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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