Opinion | The $400 million legislative housing package protects human rights; no city can use the funding for sweeps
People survive in tents in Deschutes National Forest, along the Umpqua River of Roseburg, on the sandy knolls of Lincoln City. In Medford, where tents are forbidden, people make do on the ground of the greenway.
RVs and cars where families sleep tilt into the shoulders of roads all over the state. Others sleep on the couch of an acquaintance who might be barely getting by, too. Children move in with their teacher or neighbor after their caregiving grandparent dies of COVID-19.
Homelessness certainly isn’t just a Portland problem; our state is wracked with it.
A statewide housing package of $400 million is part of the legislative budget package the Ways and Means Committee finalized Monday night.
Sen. Kayse Jama (D-Portland), chair of the state Senate Committee On Housing and Development, worked with Rep. Julie Fahey (D-Eugene), chair of the House Committee on Housing, on the package.
Jama told me it was important the package address both “today’s crisis and tomorrow’s problems.”
So, in addition to more than $200 million focused on long-term affordable housing and $20 million for homeownership, other funding is focused on quicker strategies Jama says already have a proven track record.
One of those strategies is Project Turnkey 2.0.
Late in 2020, the state invested $75 million to acquire and convert motels into shelters and housing. With the guidance of the Oregon Community Foundation, the state transformed 19 motels in about six months, creating 865 housing units in which far more people live.
This session, the Oregon Legislature is building on that success, adding $50 million for another round of Project Turnkey in this package.
The Portland area landed some Project Turnkey sites in Forest Grove, Hillsboro and Portland during the first round. The state established other sites in Ashland, Bend, Corvallis, Klamath Falls, Lincoln City, Medford, McMinnville, North Bend, Pendleton, Redmond and Roseburg.
It’s great news the state is building on the success of this first round, demonstrating a faster model of housing alongside the slower build of most affordable housing units.
We can take this same approach in Portland — the Portland Turnkey. Street Roots advocacy is now focused on the 3,000 Challenge Campaign, which seeks to secure 3,000 quality places for people to live in 2022.
Our local campaign can learn from the moral clarity Jama brings to the issue.
“We know that our houseless community is traumatized by just being in the streets,” Jama said, adding legislators worked to ensure “the money is not being used for sweeps, making sure that we address this issue as humanitarianly as possible.”
The legislation prevents funds from being used for mass shelters as well as sweeps, both tactics Mayor Ted Wheeler has touted. People must access facilities by choice, not coercion.
“We don’t want to just traumatize people more,” Jama said.
Jama described the condition of homelessness and housing insecurity as a unified struggle, eschewing the demonizing language cropping up in many local quarters.
“We’re in this together, as a community, as a collective,” he explained. “Houseless community members are our neighbors, our friends, our colleagues and we really want to make sure we support them.”
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