Incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty and Renee Gonzalez on their plans to address housing and homelessness in Portland
Homeless advocates, service providers and business associations will watch with bated breath as votes are tallied for Portland City Commissioner Position 3 Nov. 8.
Incumbent Jo Ann Hardesty appears to face a significant uphill battle against the more conservative Rene Gonzalez. The Oregonian reported a recent Portland Business Alliance-funded poll placed Gonzalez at a whopping 25% above Hardesty among likely voters.
Hardesty has consistently been the most progressive voice on City Council since elected in 2018, drawing ire from anti-police accountability groups like the Portland Police Association and anti-homeless groups like People for Portland. Gonzalez, a local attorney and businessman, employs the pro-sweep, tough-on-crime rhetoric that has dominated ideologically similar campaigns for other offices throughout the state. Gonzalez has found significant support from affluent Portlanders, particularly those with moderately Democratic or conservative beliefs.
As the city faces substantial changes with potential charter reform and mounting pressure on local electeds to address homelessness and housing affordability, Gonzalez is one victory away from eliminating the last political obstacle to aggressive tactics relying on emergency shelters and widespread sweeps.
Jo Ann Hardesty (Incumbent)
Jo Ann Hardesty is a familiar face in Portland politics, and rather than sliding toward the political right in hopes of attracting would-be Rene Gonzalez voters, she’s leaned harder into the progressive policies that resulted in her election in 2018.
Hardesty believes permanent housing, building a city “land bank” and gearing immediate responses toward long-term success are the right ways to address homelessness in Portland. Hardesty, who zeroes in on extreme rent costs as the main cause of homelessness, also argues the state should do more to create a level playing field between renters and landlords.
Hardesty also highlights mental health resources and transportation safety as core investment needs for the city.
To Hardesty, who has an obvious air of frustration when she speaks about the city’s lack of action on homelessness, answers are at the fingertips of the city government, it just has to act.
“Let me just say that for me, if the city really wanted to solve the housing problem, we could,” Hardesty said. “If you look around this city, there are so many empty structures that the city and the county and the state should be buying up and land banking so that we can ensure that for the next generation, working people will still be able to live in the city of Portland.
“I get really, really frustrated when our solution to people who are homeless is to sweep them out of sight but do nothing to fundamentally change their position.”
Hardesty, who feels sweeps are ineffective and inefficient, is critical of how resources are used for homelessness and housing, something she has little direct control over in the city’s current commissioner style of governance.
“If I sound frustrated, it’s because I’ve been singing this tune long before I got to City Hall, and now that I see how much money we invest in homeless services, it’s just appalling that (the investments) are not leading to outcomes that we should be receiving with the kind of money we’re expending.”
Despite the strong support for big steps toward more permanent housing, Hardesty made it clear she supports investment in emergency shelters, city-sanctioned self-managed camps and transitional housing, saying “people shouldn’t be dying in our streets while we wait to build housing people can afford to live in.” But, she sees the issues with housing and homelessness as a confluence of systemic failures requiring an eye toward the future.
“With the median family income in the city of Portland for a family of four today being $97,500, I just don’t see a path for poor people to pay first, last, security deposit, pet deposit, pet rent to be able to live in the city of Portland,” Hardesty said. “And I’m terrified that with the potential rate increase over 14% in January … we will be making a lot more people homeless starting January of next year.”
Hardesty’s proposed solutions are a noteworthy departure from the standard and politically safe “incentivize development and eliminate red tape” or “deregulate development” proposals from the majority of candidates throughout the state, though she did say the city can make permitting much more efficient and needs to develop more low-income housing. Hardesty favors an aggressive approach using eminent domain to provide transitional housing and shelter while the city waits for new development on land it already owns or would come to own via eminent domain.
“If you walk through the downtown core, there are a lot of really crappy buildings that the city should just be using our power of eminent domain to take control of,” Hardesty said. “And then we should land bank those (buildings). We should also use buildings — any available space we have now — to provide people temporary shelter.”
Hardesty isn’t under any illusions about how some may react to the city exercising eminent domain over derelict properties, describing it as a “nuclear option,” in a “nuclear situation.”
“That’s the only way to ensure that (development) is permanently affordable — not just affordable for a minute,” Hardesty said referencing affordability requirements expiring on privately owned development. “If we actually restrict development to (units with rent that is affordable for people making 60% of the median income) for commercial and residential, because we’re pricing out small businesses just like we’re pricing individuals out.”
Hardesty, while proposing the city take bold action on housing affordability and homelessness, said the state and county’s partnership are also needed. Hardesty said state lawmakers should reexamine housing policies and the so-called “kicker,” which disperses billions of dollars in tax rebates when the state has surplus revenue, as potential places for assistance.
“The city … isn’t the housing builder for affordable housing. That’s the county,” Hardesty said. “The city stepped in when we first started experiencing this housing emergency, but even with the new (city) housing office, it only provides 10% of the dollars necessary for affordable housing developers to be able to develop housing that people would permanently be able to afford.”
