Albert Kaufman, Julia Brim-Edwards and Ana del Rocío all agree the county needs more housing options at more affordable prices. Where they differ is how the county should do that.
It’s clear the lack of affordable housing and increase in homelessness in Multnomah County is a crisis. Whoever wins the only open seat for the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners — Southeast Portland District 3 — has the opportunity to add a new perspective on how the board addresses both.
Commissioners have the power to make administrative changes, fill vacancies in elected offices, adopt labor agreements, and adopt policies and budgets. County commissioners also act as liaisons for departments and other agencies, including Multnomah County’s housing department and the Joint Office of Homeless Services.
Rent is on the rise, vacancy rates are low, and the city of Portland is moving forward with plans for its controversial mass homeless encampments.
The average rent in Portland increased by 29% in 2021 and continued to climb through 2022, according to Redfin. According to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, a minimum-wage worker in Multnomah County would need to work over 90 hours per week to afford a 2-bedroom rental at a fair market rate of $1,735 per month. Additionally, experts say addressing low housing stock or “the housing shortage” slows the rate at which rents increase but doesn’t actually decrease existing rents.
Whoever fills the seat left vacant by Jessica Vega Pederson after she was elected county chair last year is facing an uphill climb, something each candidate can agree on. Where they differ, however, is the route they believe the climb should follow.
Albert Kaufman Albert Kaufman is a longtime community activist who has worked with organizations like Friends of Trees, Southeast Uplift and Quiet Clean PDX. He was also previously the president of the Beaumont-Wilshire Neighborhood Association.
Kaufman said his main objective is addressing livability issues within the county.
“I will be joining the other commissioners and the chair in working on trying to improve the lives of people who are living on the streets,” he said. “The county is tasked with using its resources to provide shelter, provide addiction services and provide all sorts of help to those who are facing homelessness and hunger.”
While Kaufman’s opponents, Julia Brim-Edwards and Ana del Rocío, shied away from saying where the county should prioritize funding for housing, Kaufman said permanent housing should be the county’s focus.
Kaufman said vacation rentals like Airbnb and population growth are significant contributors to homelessness in Multnomah County.
“If we shut down Airbnb, that becomes a much less costly answer,” he said.
When Kaufman moved to Multnomah County in 2002, Airbnb didn’t exist yet.
“It wasn't hard if you moved (to Multnomah County) to rent a room in a house,” he said. “And if you wanted to move, there was another room somewhere else.”
Now, with vacation rentals like Airbnb, housing that could be long-term rentals is now reserved for short-term vacationers.
Kaufman said the county should ban Airbnb for a year to see if it impacts the affordable housing market.
“If suddenly we took Airbnb out of the picture, how many rooms and apartments and houses would suddenly be available?” he said.
However, a ban would keep Airbnb property owners from using their homes as vacation rentals — at least through Airbnb — but it wouldn’t force them to rent the properties at affordable prices.
“I don't think that that is going to solve everything because even before Airbnb, we had people living on the streets,” he said.
Permanent housing isn’t the only solution, though, Kaufman said in agreement with Brim-Edwards and del Rocío.
“I think that for each person who's on the streets, there's a different need,” he said. “It's like snowflakes. I really don't think that the whole population of homeless people in Portland all have the same needs.”
To supplement the ban, Kaufman said he would be open to discussing rent control and public housing.
“I think the county should be using every tool at its disposal to try to help renters in this district that I'm running in,” he said. “More than half of the people who are voting in this election are renters. And I'm sure everybody who is in that population, or many people who are in that population, are probably living paycheck to paycheck, somewhere close to that, so these issues are very real.”
When it comes to people who are already priced out of the rental market, Kaufman said the county should look to subsidized housing.
Kaufman also believes the county should continue to meet with the city to support Mayor Ted Wheeler’s mass encampment plan.
“I think that the county should support the city's efforts financially in any way possible,” he said. “I don't think it's going to work if the two groups are not meeting with one another.”
