Jeff Riddle was nervous, sure. The public hearing about affordable housing was packed with more than 100 housing advocates and in front of him, sat a table of important community and government decision makers.
Jeff had come to give testimony about his family and their pending no-cause eviction, and about the men he works with at the local city shelter, trying to find them homes, too. He came to impress upon these decision makers that a housing crisis was raging outside and he needed them to act, to do something, to start somewhere, because he didn’t know what else he could do. Leaving an impression is exactly what Jeff did.
“I’m a father and I’m a social worker at Transition Projects. Every day, I tell the guys at the shelter, just like I tell my kids, ‘Everything is going to be OK,’ because I have to. I need them to have faith in me.”
Jeff paused, took a breath and started again. “But I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s going to work out. There just aren’t enough homes that people can afford. I’m having trouble finding a home for my family with two good incomes, two strong and stable parents. Our struggle doesn’t begin to compare to what people face who are trying to start out from our shelters and with smaller paychecks.”
The room quieted to take in Jeff’s tender confession. As he struggled through, there was no doubt left in the room: the housing choices families are facing in Portland aren’t choices at all.
Hundreds of kids are starting this school year in a new school district, trying to make new friends and figure out how they fit in. What makes these kids different is that their parents got a no-cause eviction this summer and had to move to a new part of town where the parent’s paychecks could still cover the rent. In many cases, this isn’t their first new school district, and in many cases, these are the lucky kids. Hundreds of kids aren’t headed to school from their new home at all. They’re sleeping in their parents’ car, or staying at a friend’s place or starting out from a shelter because their parents are still looking for a home with rent they can afford.
The housing crisis that rages across our city is very real and cuts deep. Everyone knows someone. Someone who got a rent increase that they can’t afford. Someone who can’t find another apartment the paycheck will cover. What are people supposed to do? How are we going to stop this madness? What is driving this crisis?
One of the most significant contributors to the housing crisis is an enormous shortage of affordable housing. In the Portland metro region 40,000 families can’t find homes they can afford because these homes simply don’t exist. There are many ways to get at this shortage:
1. Raise the minimum wage: At $15/hour more families can afford the higher rents and therefore, more housing becomes “affordable.”
2. Use inclusionary zoning: Require new development to include some affordable housing so families don’t get pushed out of their neighborhoods and rents stay within reach.
3. Implement rent limits: Make sure rents don’t rise more quickly than area wages by restricting rent rates and increases.
4. Adequately fund affordable housing: Build homes or subsidize housing costs with vouchers so all families can afford a home, no matter the effects of the market.
Advocates are working to advance all of these tools, but unfortunately raising the minimum wage, inclusionary zoning and rent limits are currently preempted by Oregon state law. They require legislative changes in Salem.
That means in Portland, our list of solutions to urgently address our housing crisis is significantly limited. This is why we must work especially hard to make sure we invest in our affordable housing infrastructure with all the public resources we have.
At Welcome Home Coalition, we convened a survey of revenue tools cities and counties are using across the country to fund affordable homes. Like above, we find that our list is limited by Oregon preemptions. What remains is a short, but substantive list of funding mechanisms we can use in the Portland metro region to adequately fund affordable housing. This list included strategies such as a progressive dining tax to capture back tourism dollars for the greatest public benefit, general obligation bonds or a property tax levy to recapture the increase in property values to offset a housing market that is out of reach for many and developer impact fees on new commercial and residential buildings that create a need for affordability.
These revenue tools have the capacity to double down on our affordable housing efforts and mean big wins against our housing crisis. They also require a long and steady movement of volunteers, business support and elected championship.
In the meantime, there’s good work we can do to make sure we’re using all of the tools in our toolbox to their maximum capacity. Which brings us back to Jeff’s testimony and that packed public hearing where advocates were calling upon city leaders to increase tax increment financing, also known as TIF, from 30 percent to 50 percent.
Currently, tax increment financing is the one-and-only local revenue tool we have to fund affordable housing. It’s not without it’s troubles. This revenue source comes from Urban Renewal Area (URA) districts, a line drawn around neighborhoods that have been deemed ‘blighted’ and needing of public investments. Over the years and with new public investments, property taxes rise in these districts and the additional revenue is invested back into the neighborhood. In many URA districts, neighbors are left asking, “Public benefits, but for whom?”
The 30 percent TIF set aside for affordable housing is wholly insufficient in today’s Portland market. In most URA’s established decades ago, the market is booming and the most significant public need is affordable housing, not economic development. In these districts market-rate residential housing is entirely out of reach for low-income families and so the public benefits in which we’ve invested, such as parks, trams and streetcars, are accessible exclusively to only the families who can afford top dollar market housing.
If we were to increase the TIF set-aside from 30 percent to 50 percent we would be committing to building 830 new affordable homes in neighborhoods that have become out of reach for most Portlanders. This additional $83 million won’t solve our regional affordable housing crisis, but it will ensure 830 new families have a safe place to call home.
By increasing our investments in affordable housing we can show Portlanders that we’re building a city for them, for the people who made it great in the first place, and for families like Jeff’s.
GET INVOLVED!
Follow the Welcome Home Coalition on Twitter and Facebook and let your voice be heard by using the hashtag #TakeTifto50.
Join us Wednesday, Oct. 21 at Portland City Hall when we tell Mayor Hales and the City Commissioners to make housing their policy priority, just like Portlanders have had to make housing their family priority.
To learn to tell your story for housing just like Jeff, attend the Welcome Home Leadership Academy, last Thursdays, 6-8 pm at JOIN: 1435 NE 81st Avenue, Portland, OR 97213.