Neighborhood Partnerships

Neighborhood Partnerships is celebrating! We hope you’ll join us on Tuesday September 14, 2010 as we recognize our collective hard work and success!

In addition to celebrating, we’ll be marking the launch of our new effort to support key partners statewide in addressing the disconnect between what Oregon needs and what we’re doing. We are working to create an Oregon which offers its diversity of residents’ opportunities to thrive, pathways out of poverty and disenfranchisement and adequately supported public systems and structures as shared tools for these goals.  Working with all of our partners to improve communications across issue silos, we will work in the coming years to advance a broadly shared view of what it takes to build a state and communities where opportunity is real, asset building is a priority and citizens are engaged in creating the future.

Our special guest for the evening is Patrick Bresette.  Patrick is Associate Program Director of the Public Works Program at Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action.  He heads the fieldwork of the program, leading efforts to translate the research conducted at Public Works on Americans’ perceptions of government into practical applications for interested individuals, organizations, and coalitions

Patrick will share some of the Demos work on how to communicate the role that government can and should play in the lives of our communities. Demos’ work is grounded in theories of effective communications from cognitive science, cultural anthropology, linguistics and other “framing” studies.

The event will be at Northwest Natural in downtown Portland from 5:30–7:00PM.  Email us and let us know if you would like to celebrate with us!

In August 2010, NP Staff Janet Byrd and Alison McIntosh traveled to Seattle to attend the 2010 Strategies to End Poverty (STEP) Conference, sponsored by STEP and Northwest Area Foundation.  In addition to taking in a Mariner’s game, we learned a lot about coalition building, revenue coalitions, and what’s new in terms of TANF reauthorization and improving unemployment insurance.  We got to spend time with some great Oregon partners, which is sometimes hard to do with our busy schedules. And, Janet moderated a panel featuring Rey Espana of NAYA and Kalima Rose of Policy Link, on the Sustainable Communities Initiative and other system integration efforts.

Revenue Coalitions

States all across the Country are facing extreme budget shortfalls for both the current year and coming year, and Oregon is certainly no exception.  With little prospect for additional federal stimulus dollars, and no appetite for raising taxes, advocates for human services and housing are faced with fighting draconian budget cuts to services for low income families, children, disabled, and the elderly.  One strategy that worked last year in Washington State was to create a Revenue Coalition—Rebuilding our Economic Future—aimed at increasing state revenues through the closing of tax loopholes and sunsetting tax credits.  Oregon advocates will be considering similar approaches—e-mail us if you’re interested in hearing more about what’s going on.

TANF Reauthorization

Legislation which governs TANF, or welfare, is due to expire in September, 2010.  However it is unlikely that TANF will be reauthorized in 2010, and we will likely instead see a series of ‘continuing resolutions’—which just extend spending authority temporarily—for the next one to three years.  Liz Schott from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities presented on the prospects for reauthorization as well as the possibility of an extension for the Emergency Contingency Fund to increase TANF funds due to the recession.

Re-Employment Strategies

We also heard Deborah Schlick of the Affirmative Options Coalition give a great presentation about how, as a result of unequal access to unemployment benefits, TANF has essentially become unemployment insurance for thousands of low wage workers or workers in industries with high turnover such as service industries, retail, and even health care jobs.  As a group, we discussed ways to improve unemployment insurance to make it work for low-wage workers—including extending benefits to temporary workers, part-time workers, low-wage workers, and families.

Overall, it was a great conference filled with interesting presentations, information and connections. We’re looking forward to exploring some of the things we learned, and putting new information into practice here in Oregon.

On Friday, July 16, 2010, Bridges to Housing case managers, staff, and Multnomah County partners gathered to appreciate and celebrate the success of the program, now four years old.

Commissioner Deborah Kafoury, describing herself as a member of the Bridges to Housing fan club, welcomed families, case managers and those who’ve worked at the City and County to make this program a success.  Commissioner Kafoury also announced the great news that Multnomah County had committed over $400,000 to services in 2010-2011 for Bridges to Housing!

Photo by Maileen Hamto, Portland Housing Bureau

Commissioner Nick Fish discussed the importance of the regional effort, and talked about the critical contributions made by various partners: the Housing Authority of Portland, which dedicated project-based Section 8 vouchers, making housing affordable for these families and allowing funds to be spent on case management; the City of Portland, who contributed resources to build new affordable housing units and to reprogram existing units to create 139 units dedicated specifically to this program; and Multnomah County, who committed funds for services to continue the program.

Photo by Maileen Hamto, Portland Housing Bureau

Janet Byrd of Neighborhood Partnerships described the four county effort, and the importance of the ongoing evaluation, which is being conducted by Portland State University.  Janet also talked about the private funds raised to support Bridges to Housing and thanked the many foundations who have contributed over the past four years.  She also described the huge contribution of time from Regional Steering Committee volunteers and thanked them for their efforts.