Ultimately, Kaufman said these projects are temporary remedies for bigger problems.
If local, state and national officials don’t address population growth, Multnomah County will eventually face the same problem again, he said.
Kaufman also tied population growth to climate change, saying officials need to figure out how to reduce human population.
“Currently, we grow at 80 million people a year,” he said. “That is not sustainable and is what is causing everything from species loss to traffic congestion and lack of homes.”
Building more homes is not the solution, he said, as home development can’t keep up with population growth.
“Rather than just keep trying to keep up, we should figure out how to stop growing as a species,” he said.
To decrease population growth, Kaufman suggests expanding sexual education to all age levels, increasing access to contraception and abortion and making economic and educational opportunities accessible to women and girls.
Julia Brim-Edwards Julia Brim-Edwards has served 10 non-consecutive years on the Portland Public Schools Board, is a founding member of the Oregon Vietnam Economic, Education and Cultural Association, and was previously a senior director at Nike for 17 years.
Brim-Edwards has also served on the Oregon State University board since 2016, coinciding with former OSU President F. King Alexander’s resignation following accusations of mishandling sexual misconduct allegations while president at Louisiana State University.
Brim-Edwards said her top priorities for the position include addressing homelessness and housing, access to mental health and drug treatment and increasing public safety.
To address homelessness and housing, Brim-Edwards said the county needs to continue providing preventative support like rent assistance while developing supportive housing. The county needs to work with the city to create more shelter options, including shelter beds, converting motels, safe rest villages, sanctioned campsites and safe park sites, she said.
Additionally, Brim-Edwards said the county should develop a platform where social and outreach workers can find available shelters and open beds to easily connect people with services.
“We need improved accountability, transparency and information so that we know who we're trying to help, what interventions are available, or what supportive services, and whether they're effective,” she said.
Brim-Edwards agrees with her opponent, Ana del Rocío, that the county needs to have an equal focus on emergency shelters, transitional housing and permanent supportive housing.
How the county prioritizes housing projects needs to be based on data, Brim-Edwards said.
“Until we have that data and (know) what services they need … I don't think we can say what we're not going to do,” she said.
The county is currently working on a data project to evaluate how many people need permanent supportive housing.
To address these issues, the county needs to further its partnership with Portland city officials, including on the issue of Mayor Ted Wheeler’s mass encampment plan, Brim-Edwards said.
“I firmly believe we need to move to action, but we need to move to action together,” she said. “So to have disjointed siloed action with the city doing one thing and the county doing something else, it's not a recipe to make things better for those most vulnerable and who are living on the streets.”
Brim-Edwards believes high rents and low vacancy rates are the primary structural causes of homelessness in Multnomah County.
“There are also individual factors that drive homelessness, including serious mental health, substance abuse and adverse childhood experiences or trauma,” she said. “So I say absolutely that housing affordability and high rents are a structural driver of homelessness.”
Multnomah County is becoming less and less affordable for its residents, Brim-Edward said, which exacerbates the issue of high rent prices and low vacancy rates.
“And that's particularly true in District 3,” she said. “It’s a very diverse, economically, district, but neighborhoods that had been affordable are becoming less and less affordable.”
To make the county more affordable, Brim-Edwards said it needs to work with Metro, the city and the state on a host of projects, including housing bonds for affordable housing, developing more affordable housing and potentially continuing rent control.
“In terms of rent control, we have control now,” she said. “I think that we have a couple of years of experience with it. It would be important to examine to see whether it had its intended impact. Did it make housing affordable? Did incomes keep up with the rate of rent increases that was allowed?”
The county should also take preventative steps like providing long-term rental assistance to help people before they are priced out of the rental market, Brim-Edwards said.
“One of the most important things that the county and city can do together is creating systems,” she said.
By creating a system that catalogs individuals who are at potential risk of becoming homeless, Brim-Edwards said, the county can more accurately have sustained outreach to prevent homelessness.
