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.