Jean DeMaster talked about the contribution and partnership shown by housing providers, and property and asset managers, and how important their support had been to making the program successful.   Suzanne Washington recognized the dedication and hard work of case managers who have been working alongside these families since day one.  The case managers have played a huge role in helping these families maintain their housing, and move forward on their goals.   She thanked them for their commitment to the program and to the families

Photo by Maileen Hamto, Portland Housing Bureau

We also had the opportunity to hear from some of the families who have participated in Bridges to Housing.  Several were generous enough to tell us their stories of how they came into the program, and how it’s helped them.  We heard from a family of four, who camped for a year after losing their rental apartment when it was sold.  The father is now back in school and earning a degree in green building.  We also heard from a family who escaped domestic violence and substance abuse and is now also back in school.  Commissioner Kafoury said it best when she reminded us that the families are the one and only reason this program matters.

Photo by Maileen Hamto, Portland Housing Bureau

Thanks to everyone who came, and thank you especially to the families who shared their stories and their afternoon with us.

Photo by Maileen Hamto, Portland Housing Bureau

Also special thanks to those who donated food or raffle prizes to the event: Cupcake Jones, New Seasons Market, Starbucks, World Cup Coffee, Human Solutions, and Ellington Handbags.  Thanks to Maileen Hamto of Portland Housing Bureau for taking photographs. And thanks to Hacienda CDC’s Micro Mercantes for a wonderful lunch.

Since November 2009, Neighborhood Partnerships has had the pleasure of working with Patrick Bresette of Demos. We’ve been learning about the public’s images of government and the economy, and ways to foster more collaborative attitudes among citizens.

Now, we’re working on a very exciting project with Patrick and Larry Wallack, Dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University to create an Emerging Leaders Advocacy and Messaging Training.  (Larry was instrumental in helping the Housing Alliance create messages to better communicate the importance of affordable housing.)

The goal of this training, first and foremost is to support established leaders and communications professionals who are working to create an Oregon which offers its diversity of residents opportunities to thrive, pathways out of poverty and disenfranchisement and adequately supported public systems and structures as shared tools for these goals.

Second, we want to train and support an emerging cadre of leaders and communicators as they work on issues and in cross-issue coalitions to develop messages and materials that resonate and move an advocacy agenda. We will select participants who have a clear issue focus and advocacy or campaign plan, a commitment to strategic communications, and a recognition that building public support for governmental action and resources is an underlying priority.

And third, we intend to improve communications across issue silos. We will advance a broadly shared view of what it takes to build a state and communities where opportunity is real, asset building is a priority and citizens are engaged in creating the future. By working across silos we hope to support one another’s efforts to address critical needs, and together address the underlying resource and public will challenges that hamper all of our success.

This training will be based in large part on the research done by Demos on how to communicate the role that government can and should play in the lives of our communities. Demos’ work is grounded in theories of effective communications from cognitive science, cultural anthropology, linguistics and other “framing” studies. Key elements of this theory and practice will shape the training curriculum.

The trainings will be conducted primarily by Patrick Bresette of Demos and Larry Wallack, Dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University. Other trainers and speakers will be announced in September.  Applicants must commit to attend all sessions of the training, to be held once per month into the spring of 2011.

Interested in applying to attend the trainings? E-mail us today!  Applications are due August 15, 2010.

Interested in more Demos research? Check out a recent publication from Demos: “Government, The Economy, and We, The People: Creating Public Will to Shape an Economy that Works for All.“

On Thursday, June 24, Neighborhood Partnerships staff attended the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon’s Interfaith Summit on Homeless Children, Youth, and Families. Over 200 people from across Oregon also attended, including many from the faith community, non-profits, and government.

After an opening interfaith devotional the first panel on Childhood, Youth, and Family Homelessness in Oregon began. Members of this panel gave participants background on the current state of homelessness in Oregon and some of the efforts underway to help those in need. After a short break, the group moved right into an overview of the four small group topics for the afternoon. They included: Shelter and Services; Preventing, Reducing, and Ending Family Homelessness; Education of Homeless Children; and Homeless and Runaway Youth.

The group moved outside to enjoy the sunny weather and hold a walking vigil late morning. We heard a bit about the history of churches marching for social justice. Over lunch keynote speaker Barbara Duffield of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth spoke about why it’s so critical to ensure homeless children have access to education.

Afternoon breakout groups filled the afternoon, with Neighborhood Partnership’s Executive Director Janet Byrd helping to lead the panel on Preventing, Reducing, and Ending Family Homelessness. We talked in our session about the various responses to homelessness, how to contact the folks in your community working on 10 Year Plans, and how churches can and are playing important roles in this effort.

