Street Roots • June 23-29, 2017
VOUCHER, fro m page 10
saw how instrumental they were in ending
homeless in the Portland region. Since
2015, more than 1,200 homeless veterans
have been placed into permanent housing,
largely due to a massive influx of vouchers
specifically for homeless and low-income
veterans.
Weinstock said this realization amounted
to an epiphany. The fundamental problem
that leads to homelessness and housing
instability, in his mind, he said, is that
people don t have enough money to pay
market level rents.”
This means that if the gap between what
a person can afford and the rent of the
apartment unit or home they live in is
closed, the person would not have to move
due to a rent increase.
“M y belief now is that the key to ending
homelessness is basically to help low-income
people to afford their rent over the long
run,” Weinstock said.
“I think one of the weaknesses of our
system is that we have been providing short
term assistance to people who need long
term help,” he continued. “A voucher is long
term.”
Rutger Bregman echoed the idea that
poverty and related issues, such as housing
instability, is due to a simple lack of money.
Bregman is a historian who gave a T E D talk
advocating for combating poverty by giving
everyone a basic income.
“Poverty is a lack of cash,” he said during
the talk.
In November 2015, Northwest Pilot
Project, the Urban League of Portland and
Home Forward, the region’s federal housing
agency, launched the first pilot project to
test the effectiveness of a locally-funded
voucher program with funding from the
Meyer Memorial Trust.
Home Forward supplied 60 of its housing
choice vouchers for the program, something
the housing agency is able to do because the
federal government allows Home Forward to
use some of its vouchers for innovative
programs.
The project targeted seniors on fixed
nezLnle’s
3
News
Page 11
incomes, who were facing rent increases
other ways.
they could not afford and who would likely
She no longer asks family members to
be forced to move. The project was designed help her pay for medications and other
to test whether a voucher could prevent
expenses. “Nobody would have let me slip
those seniors from being displaced from
through the cracks,” she said of her family.
inner North and Northeast Portland
“But you don’t want to ask. They have their
neighborhoods, where many of them had
own homes, their own lives.”
lived for many years.
She also felt comfortable adopting a
All 60 of the vouchers were used, and at
kitten - something she would not have done
the end of the pilot year,
had she not been sure if
only two households did
she could stay in her
not remain in their
home. “It let me get a
housing: One person
little spirit in, a little life
moved to assisted living,
I got to say yes to,”
" i f f b e lie f n e w Is th a t th e
and another person died.
Lambert said.
“It confirmed that
k e y to e iw llììg hom eless-
Barbara Ekong has
vouchers are probably
»ess Is b a s ic a lly to h e lp
lived in her apartment in
the most powerful tool
the Woodlawn
lo w -in c o m e p e o p le to
to create housing
neighborhood since
a ffo rd th e ir re n t o w r th e
stability for low-income
2003. Like many
lo a f n i» / 8
people in the long run,”
TOBBY WEIfygTOeiC Portlanders, her rent has
Weinstock said.
H O U S IN G A D V O C A T E W IT H
increased again and
N O R T H W E S T P ILO T PROJECT
Elisa Harrigan, Meyer
again. She receives $907
Memorial Trust’s
a month in Social
Affordable Housing
Security.
Initiative program
Last year, her rent
officer, said the pilot
was raised to $1,005. “I
program is one of the most successful
just couldn’t afford it,” she said.
affordable housing initiatives that the Trust
She joined the pilot program last year,
has funded.
and she now pays $272 toward her rent. “I
“We’re seeing folks being pushed out of
have other bills,” she said. “Before I got the
their communities and being priced out of
voucher, I was lucky if I had $50 for the
where they’re living, particularly seniors,”
month.”
she said. “It’s more cost effective to help
Without the voucher, Ekong doesn’t think
people stay in place.”
she could have found another apartment. “I
Program participants lived in their
would probably be out on the street. It
housing for an average of 11 years,
alleviated a lot of pressure off m e.”
according to Northwest Pilot Project's final
Other cities have started local voucher
report.
programs to prevent displacement and
The report showed the average monthly
homelessness.
income of the 60 participants was $1,119,
Washington, D .C ., started its Local Rent
and the average rent they paid before
Supplement Program in 2007, which now
receiving the voucher was $901 -
subsidizes the rent of 1,718 households that
approximately 81 percent of their income.
make less than 30 percent of median
After receiving the voucher for two-thirds
income. The district’s Housing Production
of their rent, the contribution the
Trust Fund pays for the program with deed
individuals made was $242 per month.
record and transfer taxes it collects.
“It was wonderful to not move,” Lambert
Chicago started a trust fund in 1989 that
said. Suddenly having hundreds of extra
now subsidizes the rent of 2,800
dollars each month from her Social Security
households, by bridging the gap between
insurance check has improved her life in
the rent of the housing unit and 30 percent
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s the Joint Office’s voucher pilot project
rolls out this year, John, Weinstock and
others will examine how local vouchers can
best be used and if the local government can
administer them effectively at low cost.
“The basic notion that they’re more likely
to be housed stably with a voucher, we know
that’s true,” John said.
“The question is,” he said, “are we using
these vouchers in the right way, with the
right population?”
If a locally-funded voucher program
becomes permanent in Multnomah County
and receives more funding to pay for more
vouchers, is it appropriate to use those
vouchers exclusively for seniors and
disabled people on fixed incomes? Or
exclusively for homeless people? Or the
working poor? Or a combination?
The bigger question is how much money
the City of Portland and Multnomah County
are willing to put forth for a local voucher
program in the future.
Weinstock estimates it would cost $6
million dollars to fund 1,000 vouchers.
“Taking local voucher programs to scale is a
significant financial challenge,” Jolin said.
“We don’t print money,” Portland City
Commissioner Nick Fish, who is an advocate
for local voucher program, said. “Our
capacity to fund all these urgent needs is
going to be really challenged.”
This local voucher program is just one on
a growing list of effective, federally-funded,
anti-poverty programs that, facing draconian
cuts, local governments must ask if they can
and should begin funding.
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of the family’s income. To be eligible for the
program, a family of four must make
$24,250 a year or less.
“The Trust Fund plays an essential role in
keeping Chicago affordable for all its
citizens,” according to a guide detailing the
program.
New York City has a similar program that
provides rent subsidies for qualifying people
who live in homeless and domestic violence
shelters.
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