Tied in with addressing homelessness and housing, Brim-Edwards said the county needs to integrate housing and mental health services and treatment and recovery.
“In terms of drug treatment, there's a need for expanded capacity for sobering detox and treatment, both inpatient and outpatient,” she said.
Brim-Edwards is also concerned with public safety in District 3.
“District 3 has neighborhoods in the county with some of the highest levels of crime and gun violence,” she said.
Increasing public safety, she said, will require the county to increase support for non-police response agencies — like Project Respond and Portland Street Response — local law enforcement and the District Attorney’s office.
Ana del Rocío Ana del Rocío was on the policy staff for current Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson while she was a state representative and county commissioner between September 2014 and December 2017 before serving as executive director of the Oregon Futures Lab from 2018 to 2021.
Previously, del Rocío served on the Multnomah County Charter Review Committee as the tri-chair and on the Oregon School Board Members of Color Caucus as co-president, among other appointments.
Del Rocío lists housing and homelessness as one of her top priorities on her campaign site. Del Rocío plans to work with the Joint Office of Homelessness Services to direct taxpayer funding to achieve the “maximum impact” for homeless residents and to address long-term housing supply issues.
“We must attend to the human elements of crisis on our streets,” she said. “We need safe temporary shelter and supportive housing programs to keep people housed. We need to expand the treatment for mental health and addiction and steward interventions to address the known root causes of mental health and addiction.”
Regarding county spending on homelessness, del Rocío said emergency shelters are important but cautioned against a tunnel view of the issue.
“I think that we need to have a multitude of options,” she said. “We have to make sure that we're moving towards a long-term housing that is more than just for one night or more than just on a temporary basis. That's a really crucial long-term goal.”
Del Rocío said this will take full system evaluation and reform.
“What I understand is that homelessness is a symptom of a systematic failure, and those systems are going to require systemic reforms,” she said. “So it's important to get people into housing, but keeping them there long term and preventing the homelessness problem from getting even more dire is going to require us to look at wealth inequality and how we are encouraging and uplifting families to be able to support their housing needs and be less rent burdened.”
To tamp the burden of increasing rents and lack of affordable housing, del Rocío proposes creating more family-wage jobs and increasing eviction and foreclosure protections.
“Surely, increasing housing supply is going to be part of a long-term solution, but we have to match that endeavor with companion controls that reduce the harm of evictions threatening families,” she said. “It is unrealistic to assume that an increase in overall housing supply will make housing affordable for those who have always struggled to make ends meet and afford their rent.”
Del Rocío herself said she recently received a $209 rent increase notice for her apartment.
“One of the things that my neighbor shared about his vision for 20 years from now was 20 years from now, we just want to still be living here,” she said. “So what I took from that is that stability and housing security are super important for all communities to prosper, but they're especially important for our diverse district in East Portland where too many families have experienced separation from their loved ones.”
As a renter herself, del Rocío believes she is best poised to represent the district by bringing more balance to a government system that historically has prioritized homeowners’ viewpoints.
“I'm running at the same time that I am dealing with my own day-to-day struggles of housing and affordability, of a lack of transit, a lack of air quality in East Portland,” she said. “So I know firsthand what our urgent needs are day to day.”
Unlike her opponent, Brim-Edwards, del Rocío is less supportive of Wheeler’s mass encampment plan.
“I would love to see them really investing in safety measures that are promoting peace and promoting community relationships across the board that are compassionate and just and humane and not relying so much on tactics that we used in the past that criminalized poverty, criminalized homelessness, criminalized what in the past has just been a reflection of a lack of material needs for folks’ survival,” she said.
Del Rocío said she learned from local paramedics’ observations that in camps where there’s a lack of community, there is a higher rate of violence and calls to police, whereas in camps where the city has invested in public safety efforts that promote harmony and peace, there are fewer police calls.
“I would like to trust that the city, as a top partner for the county, understands the need to promote trauma-informed interventions for safety and not just resort to decades-old tactics of criminalization,” she said.
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