Candidates from Districts 33, 46, and 48 share their thoughts on addressing housing and homelessness in the state
Oregon House District 33
Brian Duty is a physician at Oregon Health & Science University, focusing on minimally invasive surgery for kidney obstruction, stones and cancer as well as preventing kidney stones through dietary and medical management.
He also serves as director of strategic outreach for OHSU Health, where he develops clinical and educational programs in collaboration with health systems and hospitals in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
What do you think is the biggest contributing factor(s) to the homelessness/housing crisis in the area in which you are seeking office?
The root cause of homelessness is the cost of housing. One rent increase or unexpected financial hardship can lead to a loss of housing and beginning on the path to homelessness.
There are many factors contributing to the housing crisis: rising rents, that it is more profitable for developers to build high-end housing versus starter homes or affordable apartments, the painfully slow pace of permitting at the city, and the overhang of outdated zoning that had restricted affordable housing units in many neighborhoods.
We need to improve services for those experiencing homelessness, but controlling the cost of housing is the most important prevention step we can take.
What should be done to alleviate the housing/homelessness crisis?
Solving the housing crisis entails accelerating production, preserving existing housing stock, and doing more to help keep housing affordable through rental stabilization and emergency rental assistance.
Luckily, several of the issues identified in the previous question are already being acted on at the state and local level and we must keep a close eye on implementation.
Responsible legislators should pay close attention to policy outcomes before throwing more resources behind new programs and initiatives.
In terms of improving services for those experiencing homelessness, as we accelerate the use of new resources, we must do more to pay attention to integration of services. Going through detox is only successful when there is a space in a treatment/recovery program waiting for you.
The same is true with ensuring stable housing to support successful mental health care.
Going forward, it is critical that our state, regional, county and local governments are focused on aligning these systems to meet the needs in the community and pay close attention to outcomes.
In medicine, we have to treat the whole patient with a coordinated course of care. We need to set the same expectations when it comes to helping those experiencing homelessness.
What are some of the efforts you've seen that are promising (in Oregon or elsewhere), and what are some tactics you feel our communities should not pursue or stop doing?
There are numerous models we can borrow from and integrate. This is a reality we are seeing up and down the West Coast.
We should protect and expand Portland Street Response to build on the model developed in Eugene to lead with a non-law enforcement response for those in crisis. We also should look at other jurisdictions and how they break down barriers to collaboration across service providers and offer greater transparency into the intersections of services.
In particular, we should be looking at how counties across the state develop diversion options for those charged with crimes under the changes to Measure 110. Diversions from jail and other criminal penalties are critical to getting people on the path to recovery, and we should be learning from the successes of other counties in Oregon as they adopt diversion programs.
Shannon Jones Isadore is a Marine Corps veteran and the founder and CEO of Oregon Change Clinic, a culturally specific clinic that provides substance use and mental health treatment as well as supportive housing,
She has a master's degree in family psychotherapy and has worked as a mental health clinician and investment broker.
What do you think is the biggest contributing factor(s) to the homelessness/housing crisis in the area in which you are seeking office?
Nowhere are the challenges Oregon faces greater than in House District 33 – which includes downtown, northwest Portland, Washington County and St. Johns.
As a Marine Corps veteran, I lead with accountability, structure and integrity in the work I do as CEO and Founder of Oregon Change Clinic, a culturally specific intensive outpatient treatment and recovery housing provider.
I was born and raised in the Albina neighborhood by my grandmother, where a community of people came together to send me to college — and with that perspective, as a native Portlander, a frontline treatment provider, as someone who has turned a dilapidated motel into 37 units of recovery housing and is building 50 more this year, as a business owner.
The biggest contributing factors to the homelessness crisis are housing affordability, housing availability, recovery housing and behavioral health. I will tackle our mental health and addiction, homelessness and public safety crises the same way I did the Marine obstacle course — relentlessly, boldly and with urgency.
The biggest challenges facing Oregon are my life’s work. I will continue making them my top priority.
What should be done to alleviate the housing/homelessness crisis?
The simple answer is we need to build more housing and a lot of it. However, there are so many hurdles to building housing, such as our permitting process. We need to incentivize people to actually want to build housing or make it economical for people to rent out unused space.
We’ve come to know that, without basic housing, it’s hard for people to show up for treatment, work and family. My expertise is in recovery housing, and I know where we can do better in transitioning people from recovery housing to permanent housing.
Last year, Oregon Change Clinic turned a dilapidated motel into 37 beds of recovery housing, and we’re going to build 50 more beds this year. Not only can neither of my opponents say that, but no one running for the Legislature can say that.
