Both candidates running to represent Oregon in the U.S. Senate probably feel like they've been here before.
For Democratic incumbent Sen. Ron Wyden, he's probably starting to feel like this is all a formality, having held the seat since 1996. For Republican challenger Jo Rae Perkins, who faces near-certain defeat in a statewide election in a Democratic stronghold, she's mounted unsuccessful political campaigns dating back to the mid-1990s, including losing to Sen. Jeff Merkley by more than 400,000 votes in 2020.
U.S. Senators have an influential role in securing funding for Oregon-specific causes, and Wyden has long been an effective political operator, though Republicans will no doubt disagree with many of his causes.
Perkins' online support for the QAnon conspiracy theory in 2020 catapulted her into national fame, or infamy, depending on how you look at it, and has never held elected office. Her Twitter likes and retweets, as well as her appearances on various virtual talk shows, indicate her conspiratorial bent has anything but lessened in the intervening years.
In addition to the candidates' disparate political views, their stances on housing and homelessness couldn't be farther apart. In 2021, Wyden proposed what could become one of the largest investments in housing in U.S. history, while Perkins proposes the federal government do nothing.
Jo Rae Perkins - Republican
Punting on first down. Or, maybe more accurately, refusing to enter the stadium.
Bad sports metaphors aside, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Jo Rae Perkins has no interest in making a play on housing and homelessness.
According to Perkins, likely most well-known for her connections to the QAnon conspiracy theory and attending a certain January 2021 rally in Washington D.C. that devolved into death and destruction, federal investment in and regulation of housing is unconstitutional. Perkins said because the constitution doesn’t include regulating or investing housing, then it would be unconstitutional to do so.
To date, no U.S. Supreme Court case has found federal investment or regulation of housing is unconstitutional. In fact, numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings have found the federal government can regulate things like discrimination in housing. Additionally, the U.S. Constitution gives the U.S. Legislative Branch power to pass laws.
Perkins, a former real estate agent, was clearly not enthused by Street Roots’ questions about her (expansive) history of promoting conspiracy theories and fell back on the First Amendment, which, as she accurately pointed out, does protect her right to consume conspiracy content. The First Amendment, however, does not preclude voters from questioning if they should vote for a candidate who may well believe the 2020 election was rigged, or that there’s snake venom in COVID-19 vaccines, or that a shadowy group of liberal elites feasts on babies’ adrenochrome (do yourself a favor and don’t ask ‘what’s that?’).
Perkins has mounted unsuccessful runs for local and federal offices since the mid-1990s, though she was the chair of the Linn County Republican Party from 2009 through 2012.
Perkins felt comfortable outlining what she believed were the main causes of homelessness and housing affordability, and her opinions were rather comparable to the more mainstream republican and conservative democrat talking points.
“I think there's more than one main cause,” Perkins said of the homelessness crisis. “Mental health issues are definitely a huge factor along with drug addiction. I think that those are two of the biggest factors that we're dealing with.”
Regarding housing affordability, Perkins largely pointed to state regulations on construction and renter protections. Perkins identified Oregon’s land use restrictions, the state’s rent increase cap, COVID-related eviction moratriums and Gov. Kate Brown’s 2017 executive order on electric cars and environmentally friendly construction as main factors.
“(The rent increase cap) was a big driver,” Perkins said of the 2019 legislation passed in response to skyrocketing rents. “It increased rent almost immediately. People that could be evicted at that point prior to the new regulations going into going into effect, lost their homes … I think that's a very bad deal. Then we have on top of that, we had people not have to pay their rent, due to COVID, which put a strain on property owners. And when they had to sell their property, the new owners, depending on what the current laws are, they don't necessarily have to keep those tenants … if they’re not on the lease.”
Property owners, more specifically landlords, received substantial assistance throughout the pandemic. The Oregon Legislature allocated $150 million to the Oregon Landlord Compensation Fund, in addition to the state distributing nearly $400 million in federal funding to cover rent owed throughout the pandemic.
The majority of candidates from both sides of the aisle agree land use restrictions and construction costs have hampered new construction leading to a housing shortage, which in turn has helped fuel the sharp increases in rent throughout the state in recent years. However, there is no evidence to suggest Brown’s executive order, the state’s rent increase cap for existing tenants or the eviction moratorium drove the increase in rent prices, which were already spiraling out of control prior to the 2019 passage of rent caps or the eviction moratorium during the height of the pandemic.
Brown’s executive order was largely superceded by state legislation passed in 2021, and neither the executive order or legislation resulted in actual code changes until earlier this year.
In either case, Perkins said the federal government has no role to play in addressing homelessness or the housing shortage or the affordability crisis.
“This is not a federal issue,” Perkins said. “This is a state issue. The federal government has no business telling the states what to do.”
