In 2014-2015, th e average ren t assistance payment Human Solutions paid was $714 a which provides free meals in downtown Portland every Sunday, and the amount of time it takes for him to get to downtown Ice Cream for Street Roots Order ice cream! Preorder pints of ice cream online from Monday, August 1st to Friday, August 14th. Order at: street-roots.myshopify.cöm $9 a pint. Proceeds go to support Street Roots. Ice cream party with Street Roots! Pick up ice cream! When: Thursday, Sept 1st from 5-8 p.m Where: 3540 N. Williams, What’s the Scoop? There will also be a limited quantity of pints available at the door! What’s the Scoop? will be donating 10% of sales during the party! Pints of ice cream will be available for pick at What's the Scoop?, from Thursday, September 3rd through Friday, September 11th. 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