As organizations working to preserve and expand
opportunities for low-income people to live and thrive in Portland, we support
the proposal by Portland City Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Nick Fish for a
dedicated stream of funding for affordable housing, to come from the City’s
lodging fee on short-term rentals (e.g. Airbnb). We thank the Commissioners for
their leadership on this issue, and call on the council to support this
important proposal.
While the revenue that would be generated from this fee is
in no way sufficient to address Portland’s daunting shortage of affordable
housing, it would set an important precedent and pave the way for further, more
substantial investments. As a first step, we call on City Council to dedicate
100% of this new revenue towards supporting affordable housing.
Currently, Portland is short thousands of affordable housing
units, while thousands more go without any shelter at all. Rents on the open
market are skyrocketing, resulting in the ongoing displacement of low-income
individuals and families from many Portland neighborhoods.
New revenue for people experiencing poverty along with
affordable housing development and preservation must be an urgent
anti-displacement priority for the City of Portland.
As the experience of other cities has demonstrated,
short-term, Airbnb-style rentals pose an additional displacement threat. As
landlords convert regular rental units to short-term rentals, existing tenants
are displaced, and those units are removed from Portland’s housing stock.
Therefore, we call on Portland City Council to dedicate 100%
of any new revenue generated by the proposed fee to Portland’s Housing
Investment Fund.
Doing so will set an important precedent by establishing a
dedicated, ongoing source of city generated funding for affordable housing — which must then be augmented with more
robust funding streams. We look forward to working with the Portland City
Council to develop comprehensive solutions to displacement and housing
affordability in the immediate future.
Sincerely,
Living Cully, Portland African American
Leadership Forum, Oregon Opportunity Network, Street Roots, Hacienda
CDC, NAYA, Verde, Habitat for Humanity
Portland/Metro East, JOIN, Northwest
Pilot Project, OPAL, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Proud Ground,
Reach Community Development, Rose Community Development.
Groups
are asking the public to support by contacting City Hall and requesting
that 100% of any new revenue from short-term rentals go toward
affordable housing specifically.
City Hall:
- Mayor Charlie Hales: charlie@portlandoregon.gov
-
Commissioner Steve Novick: Steve.Novick@portlandoregon.gov
-
Commissioner Amanda Fritz: amanda@portlandoregon.gov
-
Commissioner Nick Fish: NickFish@portlandoregon.gov
-
Commissioner Dan Saltzman: dan dsaltzman@portlandoregon.gov
This article appears in 2014-07-04.