We need to be intentional with our focus to create spaces where people can have the housing that they need, and allocate resources towards that.
We must also prepare people for life after treatment — including evaluating peoples’ rental history and setting them up for success to find long-term stable housing they can afford. I am going to work with my colleagues in the Legislature and here at the local level to do anything and everything we can to increase the supply of housing.
What are some of the efforts you've seen that are promising (in Oregon or elsewhere), and what are some tactics you feel our communities should not pursue or stop doing?
The Legislature's $211 million investment in the behavioral health continuum of care and the additional housing investments is promising. Oregon taxpayers deserve someone with my financial expertise and behavioral health background in the Legislature to ensure this investment is well spent and implemented.
I want to see more of what’s working. For example, the statewide success of Project Turnkey -— through investment from state, business, community, philanthropic and local initiatives working together — is something I would be interested to explore scaling.'
I share the governor and the Legislature’s commitment to building more housing and improving our behavioral health continuum of care.
Simply put, I want to see less finger-pointing and more collaboration between jurisdictions, community-based organizations and local governments. It’s time for accountability, structure and integrity at all levels of government to get people housed and keep them housed.
Did not respond: Pete Grabiel (D), Stan Baumhofer (R), Dick Courter (R)
Oregon House District 46
Willy Chotzen is the chief attorney and manager of the misdemeanor unit at Metropolitan Public Defender in Portland. He was formerly a teaching fellow at the Department of Economics at Harvard University and a student attorney at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
He taught middle school mathematics in Oakland, California, before receiving his law degree from Harvard in 2019.
What do you think is the biggest contributing factor(s) to the homelessness/housing crisis in the area in which you are seeking office?
We don’t have enough housing, and the housing that we do have has become too expensive. Oregon has been underbuilding housing for decades, and housing in Portland is unaffordable for many of the people who live here.
Working in a legal aid clinic, I fought to keep families in their homes by defending against foreclosures and evictions. I saw how many people are one financial setback away from losing their housing.
As a public defender, I have worked to help clients transition from homelessness to long-term stability. I have seen firsthand that our community does not have the shelter or housing capacity to meet our current needs.
For many workers, incomes have not kept up with inflation or with rising housing costs. In addition to working to lower the cost of housing, we need to prioritize raising incomes for low-income and moderate-income workers.
Another contributing factor is the lack of access to mental health care and addiction treatment. If elected, building a more robust behavioral health system and social safety net will be among my top priorities.
What should be done to alleviate the housing/homelessness crisis?
First and foremost, I believe we need to drastically increase our housing production. I am hopeful that legislation passed earlier this year will be a significant step in the right direction toward getting more Oregonians housed.
Until we construct the amount of housing necessary to meet demand in Oregon, we must continue to work urgently on short-term solutions to reduce homelessness and help vulnerable families from becoming homeless.
I believe in an approach that increases our shelter capacity, with a wide variety of shelter types to meet the varied needs of our community. I also support rental assistance for families to prevent homelessness, and I will work to enforce and strengthen policies passed by the Oregon Legislature that put a cap on the amount a landlord can raise your rent.
Additionally, I support an expansion of the revolving loan fund for local governments to help pay for moderate-income housing.
Further, we should continue to expand access to treatment and to invest in education, workforce development and apprenticeship programs to support long-term stability and career opportunities.
What are some of the efforts you've seen that are promising (in Oregon or elsewhere), and what are some tactics you feel our communities should not pursue or stop doing?
I think Oregon has recently taken some steps in the right direction, including increasing our housing production, additional funds for homeless shelters and rent assistance, increased investment in our behavioral health system and statewide rent control.
We should prioritize implementation and enforcement of these policies, strong communication and collaboration between different levels of government, and accountability and transparency in how these funds are spent.
I support solutions that get at the root causes of homelessness and that take people’s life circumstances into account. I don’t believe in policies that prioritize punishment over support or that are aimed at hiding homelessness rather than addressing it. We need to house our way out of this crisis, and I believe in our collective ability to do so.
Mary Hennrich is a public health nurse and health care administrator. She served for nine years as the chief executive officer of CareOregon and another nine years as the assistant director of the Multnomah County Health Department.
What do you think is the biggest contributing factor(s) to the homelessness/housing crisis in the area in which you are seeking office?
As a public health nurse, I have seen increasing numbers of physical and mental illnesses go untreated due to cost.
The corporatization of health care has skyrocketed in the past decade and is having disastrous effects. Deinstitutionalizing thousands of patients from state mental health hospitals in the ’70s did not provide funding for the care, housing and support in the community, as promised.
