The Oregonian recently reported that apartment rentals in Portland shot up 6.1 percent last year according to Axiometrics, a rental industry data firm. The average rent for an apartment in Portland is $1,160.
You know what? They’re going to increase even more this year. The report shows that an estimated 4,000 rental units will be built in Portland in the next two years alone.
It won’t be long until the average rent in Portland is $1,300, possibly even $1,500 in the next decade. I don’t know about you, but the majority of people I know aren’t going to be able to keep up. That’s not even accounting for low-income individuals and families that may not even bring that kind of money home to begin with.
You know what else? Portland doesn’t have a plan to deal with the demand for affordable housing.
Street Roots and others have been harping at the city for more than a decade to develop more critical tools to deal with Portland’s boom. Then the recession came and nothing was done. We did everything we could just to maintain the status quo.
It’s time for Portland to get real. In the next two years Portland is going to be asked to increase our collective support for parks, transportation and schools. All great things, you say. I think so too. Unfortunately, affordable housing seems to be just an afterthought in how we plan the greatest city west of the Mississippi, an urban playground of sorts for the affluent and educated.
The question becomes, why should poor people buy into supporting these ongoing efforts if what we are doing in reality is pricing ourselves out of the community we love? It’s a question that needs to be answered.
Instead of piling on to our past woes, how about talking about some solutions? Here are a few:
-Support fees from short-term rental units to go toward affordable housing.
-Embrace organizations like Right 2 Dream Too and have rest areas for people experiencing homelessness.
-Build small homes for people experiencing homelessness and poverty.
-Embrace a range of developments for affordable housing across a broad spectrum of developers.
-Build higher. Yep. I said it. To the sky. And in doing so create a mechanism so that with each square foot built on the open market above a certain height, developers have to pay a fee and provide mixed-income housing.
-A local document recording fee on documents and permits related to building market-rate housing.
-A mandatory requirement for mixed-income housing along all new transportation projects over a certain price, such as the new MAX and Streetcar lines.
-I would say a housing levy, but I fear that by prioritizing all of the other great Portland things like libraries, parks, schools, and transportation. Housing doesn’t stand a chance. That’s too bad.
These are just a few examples of how local officials could get to work. They shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. These efforts or efforts like these are being done in many American cities. It’s actually pretty common. Why we aren’t doing this in Portland I haven’t the faintest clue. Well, that’s not exactly true, but I’m not here to tear anyone down. I’m simply writing to ask those in both the public and private sector to get to work to make Portland a city that works for all of us.