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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 29, 2017)
Street Roots • September 29-October 5, 2017 Page 3 E d ito r ia l Success lies in sustainable, systemic changes to housing multiple “plans to end homelessness,” but t comes as no surprise that the City then, people who are experiencing poverty Council next week is poised to extend and homelessness have been under the the state of emergency to address homelessness. There is little on the ground screw for years. We do ask ourselves, though, whether that has changed since it was first declared in 2015 by then-mayor Charlie Hales. It has this latest deadline is the cart or the horse: already been renewed once, in 2016. are the numbers the target or is it But that doesn’t mean a lot hasn’t been sustainability? done. After two years, the city, county, Because the homeless and housing crisis private organizations and businesses have didn’t begin when we started noticing accomplished more people on the streets, or when white, than meets the eye: middle-class families could no longer afford f t B Ï B 1 ■ We’ve added their homes. It didn’t begin when people hundreds of started noticing homeless camps, or seeing emergency shelter gentrification or even watching “Portlandia.” beds for times of It started back when we decided not to harsh weather conditions. The city launched protect tenants rights to housing and three new permanent shelters, and an instead let the highest possible prices rule initiative of health care and housing the market. It started when we took housing organizations intends to build 382 new for granted. In other words, it’s been a long affordable housing units. time coming. Since the declaration, We fully support the we’ve cleared the way to work being done to get site storage facilities, people off the streets and The homeless and restrooms and needle into shelters. It’s what we housing crisis didn't disposal containers. should be doing. But we’re begin when we started ■ Policywise, the city guarded in our optimism, noticing people on the passed an inclusionary because the crisis is not zoning ordinance that streets, or when white, going to end if our goal is a requires apartment and street-level correction on middle-class families condo developers include could no longer afford the numbers. low-income units in their Here’s what we all need their homes. It didn't to keep in mind: Success housing projects. b e g in w h e n p e o p le doesn’t mean just money to Developments 20 or more b u ild o r s u p p o rt h o u s in g - s ta rte d n o tic in g units must reserve 20 although we definitely need h om eless c a m p s , o r percent of those units for households making less seein g g e n tr ific a tio n o r additional dedicated revenue streams; it also than 80 percent of the even watching means we put in place median family income, or "Portlandia." ... It regulations to keep the just under $60,000 for a started when we took housing profiteers from family of four in Portland. running away with the city housing for granted. ■ In 2016, Multnomah - and not just for the short County residents passed a term. Along with $258 million bond to build regulations, it takes permanent affordable initiatives that break the housing, and the city cycle of homelessness and help preserve enacted construction excise and short-term people’s housing before the situation rental taxes to support housing efforts. And becomes catastrophic. This is at the heart we’ve enacted mandatory relocation I I F f t W assistance and extended eviction notices to give families and individuals a better chance at landing on their feet. All of this is great work. Still, we are not keeping up with our population growth and our rising housing costs. The city reports being short about 23,000 housing units - a seemingly perpetual shortfal. We still have an inadequate number of emergency shelter beds, and rents and housing costs continue to outpace incomes and available units. Family-sized apartments are among the most scarce, and if a family has a child with special needs, or if one or more spouse is unable to work, or if life happens, the most vulnerable families are simply pushed off the edge. So the city is extending the state ot emergency, but this time with a mandate that within six months, the Portland Housing Bureau and the Joint Office of Homeless Services will determine criteria to end the housing emergency and recommendations on how to meet that criteria by April 9, 2019 - the date this latest extension would expire. That s a lot ot pressure for a city that’s rolled through of the crisis. We’ve experienced brick and mortar accomplishments, and each and every one is critical, but the city also needs to reinforce the collective mindset that is the real energy behind our state of emergency, a community-wide conviction that our homeless crisis and our housing emergency can and must be corrected. We can’t accept evictions, rent hikes and $1.5 million condos in what were once middle-income neighborhoods as the new normal. And we are undercutting the essential foundation to real change by promising point-in-time, political successes such as shelter beds or statistics, if the machinery behind homelessness is allowed to grind on. Not all of that is within the city’s power, but it’s all interconnected, and the city can be a leader in facilitating real changes on the state and even national level. However, if we simultaneously prepare for success and plan for failure, we’re only halfway in the game. We don’t have to live with the failure on our streets day in and day out when there’s room for all of us on the winning team. Executive Director Israel Bayer israei@streetroots.org Executive Editor Joanne Zuhl joanne@streetroots.org Vendor Program Director Cole Merkel coie@streetroots.org Operations Director Sarah Beecroft Development Director Sarah Cloud Program Assistant Caelin M iltko, Jesuit Volunteer Volunteers Jan Bayer, John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Zoe Klingmann, Dan Jones, Dennis Hogan, Monica McKune, Susan Wolfe, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jeanie Lunsford, Jason Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline Gefroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Del Shawn Davidson, Gillian Floren, Mark OIDani, Blanca Butler, Alex Cherin, Jenny Farres, Evan Firsick, Camber Hansen-Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Megan Smith, Luke Scheuermann, Annie Aube, Helen Hill, Mark Brown, Lily Krai, Mary Emerson, Adam Bruns, Brooke Anderson and Megan Pickerel-Winer. If you're interested in volunteering with Street Roots, please submit a volunteer application at streetroots.org/volunteer. Or you can call for more information at 503-228-5657.
