Oregon’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District serves a population of approximately 851,000 people. It encompasses much of Multnomah County, spanning east and southeast Portland, Gresham, Troutdale, and includes Hood River County and the northeast part of Clackamas County.
Democratic incumbent Rep. Earl Blumenauer is running against Republican Joanna Harbour, who previously bested opponents in the Republican primaries in 2020 and later lost the general election to Blumenauer.
In the 2022 primaries, Harbour received 97% of the Republican vote, a total of 10,219 votes.
Blumenauer received 95% of the Democratic vote, totaling 63,314 votes — roughly six times the number of votes Harbour received.
Elected for a two-year term, representatives play a pivotal role in determining policy. They introduce, craft and vote on legislative policy and resolutions. They also serve on committees that help determine the objectives and goals when responding to key issues. The winner of the 3rd U.S. Congressional District will shape funding allocations and policy responses that impact housing and homelessness.
Joanna Harbour
Joanna Harbour, a two-time candidate for congress who has not served in office, chose a lighthouse as her campaign symbol. Harbour has adopted the prototypical stance of scores of Republican candidates — that of the political outsider and defender of freedom. Her bio features a photo of her smiling and wearing a red Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” trucker hat, and says she supports religious freedom, the Second Amendment, right-to-life and the constitution.
Harbour has been an Oregon resident since age 12, living in the rural community of Estacada. She earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Northwest Nazarene University, a Christian college in Idaho. She earned a law degree from Willamette University College of Law and says she operated her own law firm in Estacada from 2004-2016.
Harbour's law firm is one among several other businesses that were more short-lived. In 2018, she explains she lost 60 pounds and decided to start a career in health and fitness. In 2019, she started writing a mystery book and began a jewelry-making business, but paused both so she could run her congressional campaign. She said she’s currently self-employed.
Harbour said she was unavailable for an interview prior to publication. Street Roots submitted a list of questions regarding housing and homelessness policies to Harbour via email and included as much of her direct responses as possible.
To address homelessness, Harbour supports using federal, state, county and local funds. She emphasized that solutions would ultimately need to happen at the local level, a refrain that was common in her responses. Street Roots asked Harbour for specific plans, which she did not provide.
“I don’t believe there is a one size fits all solution,” Harbour said. “This is a crisis in almost every city and town in the state. Each city and town should find what works for their communities and the homelessness within their boundaries.”
Harbour is in favor of sweeps, noting their use “depends on the circumstances” and said homeless Oregonians must be “provided with alternative spaces to go.”
“If the homeless (one or more) refuse to leave when there is an adequate alternative space, then forcing them to leave is the only alternative,” Harbour said. “Not unlike when a landlord evicts a tenant.”
In regards to policies that criminalize homelessness, Harbour declined to explicitly support or oppose them.
“Any activity that is dangerous or hazardous should have strict enforcement of the law,” Harbour said. “The community needs to be safe for everyone and this includes the homeless. In some jurisdictions, like a small town, it may be necessary to make stronger penalties to encourage enforcement. In other jurisdictions, the penalties may be too harsh.”
In a similar vein, Harbour did not say what steps she would take to ensure housed residents were safe and considered when shelter or services for unhoused people are offered in their community.
“Personally, I believe placement is very important,” Harbour said. “... As a congressperson, I believe it is best for each local community to order their priorities and find solutions that work for their region.”
With regard to the housing crisis, Harbour supports housing development and cited overregulation as a core cause of rent increases. Beyond mention of potential “deep dive” examinations of regulations to streamline them, she did not provide any policy details.
Notably, Harbour said the federal government should not interfere with local housing policies, implying it would not be her role to shape housing policy.
“I truly believe that the solutions need to come from the state and local level,” Harbour said. “I do not believe that the federal government should be forcing any policy onto our communities. So, my role as a congresswoman would be to bring resources and financing to assist.”
Harbour’s reluctance to impose policy extends to tenant protections, including rent control.
“I believe in the free market,” Harbour said. “If we cap rent, then some landlords may need to sell off the homes they rent out because a capped rent will not pay the mortgage on the rental home.”
In June, Street Roots reported increased housing development can slow rent increases but does not ultimately lower rental rates. Street Roots asked Harbour how she would ensure people who are already priced out of the rental market can afford a place to live, and she contradicted those findings, defaulting to the typical rhetoric of building more housing.
“Having an adequate housing market will ensure the rent is affordable,” Harbour said. “If there are enough houses on the market, then the other rents will eventually need to be lowered because the tenants could just move into the lower renting units. Then in order to rent out the space, the landlord would have to meet or beat the new unit pricing.”