The day ended with a call to action and a discussion about next steps. Neighborhood Partnerships is excited to meet so many folks from across the state who are interested in and committed to ending homelessness in Oregon. We’re looking forward to taking the next steps with our faith-based partners!

If you’re interested in hearing more about the day, or want to get involved moving forward, contact us or Kevin Finney from Ecumenical Ministries.

On June 16, a rainy Wednesday in Salem Oregon, 50 people from across the state joined Neighborhood Partnerships, Oregon Housing and Community Services, JP Morgan Chase, and others in a thoughtful and provocative conversation about minority homeownership.  Victor Merced began the day by calling on all of us to look carefully at what we are doing now that works, and to think about how to do more to close the minority homeownership gap.

A review of available data shows us that we need to create 30,000 or more new homeowners from communities of color to close Oregon’s homeownership gap.  This task will require the hard work of all existing partners, and some creative work to improve our impact, increase the tools we have at our disposal, and increase the resources available to us.

The good news, though, is that partners now hard at work in Oregon know how to accomplish this.  We heard from several speakers about the barriers that we need to overcome in various communities across the state, and reviewed materials gathered from the City of Portland’s Operation Home efforts.  Then, we heard from a diverse panel about a sampling of the successful efforts now underway.  Strategies shared included a tribal-sponsored down payment initiative, maintaining a multi-cultural staff, focus groups and homebuyer clubs, and land trusts to increase affordability.  Creative partnerships, efficient use of resources, and genuine commitment to reaching people in their communities were evident in all the examples shared by the panel and participants.  And we know we just scratched the surface and did not have time to acknowledge all of the expertise in the room.

Regrettably we couldn’t hear from everyone, and we only touched on key strategies. But our goal was to highlight possibility and commit to taking the next steps together to increase resources and political will to close the gap.

Several next steps were identified.

Best practices sharing through practitioner networks. Oregon Opportunity Network will discuss possible next steps for peer learning and sharing.

State funding decisions for use of the document recording fee. Roberto Franco shared timelines for the five program areas to be funded through the document recording fee. Neighborhood Partnerships will track these timelines and processes and facilitate comments on priorities and processes.

Our Oregon plans to continue discussing legislation that would tie financial education to some loan products. Neighborhood Partnerships will track development and facilitate Housing Alliance consideration of proposals.

There was lots of interest in improving our data—on historical trends in homeownership rates, on the impacts of foreclosures, and on lending practices. Neighborhood Partnerships will follow up on these ideas in the coming months.

Email Janet with your thoughts, or let us know what you’d like to be part of in the comments section of the blog!

In mid-May, staff from Neighborhood Partnerships attended the Northwest Area Foundation conference, Grassroots & Groundwork, here in Portland, OR.  The conference was focused on strategies to end poverty and featured sessions around asset building strategies, improving state policies, partnering with employment systems, green jobs, increasing access to healthy food, and other great sessions!

All of the presentations were recorded, and are now available for downloading on the NWAF website.

NP staff attended several sessions, including:

• Innovations in Job Training & Workforce Development Programs.  Presenters from New York City talked about their effort to create job training programs that really worked for their communities.  There were several models discussed, including a Jobs-Plus Model that targeted public housing residents, and brought job training and intensive services on-site for residents.  The New York City Housing Authority also participated in this pilot, removing disincentives to work through their rent policies for tenants participating in the program.   Another model discussed was a prisoner re-entry program for youth coming from the criminal justice program.  This six month program included job training, skill building, community service projects, internships, and job or education placement.
• Your Public Policy Toolkit to Reduce Poverty. This workshop presented by STEP, or Strategies to Eliminate Poverty, talked about the importance of well designed state policy as a way to create significant change.  The workshop discussed federal anti-poverty efforts, including efforts to reform poverty measures; asset cliffs and barriers; coalition efforts to end poverty and increase economic security. This session highlighted several efforts around the country, including South Dakota Voices for Children, a coalition focused on child poverty.  This group also participates in a multi-state Bridge to Benefits program—a  benefits calculator for families.
• Effective Advocacy Campaigns through Cross-Cultural Collaboration. Portland-based leaders from three culturally distinct nonprofit community development organizations established the Housing Organizations of Color Coalition to develop joint action plans related to the housing needs, aspirations, and challenges faced by African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Historically, these groups have approached their issues in isolation. Their outstanding presentation focused on finding strength through collaboration and the benefits of approaching policy challenges with a strong, united voice.

Grassroots & Groundwork was a great conference—thank you so much to Northwest Area Foundation for their work and thanks also for bringing it to Portland!

