Mayor Charlie Hales and the rest of City Council continue to send a message that housing matters. In his 2015-16 proposed budget, the mayor has allocated an additional $5.9 million on housing. This comes out of a nearly $50 million surplus the city has this year.
It includes funding for year-round women’s shelter, homeless veterans, home ownership and preventing displacement in North and Northeast Portland, public safety and rent assistance — including an effort to support some of the harder to reach people on the streets. Kudos.
Housing commissioner Dan Saltzman and advocates had hoped the mayor’s budget would include a $5 million investment in the Housing Investment Fund — a fund created to help to acquire land and build more affordable housing. The mayor’s proposed investment is $2.5 million.
The long and short of it is that the proposed budget is holding the line when it comes to investing in housing and homelessness. The city will rely on Multnomah County — which will release its budget in June — to make a hefty investment in housing to support the newly created Home For Everyone, a group working to tackle ending homelessness in the region.
The city is also investing heavily in supporting individuals and families experiencing poverty with programs for youth, street improvements in East Portland, domestic violence services, wage increases for all city employees and continuing to invest in Hooper Detox.
Overall, this year’s budget gets a passing grade when it comes to investing in people. Saying that, it’s not nearly the investment needed to move the dial on the growing housing crisis in our community. We’re being outpaced. In fact, without a more robust investment of long-term revenue for affordable housing the city will continue to lose ground.
It’s unclear how the city plans to balance the housing crisis in our community with the needs they’ve laid out on transportation and emergency preparedness. It’s time for the mayor and City Council to lead. Street Roots continues to believe it’s a no-brainer — that nothing should come before prioritizing people when it comes to building more affordable housing units and tackling the housing affordability needs of Portlanders. Plain and simple, housing should move to the front of the line. Any additional money found in this year’s budget should go to the Housing Investment Fund.
More so, City Council should find a way to begin to fund the Housing Investment Fund through specific policies where there’s a nexus between housing and market profitability.
Not allocating tax dollars from short-term rental companies such as Airbnb toward housing was a missed opportunity this past year. Adding a demolition fee for developers that would go towards housing and creating a developer impact fee this coming year are two examples where the city can lead. We’re waiting, anxiously.
Update: As of press time, the Multnomah County budget had not been released. The Multnomah County budget has since been released. Chair Deborah Kafoury's budget includes $7 million in new funding for homeless and housing services, including a $5 million investment in new affordable housing units. Combined, Multnomah County and the City of Portland are investing $12.9 million new funding for housing and homeless services. The majority of that funding will go to support the recommendations of Home for Everyone. The Welcome Home Coalition estimates that the region needs nearly $50 million in additional revenue each year to tackle the housing crisis, which includes a shortage of an estimated 20,000 affordable housing units.