The “chronically mentally ill” had few decent places to live and counties became “the mental health authority” without adequate funding. Homelessness became more common. Things have gone from bad to worse and our recent pandemic increased the already untenable situation.
Chronic untreated mental and physical health conditions, decreases in union jobs, more low-wage jobs without benefits keep families unable to provide stable housing.
In addition, the cost of home ownership and rent has made purchasing and renting housing out of reach for many. There is no way today that my daughter who is a single 25-plus-year teacher can afford to purchase a house. At a minimum of $400,000, that is five times her annual income.
Rent has also become unaffordable. Housing has become a commodity that can be traded and speculated on by financial and overseas markets. Large investors have managed to become major owners of single-family homes and massive lobbying firms working every day to keep Congress from acting.
What should be done to alleviate the housing/homelessness crisis?
There is not “one solution” just as there isn’t just “one cause.”
We need additional affordable and low-income housing to be built, and the governor’s and recent legislative action/funding and plans are a promising beginning.
I’ll continue to support the city, county and Metro in providing both supportive services for those currently homeless and the construction of affordable housing, recovery housing and housing for those being discharged from medical environments. We also need to fund/support a program of subsidizing rents for individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless due to unseen financial hardship.
I believe housing and healthcare are basic human rights and as a civil/humane society, we cannot go on allowing the current “inhumane” non-system.
What are some of the efforts you've seen that are promising (in Oregon or elsewhere), and what are some tactics you feel our communities should not pursue or stop doing?
There is evidence that “housing first” has worked in Houston and Salt Lake City in getting people a decent place to live — not just be “sheltered” — and then providing the support and wrap-around services they need to recover from their illnesses/addictions.
The model used by Central City Concern has helped many homeless with addiction and mental health issues on a path to long-term recovery and a feeling of self-worth. There are also some promising small efforts e.g. “We Shine” that are building small neighborhood-based tiny house communities in neighborhoods and working with these organizations to provide a step toward long-term homes that will hopefully become more accessible and affordable.
As a public health nurse, I believe in evidence-based prevention beginning with young families (e.g. nurse-family partnership, home-visiting programs for new mothers/parents, quality early-childhood daycare, free art and music and athletics for school children, quality afterschool programs for elementary, middle and high school students.)
If we don’t fund these types of services “upstream” we will continue to pay the high costs of trying to remediate the “broken” folks “downstream.”
Oregon House District 48
Liz Petersen has a bachelor's degree from the Chamberlain College of Nursing. Her career experience includes working as a senior clinical trial manager at IQVIA, Bristol Myers Squibb and Juno Therapeutics Inc. She has been affiliated with the Association for Clinical Research Professionals and Oncology Nursing Society.
What do you think is the biggest contributing factor(s) to the homelessness/housing crisis in the area in which you are seeking office?
The cost of housing is very high, and many low-income people are working multiple part-time minimum-wage jobs with no benefits. One catastrophic illness could cost them everything. There is a crisis in substance abuse and lack of mental health resources and substance abuse inpatient counseling.
What should be done to alleviate the housing/homelessness crisis?
We need a massive increase in affordable housing. Free education, union outreach to high schools and community colleges regarding apprentice programs would help some start careers with higher pay. We need robust subsidized health, mental health, and substance abuse programs including the option for short- and long-term inpatient as needed with ongoing outpatient counseling.
What are some of the efforts you've seen that are promising (in Oregon or elsewhere), and what are some tactics you feel our communities should not pursue or stop doing?
Portugal: Reframe drug addiction as an illness and provide treatment to its citizens with this illness and pathways back to being a productive citizen, education to the community and addicts, counseling for addicts whose relationships with life/others/self has been damaged. Get them health coverage, back in the workforce, restore their dignity. They reduced Heroin addiction by 75%, HIV from drug injection by 90%.
Portland: Decriminalization of everything. without community health education, mental health support, transitional housing, workforce transition, or a shift in framing of what drug addiction is. We need to provide support and advertise where they are, on billboards, bus stops, etc. so they can find support.
Did not respond: Hoa Nguyen (Incumbent, D), John Masterson (R), Andrew Morrison (R)
No candidates responded for Oregon House of Representatives, District 31 Republican Primary (NW Portland suburbs, Columbia County, W Washington County). Street Roots sent questions to the following candidates: Darcey Edwards, Aaron Hall
No candidates responded for Oregon House of Representatives, District 44 Democratic Primary (Parts of N/NE Portland). Street Roots sent questions to the following candidates: Christine E. Nair, Travis Nelson (Incumbent)
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