Democrat Tina Kotek, the prohibitive favorite to become Oregon’s next governor, is placing a premium on new development in her plans to address housing affordability and homelessness in Oregon — a common thread for almost every candidate in almost every race
Build, build, build.
Democrat Tina Kotek, the prohibitive favorite to become Oregon’s next governor, is placing a premium on new development in her plans to address housing affordability and homelessness in Oregon — a common thread for almost every candidate in almost every race. Kotek wants to create a coordinated statewide task force to better administer aid and more efficiently marshal available resources.
First taking office in 2007, Kotek represented Oregon House District 44 in the Oregon House of Representatives for much of the past two decades before resigning in January to focus on her gubernatorial run. Kotek also served as the Speaker of the Oregon House from 2013 until her resignation earlier this year. A key proponent of Project Turnkey, which has successfully resulted in nearly 900 state-funded transitional housing units, Kotek’s track record demonstrates a history of passing housing legislation and securing funding.
Kotek’s vision for a more holistic approach to housing affordability and homelessness follows a triage system that ostensibly seeks to alleviate the most visible and urgent issues of the homelessness crisis, particularly unsheltered homelessness. “Goal 1,” as listed by Kotek’s campaign website, is to “end unsheltered homelessness for veterans, families with children, unaccompanied young adults, and people 65 years and older by 2025, and continue to strengthen pathways to permanent housing for all Oregonians experiencing homelessness.”
In order to “end unsheltered homelessness” for the outlined groups by 2025 — the operative phrase here is “unsheltered” — Kotek’s focus is on temporary emergency shelters and more guidance for homeless Oregonians seeking permanent housing.
Kotek’s desire to create a statewide “emergency management team” factors heavily into accomplishing her top goal, as does using state-owned properties for temporary emergency shelters and navigation centers. Kotek’s plans also include creating “a trained workforce of housing navigators,” who will focus entirely on finding housing and “reduc(ing) barriers for people struggling to find permanent housing.” Additionally, Kotek wants to fund wrap-around services to assist homeless Oregonians and also partner with local governments and homeless Oregonians to provide trash services at temporary homeless encampments on state property.
The second goal in Kotek’s five-point plan is all about addressing Oregon’s housing shortage, including efforts to “build enough housing to meet the need for people currently experiencing homelessness, address the current shortage of housing, and keep pace with future housing demand by 2033.”
As Street Roots reported in June, increasing housing stock is an effective tool in slowing skyrocketing rent in a tight housing market, but rarely, if ever, actually lowers existing rents. The breakneck speed of rent increases throughout the state is a central cause in the increasing numbers of homeless people and the increasing difficulty for working families to maintain stable housing.
Kotek did not have a clear answer when asked how she would ensure people who are already priced out of the rental market could afford a place to live. Kotek did, however, advocate for a “conversation” about a state rental voucher program, something she offered support for in answers to other questions without offering specific details of such a program.
“We got a lot of Oregonians who work hard but can't afford where they live, so we have to have a conversation about ongoing, stable rent assistance to help subsidize this until we can provide more affordable options out there,” Kotek said. “But the market is so skewed right now, when people are so rent burdened they’re one crisis away from landing on the streets. And, again, back to my earlier comments, let's help reduce people becoming the next person living on the streets. We just have to stop the flow.”
Similarly, Kotek stopped short of providing a direct answer for how, in addition to meeting the construction benchmarks she set, she would address housing affordability, instead opting for restating the lack of affordable housing and advocating for supply-focused solutions, a core tenet of her campaign.
“We don't have enough affordable housing, particularly, very affordable housing for folks at 30-or 60%, of median (income), right, you don't have enough of that,” Kotek said. “And there is a really important role for government to play in being the financing mechanism, or one part of the financing mechanism, to help that housing get constructed.”
Kotek’s answer does further illustrate her belief that between permanent housing, transitional housing and emergency shelter — for which Kotek said she supported state investment in all three — the state would be wisest to invest in permanent housing.
“Because of the cost associated with constructing permanent supportive housing and doing ongoing operational, that is something that the state, I think, can be the best partner with,” Kotek said. “But the other things (transitional housing and emergency shelters), I think, are more … I’d try to put money into communities for catalytic reasons like ‘Here’s some money, let's get started. Here, we'll help you.’ Removing barriers to getting some of the transitional and more conventional shelters done is important.”
Despite a lack of specificity, Kotek stressed the need to use any and all available resources to address housing affordability, including, she said, continued support for annual caps on rent increases and vouchers for those who currently struggle to afford rent, though she stopped short of outlining what a program like that would look like.
“I've worked on providing rent stability in terms of capping ongoing annual rent increases. So there's predictability and stability for renters,” Kotek said. “I think we do have to move to some kind of state rental assistance voucher that provides ongoing rent assistance for people who are rent burdened. Because the goal is to make sure no one becomes unhoused, right? So you go there first.”
For people who have already become unhoused, Kotek envisions another triage-like approach.
“But then we obviously have a lot of people who are living on the streets, living outside,” Kotek said. “So we have to immediately, I believe, address that issue in terms of providing services for people to get help on the street from people they can trust, help people move into transitional housing, and then help people move into permanency.”
Kotek, like Drazan and unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson, supports increased spending on some services that could help people on the streets achieve long-term stability, like mental health care and addiction treatment.
Unlike her opponents, Kotek does not want to repeal Measure 110, a 2020 ballot measure that nearly 60% of voters approved, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs like heroin and methamphetamine while promising a robust treatment infrastructure. Instead, she believes the state has failed to live up to the promise of that treatment infrastructure — a promise she said she’ll prioritize.
Kotek also differs from her opponents in how she wants the state to assist homeless Oregonians who struggle with addiction. Rather than emphasizing “accountability” and tough love rhetoric in the form of sobriety requirements to receive shelter, Kotek said shelter of various barrier levels is needed.
“Ideally, we have many options that are available,” Kotek said. “I think it is honestly very hard to staff extremely low-barrier shelters. For the people who work in those shelters, they can be very unsafe working situations. So there is a role for low-barrier shelters, but there's also a role for shelters that have more requirements.”
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