When asked if she supports tenants' rights, Harbour said “a balance must be struck” between landlord and tenant, emphasizing tenant rights should not go too far because it may result in landlords pulling out of the rental industry or being put in situations where rentals aren’t financially viable and potentially lead to property foreclosure. Harbour did not provide examples of landlord protections going too far.
“I believe everyone has rights,” Harbour said. “I do believe that a landlord should not abuse or take advantage of a tenant. But I also believe the reverse. That a tenant should not abuse or take advantage of the landlord.”
Earl Blumenauer
Incumbent Democrat Rep. Earl Blumenauer has served as the representative for Oregon’s 3rd U.S. Congressional District for the past 26 years. First assuming office in 1996, he is running for re-election, and his current term ends in January 2023.
Blumenauer, a progressive Democrat, has deep roots in Oregon politics. Prior to serving in Congress, he was a member of the Oregon House of Representatives from 1973 to 1978. From 1978 to 1985, he was a Multnomah County Commissioner, and from 1986 to 1996, he was a City Commissioner in Portland.
Blumenauer is a lifelong Portland resident who graduated from Centennial High School. He earned his bachelor's degree at Lewis and Clark College and received a law degree from Lewis and Clark Law School.
Blumenauer serves as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade and is a member of the Ways and Means Committee and Subcommittee on Health. He supported Medicare for All and the Green New Deal and has championed and supported bills ranging from gun violence prevention to criminal justice reform and protection of public lands.
Blumenauer defines housing as a human right and identifies affordable, accessible housing as “perhaps the greatest challenge communities face.” He has pursued housing policy throughout his career as an elected official and is among political leaders who are leading cutting-edge housing efforts.
Recognizing homelessness is fundamentally linked to housing affordability, much of Blumenauer's approach focuses on making housing affordable and accessible, and providing services to support homeless people on their path to securing permanent housing.
In 2020, Blumenauer worked with progressive representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Pramila Jayapal, and Chuy Garcia to launch the People's Housing Platform, a housing framework declaring housing as a fundamental human right. The platform aims to expand available public housing stock, stabilize surging rents, support homeownership and invest in homelessness assistance.
In 2020, Blumenauer partnered with Ocasio-Cortez to pass amendments in an effort to prevent then-President Donald Trump’s rollback of federal fair housing protections.
A consistent champion of fair housing, Blumenhauer supports putting funding into addressing homelessness.
“There are a number of people who, frankly, are not going to be housed without active government intervention and the federal resources,” Blumenauer said. “I think emergency shelters, we need help with transitional housing.”
In a departure from his opponent, Blumenauer notes the barriers to addressing housing and homelessness are “horribly complex” and cites the active role of the federal government in making them worse.
“It's been compounded, frankly, because the federal government has not been a constructive partner,” Blumenauer said. “And in fact, the federal government has created many of these problems in terms of past discrimination, particularly against Black Americans.”
In 2019, Blumenauer released a housing report analyzing the federal government's contribution to endemic housing issues. Titled “Locked Out,” the report examines poverty in the nation, zeroing in on federal policies that have systematically contributed to poverty and homelessness.
Among the findings, the report notes that U.S. Congress “has artificially capped the construction of new public housing for the past 20 years,” fundamentally contributing to the current housing crisis gripping the nation.
The report also targets established policies that maintain unequal wealth distribution, in particular the Mortgage Interest Deduction, “which is targeted at the wealthiest Americans, while there are minimal tools for helping traditionally marginalized communities buy their first home.”
Consistent policy failures, Blumenauer's report finds, have exacerbated housing and rents, directly laying the foundation for rising homelessness.
“Most of the country's ‘successful’ communities,” the report finds, “have thousands of people experiencing homelessness due to astronomical rent increases, job loss, eviction, or mental illness.”
While homelessness is deeply embedded in Blumenhauer’s housing efforts, as a separate issue, he is in support of a suite of efforts to provide assistance.
“There isn't one solution,” Blumenauer said. “There isn't one cause. It's the convergence of issues of rising housing costs, problems with delivery of services, more and more people with addiction and mental health problems on the streets. It requires a comprehensive effort, and I tried to support those with the federal policies that I've been working on and trying to support our state and local partners.”
Regarding sweeps, Blumenauer isn’t opposed but emphasizes they need to be accompanied by adequate support.
“It depends on how they are implemented. There are certain things that are going on,” Blumenauer said. “There have been huge problems. In terms of areas of concentration, it's not easy to try and balance the respect and rights of the individuals. Plus, the fact that people have invaded public space.”
Blumenauer said while the system created the conditions for homelessness, there are also real problems associated with homeless populations.
“So I think there's an effort to try and do this in a humane and thoughtful fashion, try and give people alternatives,” Blumenauer said. “But you reach a point where I think local officials need to take some action. And I think, as long as they do it in a thoughtful and humane fashion, there's a role for it.”
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