Neighborhood Partnerships

The Housing Alliance is in the process of setting its 2011 legislative priorities.  While the budget picture for both the remainder of this biennium and next biennium is bleak, the continuing recession and high unemployment mean the need for affordable housing and other safety net services remains critical.

In 2011, we’re considering the following priorities:

Maintain Document Recording Fee Resources for Affordable Housing—Use proceeds of the fee to support development, preservation, homeownership, ending and preventing homelessness, and building capacity of non-profit partners.

Increase the Emergency Housing Account—This is our most flexible resource to end and prevent homelessness. This resource has not been increased since it was created, while the need is growing at an alarming pace.

Preserve Existing Affordable Housing—Existing housing with federal rent subsidies are at risk of loss to market rate, as is housing built and owned by non-profit partners statewide. We cannot afford to lose this precious resource.

Maintain current tools to keep affordable housing affordable—among others, we need to re-structure the Oregon Affordable Housing Tax Credit so that it works in the current financial climate, and maintain state enabling legislation for local property tax abatement programs.

Increase resources to end homelessness through permanent supportive housing construction.

Improve the financial stability and resiliency of Oregon’s minority communities by increasing resources to support minority homeownership.

Continue and expand protections for tenants in foreclosed properties.

Support resident purchases of manufactured home parks.

Support land trusts as an option for affordable home ownership.

The Housing Alliance may also vote to support other proposals that improve the financial well-being of low income Oregonians, who are the residents of affordable housing.  Stay tuned this summer and in early fall as we finalize our agenda.

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.

The Housing Alliance and Neighborhood Partnerships are pleased to announce that we’ve been selected to receive the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s (NLIHC) first annual State and Local Organizing Award! We are sharing this honor with another Oregon organization, the Community Alliance of Tenants.

We’ll be presented with this award at the NLIHC’s Annual Conference in Washington, DC on April 13, 2010.   The Alliance was selected for this honor due to the strength of our campaign to win the statewide 2009 Housing Opportunity Bill, which creates a dedicated, ongoing source of revenue for multifamily housing, homeless prevention, affordable homeownership opportunities, and other housing needs.

The bill increases the state’s existing document recording fee by $15, which is expected to generate as much as $20 million per biennium in new funds. Check out Janet’s post right after we won the Housing Opportunity Bill discussing the many contributions you all made to the victory, and also our accomplishments for the past four years.

We are very excited to win this award, and congratulate our co-recipient, the Community Alliance of Tenants. If you want to be part of the ongoing work of the Housing Alliance, we’d love to hear from you.

The short February legislative session was a whirlwind of activity. Neighborhood Partnerships was active in the session in partnership with the Housing Alliance as well as in support of the issue priorities we identified with our partners in Oregon Thrives.

The Housing Alliance members had a very short list of priorities going into the session, and all made it successfully through session. One is still awaiting a signature by the Governor.

• SB 1013 protects tenants living in foreclosed properties. This bill cleared up some technical issues in the bill passed in 2009.
• SB 1015 extends the sunset date on a statute enabling local governments to provide property tax exemptions to non-profit owned multi-family affordable housing, and provides clearer legal authority for some existing property tax exemptions in Multnomah County.
• HB 3640, once it is signed by the Governor, will provide personal property tax relief to owners of manufactured homes valued at less than $12,500 in the four largest counties in the state—Multnomah, Washington, Lane, and Clackamas.

Oregon Thrives allies worked hard to build momentum for an expansion of Oregon’s Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. Janet Byrd of NP presented testimony in support of the expansion, which would put money back into the budgets of low income working households statewide, and help them better weather financial stresses. Janet also testified in support of the Oregon Hunger Task Force’s new plan to end hunger in five years.  That report calls out financial asset building, among other strategies, as a key policy to end hunger.

The legislative focus will turn now to 2011. Candidates have all filed now for state and local races, and are gearing up for the primary election on May 18, 2010. Be sure to ask your legislative candidates what they plan to do to create opportunity in Oregon!

On Friday, February 12 constituents gathered in Salem for Oregon Thrives’ “Have a Heart Day” in honor of Oregon’s 151st birthday and Valentine’s Day.  Oregon Thrivesis an emerging coalition of advocacy and service organizations in Oregon, and Neighborhood Partnerships is a founding member and participates in the steering committee.  NP staff went to Salem to participate in the event and encourage legislators to have a heart and remember Oregon’s most vulnerable citizens during this special legislative session and these difficult economic times.

After a brief discussion of the day’s issues and schedule, close to 100 constituents left to talk with 65 of their Senators and Representatives.  We spoke to our elected representatives about critical issues facing hard working Oregonians such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), Employment Related Day Care (ERDC), and the Emergency Housing Account.  Constituents also passed out Valentine messages thanking legislators for remembering hard working Oregonians during this special legislative session.

Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon led an interfaith prayer vigil on the steps of the Capitol, drawing attention to the many homeless school children and families.  The vigil was preceded by a conversation focusing on ways to work with schools to serve their homeless students, as well as policy and funding issues.  Janet Byrd lent her expertise to the discussion, focusing on policy and NP’s extensive experience with the issue of family homelessness as a result of its involvement with Bridges to Housing. This discussion was spurred by the 18,000 school-aged children who were homeless for at least some part of the 2008-2009 school year.  The group is planning an interfaith summit on child and family homelessness in late spring.