To address homelessness, for which Perkins believes drugs and mental health to be the main cause, she said the state should repeal voter-passed Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs in 2021, and open more state mental hospitals.
There wasn’t a single place Perkins felt the federal government should assist lower- and middle-income homebuyers, including tax breaks for first-time homebuyers, a component of Democratic incumbent Sen. Ron Wyden’s plan to end homelessness via the DASH Act.
While Perkins does support lowering property and income taxes, she said tax breaks for things like buying homes or electric cars does nothing but drive inflation.
“That's not lowering taxes overall, that's giving people money that came from other people,” Perkins said.
Ron Wyden - Democrat
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden is DASH-ing for a solution to housing and homelessness.
The Decent, Affordable, Safe Housing for All, or DASH, Act is the keystone of Wyden’s platform to address housing and homelessness. The bill, which would dramatically expand access to housing vouchers for homeless people and incentivize construction and homebuying, was introduced last September and referred to the Senate Committee on Finance, where it currently resides.
Wyden, who has served in the U.S. Senate since 1996, currently chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, though the bill’s prospects for passage are still murky.
To Wyden, housing is a human right, and one that should be guaranteed by the government.
“I start with the proposition that housing is a basic human right and that smart and humane policies have to reflect that core premise,” Wyden said. “Houselessness poses a challenge of a number of elements and it demands a comprehensive, concrete and compassionate response that reflects those complexities. That’s why I introduced the most comprehensive federal proposal — the DASH Act.”
In addition to funding supportive services for homeless people, the DASH Act would immediately provide 250,000 permanently funded housing vouchers, with 400,000 additional vouchers each year “until all eligible recipients hold a voucher.” Agencies that provide public housing, in addition to homeless or housing-insecure individuals and families who make less than 50% of an area median income would be eligible for vouchers.
The vouchers would cover up to 125% of market rent to accommodate high-cost rental markets.
“I think that a role for government is to help people of modest means be in a position to make rent and stay in their homes,” Wyden said. “If people have just a little bit more help, they’re less like to fall back into homelessness and it’ll be easier for them to get ahead.”
To address housing affordability at the root, Wyden joined the chorus of candidates and experts alike in calling for more supply.
“Democrats don’t often use this word, but on housing and child care, I am a supply-sider,” Wyden said. “We need to increase the supply, because we are dramatically, dramatically not producing the child care and the housing that we need. The cause is really, in my view, driven by a lack of supply.”
Wyden said the federal government should recognize there’s an affordability crisis, and respond with investments in, and incentives for, construction. The DASH Act would create funding and incentives for development and redevelopment, including expanding tax credits for developers and landlords who provide low-income housing, and creating similar tax incentives for developers and landlords who provide middle-income housing.
The bill would also expand funding for “rural areas,” and “Indian areas,” by making them more easily deemed “Difficult Development Areas.”
To account for the fact that increased development slows and stabilizes rent increases but rarely results in lowered rents, as Street Roots reported in June, Wyden pointed to the “renter’s tax credit” included in the DASH Act. The “renter’s tax credit,” which would actually refund money to landlords who provide affordable housing, is aimed at ensuring “extremely low-income renters” do not pay more than 30% of their gross income — the federal standard for housing affordability — on rent and utilities.
“The Renter’s Tax Credit establishes a refundable credit … claimable by taxpayers who own and operate affordable housing,” according to the bill summary. “Eligible tenants are those with gross monthly family incomes at or below 30% of area median or at or below the federal poverty line, whichever amount is greater. For each eligible unit, the credit is calculated as 110% (up to 120% for low poverty neighborhoods) of the difference between market rent and 30% of a tenant’s gross family income.”
The tax credit also seeks to incentivize landlord participation by adding the 10- to 20% bonus in the tax credit.
Wyden said the motivation for the 253-page piece of legislation was taking a big step toward ending homelessness, while he sees current approaches as being part of a cycle.
“I really want to make sure, particularly, as this discussion of sweeps goes forward, and the like, they’re not just moving houseless people to another neighborhood; what you’re doing is ending what has been an endless cycle,” Wyden said, adding the federal government should have a plan in place to end the “cycle of homelessness.”
Wyden, a Portlander, said he believes sweeps are driven by frustration, but at times, the approach lacks logic.
“I want people to understand this this issue has been driven by frustration all around,” Wyden said. “I mean, clearly, moving houseless people to another neighborhood … and it’s just becoming an endless cycle that is defying common sense. At the same time, housed people are concerned about their neighborhood. So, what I’m supposed to do is come up with fresh policy to increase housing supply and end the cycle of houselessness.
“If there’s one thing I’m trying to convey, it's that I want humane approaches. I want to end the cycle of houselessness. If you want to reduce houselessness, the best way to do it is to provide housing that’s affordable and accessible.”
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