Street Roots • Sept. 21-27, 2018
Elections bring hope for new housing solutions
T J*. Ï
K a ia San d is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach her at
kaia@streetroots. org
Follow her on
Twitter @ m kaiasand
e season has shifted. Even sunny days
have the snap of autumn to them. During
a<
a downpour, a Street Roots'vendor
bundled up in a doorway, scooting himself just
deep enough under the awning to mostly stay
dry, a small tarp to his chin as a blanket.
At Street Roots we have
begun to fret about socks
for all the damp feet that
D IR E C T O R 'S
people will suffer, and not
too long after that, when
the freezes come, the
By Kaia Sand
thousands of hand
warmers people will need,
and the gloves and the
hats.
But I have a sense of hope right now, too.
Autumn brings us the Nov. 6 elections. It’s less
than a month until ballots arrive in the mail.
Plenty of vendors use Street Roots as a mailing
address, and I am glad, because it’s urgent that
their votes count.
I hope that when you look
at the measures for housing,
that you think of all of them
marking their ballots when
you mark yours. This
election is really important’
when it comes to housing.
I am proud that our
regional government was
creative enough and bold
enough to put together a big
housing bond - $652.8
billion ovGr 20 years.' A:ll the *
housing built or purchased
with this bond money must
be permanently affordable. In other words, once
it’s built to be affordable, it has to stay that way.
Just like the buses and libraries and roads, we
should expect that our public dollars support
housing so that our region does not become a
place where only wealthy people can afford to
live. This is a public concern, and the private
market alone will not fix.it
Some people ask, why Metro - aren’t they the
zoo people? The recycling people? This is why:
As the only directly elected regional government
in the nation, Metro is big enough to spread out
taxes so that the average homeowner pays about
5 dollars a month (an- estimated 24 cents per
$1,000 of assessed value), and the solution
crosses county lines. Metro is big enough to
pool these funds and establish oversight, but it
doesn’t build the housing. That happens through
local municipalities, housing authorities, or, if the
statewide constitutional amendment passes
(Measure 102), other affordable housing
providers too.
This past week, I traveled with the Welcome
Home Coalition to see affordable housing
projects in Milwaukie. I stood before the River
Glen apartments for families who make half the
median income or less, and then pay no more
than one-third their income on rent, the federal
standard for affordability.
Trell Anderson, the executive director of
Northwest Housing Alternatives that runs River
Glen, described how a project like this is funded.
Because it is impossible to simply coyer the
costs through rent - the whole point is to get
the rents affordable for low-income families,
after all - Northwest Housing Alternatives layers
financing from many different sources: federal,
state, and local sources, grants, bank loans, on
Page 3
Opinion
and on. He showed a chart of layers, like a bright
cake of finance, to explain this. Since this is a
reality of how affordable housing is financed, the
statewide Measure 102 is important to pass, too,
making it possible to layer the Metro bond funds
into these other layers of finance, rather than
locking the funds into housing authorities only.
In this way, more deeply affordable housing can
get built
As he talked, a girl, maybe 11 or 12, walk by,
her backpack slung over her shoulder. She was
done with school for the day, heading home to
the River Glen apartments. That layered chart
Anderson was holding up? It was all about that
child who lived in an apartment building that
was stable, and not in a shelter or a car or a
tent. That’s why we need to vote yes on both
measures to house up to 12,000 people in
Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington
counties.
These aren’t quick fixes. Projects are coming
online for the Portland bond we
passed in 2016, and the
H u
problem is so big that
sometimes, it’s hard to notice.
But the people who get off the
streets and into housing? They
notice. Just last week, the
Portland Housing Bureau
announced that it was
purchasing the Westwind
Apartments in Old Town, 70
singlerrQoiji occupancy
( apartments that - through à
partnership with Multnomah
County - will be paired with supportive services
for people exiting homelessness.
The Westwind project joins other projects
built or planned with Portland bond money -
263 apartments at the Ellington Apartments in
Northeast Portland; a 51-unit building at 105th
Avenue and East Burnside; lots on Northeast
Prescott and Southeast Powell slated for future
affordable units. If Measure 102 passes, the
Portland bond will also have more flexibility to
be combined with other funding streams.
None of this is enough, and none of this is
quick. But here’s what it is - all of us trying. All
of us saying yes, we will take this on, this deep
inequality, and acknowledge that public solutions
are necessary, again and again. The Metro bond
doesn’t solve our housing affordability and
homeless crises. But it plays an important role.
Here are some ways you can help the Yes for
Affordable Housing campaign. Register to vote.
Volunteer for the campaign by signing up at
yesforaffordablehousing.com or texting
“Housing” to 38470. If you have a lawn, grab a
sign and display your support Some Street
Roots vendors have volunteered to have lawn
signs at their sales locations this weekend, Sept
22 and 23, so look on Street Roots social media
streams, as well as @YesForHousing to find out
Where to go to both support your vendor and
pick up a sign.
And, importantly, vote Yes for Affordable
Housing measures 26-199 and 102. When you fill
in the bubbles on your ballot, please know that
you are a part of something big — the largest
effort our region has ever taken to fund deeply
affordable housing. And then, on Nov. 7, we get
to work with more solutions.
Write in
If you would like
to have
something
written published
in our pages, or would
member of our reporting staff, -
contact Executive Ector Joanne Zuhi at
503-228-5657, joanne@streetroots.org.
We ask that all submissions include the
author’s name and contact information,
if available.
Street Roots
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S taff
Executive Director Kaia Sand
kaia@streetroots.org
Executive Editor Joanne Zuhi
joanne@streetroots.org
Vendor Program Director Cole Merkel
cole@streetroots.org
Development Director Andrew Hogan
a ndre w@streetroots. org
Senior S taff Reporter Emily Green
Vendor Coordinator: DeVon Pouncey
Administrative Assistant: Kayla Jones
Program Assistant Meghan Murphey,
Jesuit Volunteer
Vendor Assistant Alex Gillow-Wiles
Development Assistant Rosemary Wilson
Editorial Producer Monica Kwasnik
Reporters Sarah Hansell, Leonora Ko, Emilly
Prado, Ellena Rosenthal, Amanda Waldroupe,,
Helen Hill, Jason Cohen.
Photographers Diego Diaz, Arkady Brown,
Celeste Noche
Canvasser Desmond Hardison
Board of Directors
Chair Rachel Langford
Vice-Chair Dan Jones
Treasurer Heather Stadick
Secretary Alison Hallett
Directors Michael Anderson, Sandra Hahn,
John Brown, Nets Johnson
Volunteers
John Barker, Stacey Heath, Anjali Rathore, Dennis
Hogan, Lucas Hawthorne, Thomas Buell Jr., Jason
Cohen, Doug Spangle, Susannah Kamala, Jon
Raymond, Diana Richardson, Paul and Madeline
Getroh, Mary Anne Joyce, Brooke Anderson, Gillian
Floren, Mark Oldani, -Bianca Butler, Camber Hansen-
Karr, Miranda Woods, Henry Brannan, Helen Hill,
Mary Emerson, Brooke Anderson, Kathleen McFall,
RobbHengerer, Malle Yeats-Rowe, Erin Parsons, Faye
Powell, Danny Moran, Susan Maloy 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.