While in Washington, D.C. for the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) Annual Conference, The Oregon Housing Alliance won NLIHC’s first ever  State & Local Organizing Award for our work in 2009, an honor we shared with Oregon’s Community Alliance of Tenants.

DeDe Carney, NLIHC Board Member, poses with Janet Byrd, Executive Director of Neighborhood Partnerships and Chair of the Oregon Housing Alliance, and Dung Ho, CAT Staff Member, after awarding them the State and Local Organizing Award.

George Moses, Board Chair, NLIHC, Janet Byrd,  Alison McIntosh, Project Associate for Neighborhood Partnerships, and Sheila Crowley, Executive Director, NLIHC.

Photos courtesy of Jamie Rose Photography.

Higher prices in the rental market continue to force Oregon families to choose between paying rent, putting food on the table, and paying utility bills.  A national study reports that the cost of renting an apartment in Oregon has increased again, an alarming trend for a state with unemployment at 10.6% and whose number of homeless children attending schools has more than doubled since 2003.

According to the report released today, the Housing Wage for Oregon is $14.93. The Housing Wage is the hourly wage a family must earn – working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year – to be able to afford rent and utilities in the private housing market. The average fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Oregon is $776—a number that has increased 27.5% since 2000. These increases continue despite high unemployment and foreclosures. As rents continue to increase, more and more Oregon families find themselves homeless for the first time.

“Every year it is becoming more difficult for hard working Oregonians to find decent homes they can afford,” said Bill Hall, Lincoln County Commissioner. “In the past year, rural Oregon has seen huge increases to the number of children and families experiencing homelessness. If we want kids to succeed in school, or parents to succeed in the workplace, people need a place to call home.”

The report, Out of Reach 2010, was jointly released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a Washington, DC-based housing advocacy group, and Oregon’s Housing Alliance. The report provides the Housing Wage and other data for every state, metropolitan area and county in the country.

“Housing gives people an opportunity to build better lives,” said Cathey Briggs, Executive Director of Oregon Opportunity Network, “And yet an estimated 45% of renters in Oregon don’t earn enough income to afford a two-bedroom unit at the Fair Market Rent.”  Fair market rents are a federal statistic for determining market rents.

“The on-going recession and increasing rate of foreclosures in Oregon continues to make it more difficult for hard working Oregonians to find a safe, decent and affordable place to call home,” said Janet Byrd, Chair of the Housing Alliance, “The Housing Alliance will call on the legislature in 2011 to help all Oregonians have a safe place to call home.  Over the past year, we’ve seen significant increases in the number of families with children who’ve become homeless.  All too often these days, people are forced to choose between rent and food.”

The typical renter in Oregon earns $12.84, which is $2.09 less than the hourly wage needed to afford a modest unit.

Working at the minimum wage, $8.40 in Oregon, a family in Oregon must have 1.8 wage earners working full-time—or one full-time earner working 71 hours—to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.

This year, Oregon is the twenty-sixth most expensive state in the nation for renters. The National Housing Wage is $18.44 in 2010.

Oregon’s unemployment rates remain high—10.6% statewide.  Many of Oregon’s counties have even higher unemployment:  Crook County’s unemployment is the highest in the state at 17.9%, Harney County is second with 16.1%. Columbia, Curry, Deschutes, Douglas, Grant, Jefferson, Josephine, Klamath and Linn counties all have unemployment rates above 13%.

For additional information, visit http://www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2010/.

Want to find data on your local community?  Download a PDF here.

You can download a PDF of the media advisory here.

On April 10, 2010, Neighborhood Partnerships staff traveled to Washington, D.C. for the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) Annual Conference.  We were kept busy– we won an award, attended a meeting of other statewide coalitions, learned about changes to federal policies related to affordable housing, and met with our congressional delegation.

First up – our award! The Oregon Housing Alliance won the first ever NLIHC State & Local Organizing Award for our work in 2009, an honor which we shared with Oregon’s Community Alliance of Tenants.  Read all about it here!  Senator Jeff Merkley, who is quickly becoming the go-to-Senator on affordable housing issues, also spoke at the conference the day we received our award.  Senator Merkley called for significant new investments in housing through new vouchers and the National Housing Trust Fund.

We learned about federal legislation related to affordable housing:  The continued campaign to fund the National Housing Trust Fund is in high gear.  The National Housing Trust Fund would bring nearly $15 million to Oregon to serve very low income households! Read more here. Potential changes at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development through their Transforming Rental Assistance initiative are also moving forward; and we learned more about what was included in the President’s Budget for housing.

We also visited Capitol Hill to meet with our Oregon delegation.

While on Capitol Hill, we talked to our delegation about what’s going on in Oregon related to preservation of affordable rental housing and federal rent subsidies; how we hope to protect tenants living in foreclosed properties; and what changes to federal law would help us work more effectively here in Oregon.