Rene Gonzalez
A new face to Portland politics with a familiar bent, Portland attorney and businessman Rene Gonzalez is playing moderate foil to the progressive Jo Ann Hardesty.
Gonzalez, a Democrat, identifies the “why’s” of Portland’s crises similarly to Republican candidates. For unsheltered homelessness, Gonzalez points to addiction as the central cause, and Measure 110 — which decriminalized possessing small amounts of drugs in 2021 — as a contributing factor, though he stopped short of calling for a repeal. For unaffordable rent, Gonzalez identifies the cost of development as the main cause and inclusionary zoning — which requires new buildings with 20 or more units to provide some units with rents affordable to households at or below 80% of the median income — as a contributing factor.
For solutions, Gonzalez favors emergency shelters, sanctioned encampments and aggressive sweep practices to address unsanctioned encampments. For rent affordability, Gonzalez wants to lower costs for developers. He also said he believes the city should consider requiring contractors and subcontractors to pay family wages.
“I think we have a substantial addiction crisis in the city and state that has been exacerbated by Measure 110,” Gonzalez said of unsheltered Portlanders when asked what he believes is the main cause of homelessness.
Gonzalez acknowledged addiction rose rapidly in 2020 during the early days of the pandemic before Measure 110 took effect in 2021 and said it was a “hunch” when asked if he had any data to support the claim Measure 110 contributes to addiction in Portland. Gonzalez said the city should be more “rigorous” regarding people who sell methamphetamine or fentanyl, saying it would take “further support” from Portland police and the DEA. Measure 110 did not decriminalize selling drugs, which for methampetamine and fentanyl, remains a Class A felony. He also said the city needs to ensure Measure 110 funding for addiction treatment, which has long been delayed, is promptly distributed.
Relating to treatment and assistance, Gonzalez wants to prioritize homeless Portlanders who were born in Oregon, referring to Portland’s homeless population as a “migratory element,” and referenced the 2019 Point-in-Time Count, which found 74% of unsheltered people in Multnomah County were “from somewhere else originally.”
The same report found the percentage of homeless Portlanders from somewhere other than Multnomah County originally was comparable to the entire population of the county with the same designation, which was 69%. Gonzalez was unsure if his preference for government assistance for people originally from the area was specific to the homeless population or if he felt government assistance should be prioritized for people originally from the area, regardless of housing status.
“I’m not sure I’ve actually ever thought of it quite that way,” Gonzalez said when asked if this type of prioritizing should only apply to homeless Portlanders. “But, I’m also not going to tell you ‘no.’”
Gonzalez, who mentioned several times the city should prioritize emergency shelter and sanctioned camping or parking spots, drew a hard line for unhoused Portlanders who refuse congregate shelter because they want to use hard drugs — a group he believes is a substantial contingent of homeless Portlanders.
“I probably lean towards, with respect to those that are suffering from substance use disorder or just don't want to go to shelter because they can't use hard drugs, regardless of what their status is, I probably end up a little bit tough on that question and say, ‘You cannot camp. We're gonna take away your tent if there is adequate shelter space offered,’” Gonzalez said. “I don't mean that with a sense of cruelty, but that's trying to balance … we’re trying to offer sufficient shelter and your sole objection is you can't use hard drugs.”
For people who turn down shelter because they can’t bring pets or romantic partners, Gonzalez said he hopes “we can continue to work towards solutions that can address those particular concerns.” For those people specifically, Gonzalez said he was “more inclined to sort of meet halfway, or at least part of the way,” before strictly enforcing anti-camping bans.
Gonzalez felt the city’s focus on aggressive sweeps and offers of temporary shelter carried out during and since the Old Town ‘reset’ were a step in the right direction.
Gonzalez’s focus on rent affordability is almost entirely on policies set to lower costs for landlords and developers while encouraging development. He said the city needs to focus on “removing some of the cost elements in the housing development process” like system development charges (one-time fees developers pay to assist in the needed growth of public infrastructure).
Rental data shows and experts agree more housing stock slows and stabilizes rental increases, but doesn’t actually lower existing rents, Street Roots reported in June. When asked how Gonzalez would account for those already priced out of the rental market, he disagreed with the conclusions of the report, citing the decline of real estate prices in Texas because of high availability as evidence that developing rental housing in Portland would decrease rent.
Gonzalez’s campaign did not respond to two separate emails that included follow-up questions after the interview — which had lasted for nearly 1 hour and 20 minutes — was ended so Gonzalez could make another commitment. Among the questions Gonzalez did not respond to was if his relationship with Jordan Schnitzer, who rented Gonzalez a campaign office well-below market rate running afoul of the city’s campaign finance laws resulting in the city fining Gonzalez’s campaign $77,000, should concern voters that Gonzalez is too closely tied to the interests of developers and monied interests.
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