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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 2017)
Street Roots • October 13-19, 2017 Page 3 O p in io n Housing bond framework charts course for real change n November, Portland voters agenda in our community, there would be overwhelmingly passed an affordable nothing left for poor and common folk in housing bond for $258 million. The our community. It will take years for all of bonds purpose was to give thousands of these policies to begin to show results. people a safe place to call home. This week, the Portland City Council A coalition of more than 100 approved the policy framework for the organizations and businesses citywide housing bond which will allow the city to worked extremely hard to deliver the start seeking funding proposals before the historic bond. That coalition was the end of the month. Welcome Home Coalition, which Street The framework was developed by an Roots helped found 18-member stakeholder advisory group, and is proud to be a with input from nearly 1,000 community part of. members. IR K 1 r F i i » s The bond itself Many critics have asked why the followed a series of affordable housing bond dollars that were policy decisions by voted on in November have taken so long to B y Israel Bayer Portland officials to get out the door. create and maintain We are talking about taxpayer money and more affordable the public’s trust. The city and advocates housing in the city. A wanted to make sure that we got all of our short-term rental tax was created to capture ducks in a row before actually beginning to revenue from a changing housing market. A implement the dollars at hand. construction excise tax was created to draw It’s my belief that the public will be revenue from new and increasingly happy. With a focus on families, people of profitable projects. color and people with mental Let’s not forget Portland was and physical disabilities, also able to pass inclusionary Portland is on the verge of zoning policies, offering building hundreds of new Given the fact incentives to developers to affordable housing units. create more affordable housing. that we've been That doesn’t mean we won’t Policies to support tenants were so far behind have to maintain oversight of implemented and continue to be on prioritizing the city and to continue to push refined. And historic government to think outside of housing over the box. It simply means that to investments were made by both the past two do this properly, effectively and the city and county to help curb decades, there with sustainability in mind, the the cycle o f hom elessness in rem ains a lot of proper infrastructure needed to our community. The affordable be in place. It has taken some housing bond was the icing on work ahead. time to get the train out of the the cake. station. It’s been an historic couple of Where do we go from here? years for affordable housing Given the fact that we’ve advocates and elected officials. been so far behind on prioritizing housing Saying that, none of that matters to over the past two decades, there remains a individuals or families struggling to lot of work ahead. The public can expect maintain skyrocketing rents or those new and emerging policies to be proposed. sleeping outside under bridges and in It’s my opinion that until housing doorways. advocates and elected officials statewide But it’s not nearly enough. To the outside can deliver more resources and new policies observer it may seem like we’ve spent all of on housing that local governments will have our attention, resources and political capital to continue to carry the water. on homelessness and housing. So why, after It’s not out of the question that new creating all of these policies, are their still policies will be created by local thousands of people sleeping on our governments, and that housing may appear streets? on the ballot again in the near future. Our First, both Portland and Oregon have metro region has to continue to raise the been woefully behind in creating these bar on how we maintain and fund homeless policies. Other communities up and down and mental health services, and create the West Coast have been using these tools more affordable housing units. since the 1980s. While it hasn’t curbed I believe that money used from the poverty in those communities, it has housing bond is going to show real results. created a stock of affordable housing to help That’s not a measured message to please support tens of thousands of people in the public or the media, that’s my honest having a safe place to call home. opinion. Affordable housing is an essential The real work on the affordable housing component in maintaining a healthy society, bond starts now. Let’s build some affordable just like our bridges, parks, schools and housing. roads. Without a real affordable housing I ■¡g». Israel Bayer is the executive director o f Street Roots. You can reach him at israel@streetroots. org or follow him on Twitter @israelbayer. ?§•> '#&&&& '■Vÿfs Six? V e n d o r P ro g ra m D ir e c to r Cole Merkel cole@streetroots.org Operations Director Sarah Beecroft D e v e lo p m e n t D ir e c to r Sarah Cloud P ro g ra m A s s is ta n t Caelin M iltko, Jesuit Volunteer D e v e lo p m e n t A s s is ta n t Rosemary Wilson E d ito ria l A s s is ta n t Monica Kwasnik V e n d o r A s s is ta n t Scott Jackson R e p o rte rs Emily Green, Sarah Hansell, Amanda Waidroupe, Stephen Quirke, Helen Hill P h o to g ra p h e rs Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown C a n v a s s e r Desmond Hardison Board of Directors C h a irm a n Brad Taylor V ic e -C h a irm a n Rachel Langford T r e a s u r e r Heather Stadick S e c re ta ry Dan Jones D ire c to rs Rich Rodgers, Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn, John Brown, Nels Johnson and Alison Hallett 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, Bianca 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.