The afternoon ended with a legislative hearing on increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC).  Oregon is one of the few states where income tax is still applied to low-income families.  Multiple testimonies cited the ways in which EITC eases the burden on those in Oregon’s lowest tax brackets.  Expanding Oregon’s EITC was the first recommendation made by the Corporation for Enterprise Development in their Assets for Opportunity Scorecard suggesting how Oregon could improve its climate for its most financially vulnerable citizens.  Increasing the EITC from six percent of the federal credit by three points each year until it reaches 18% in 2014 would benefit over 220,000 households throughout Oregon.  It would also help to boost the local economy as EITC dollars are often spent locally and quickly.

Have a Heart Day was a great success!  Together with Oregon Thrives and their other partners we were able to thank many members of the Oregon State Legislature, reminding them to have a heart during the remainder of the February session to ensure that all Oregonians have an opportunity to thrive.

Efforts are underway at the national level to fund the National Housing Trust Fund.  The House of Representatives recently passed the “Jobs for Main Street Act” (HR 2847) which would provide $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund, as well as $65 million for project-based housing voucher programs.  However, whether these funds will be included in the Senate version of the bill is still unclear.

A National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF) would provide significant benefit to Oregon.  As the bill stands currently, the bill would provide $15 million to Oregon per $1 billion allocated to the trust fund.  These funds would be used to provide housing to those at the lowest incomes – 30% of area median income or lower.   We here in Oregon know that housing gives people an opportunity to build better lives, and we believe that funding the NHTF would provide much needed resources to Oregon.

We want to thank our Senators, especially Senator Jeff Merkley, who recently initiated a letter to President Obama asking that $1 billion for the National Housing Trust Fund be included in the President’s budget that he will submit to Congress on February 1. Senator Merkley has asked fellow Senators to sign the letter with him. Senator Wyden of Oregon has signed on as well.

Other efforts are moving forward to ensure the Senate provides funding for the National Housing Trust Fund, including a letter by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) which asks fellow Senators to request that the Senate also provide $1 billion for the NHTF and $65 million in housing vouchers.  Read the letter here.

Want to help? Be sure to contact Senator Merkley and thank him for his work to date to make funding for the NHTF a reality. You can also ask whether Senator Merkley is planning to sign onto the letter from Senator Reed.  Senator Wyden has already signed on to this letter.

Want to learn more? Check out the Center for Community Change website or listen to the audio of a call hosted on Tuesday, 1/19/2010 by the National Low Income Housing Coalition in which their President, Sheila Crowley brings us up to date on the latest news.

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I recently had the pleasure of hearing Professor Myron Orfield speak at Portland State University’s “What’s the Big Idea?” Lecture Series, co-sponsored by Coalition for a Livable Future.   Professor Orfield teaches at the University of Minnesota and was a former Minnesota State Legislator.

Professor Orfield titled his talk “Creating Successful Communities: Sharing the Benefits and Burdens of a Growing Region.”  He spoke about all of the many things Portland has done well, from an urban planning perspective – our success with an urban growth boundary, controlling sprawl, concentrating housing and jobs in the inner city and along transit lines. He repeatedly called Portland an urban planners “utopia.”  This is high praise indeed – and it’s true, Portland has done a good job of all of these things.  We have created and have to date maintained a successful urban growth boundary.  We’ve worked to build mass-transit options, and we’ve built in-fill housing and even managed to place a significant percentage of our affordable housing in the urban center and on transit lines.

Unfortunately, Portland isn’t a utopia for too many of our citizens.  We have a shortage of safe, decent affordable housing and increasingly, communities of color and poor communities are being pushed away from jobs and transportation options in search of affordable places to live.   Professor Orfield demonstrated this last problem in particular – providing data on the significant increase over the past few years of minority students and students who qualify for free and reduced lunches in suburban schools.  The increase has been fast and significant, and is likely to continue.

While Portland faces many challenges, creating opportunity for all of its citizens is a critical one we must choose to address.  Fortunately, there are ways we can address this challenge.

Myron Orfield spoke about one solution we have talked a lot about in recent years. We can address this challenge in part by increasing the supply of affordable housing across the metro area.  Increasing the supply of affordable housing throughout Portland will ensure families have more choices about where to live – and where to send their children to school.  Housing is needed near transit lines, employment centers and schools throughout the region.

He also spoke about a policy I haven’t thought much about, but which I would love to explore further. He argues that we can also address this challenge by considering changes to our school districts and enrollment policies.  Other municipalities such as Louisville, Kentucky and Raleigh, North Carolina have made improvements to ensure integrated schools.  These changes address both racial and economic integration and have increased access to opportunity for children while stabilizing neighborhoods.

Its time to move forward in creating opportunity for all Oregonians.

Read the Oregonian’s article about Professor Orfield’s visit to Portland.

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I was struck by this opinion piece in today’s Oregonian by Larry Wallack, now Dean of the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University.

I had the pleasure of working with Larry beginning in 2004 as a group of us worked to hone messages that would help us build affordable housing champions. One of the outcomes or byproducts of that working group on messages was the Housing Alliance, and the commitment to collaboration for the greater good that has always guided our work. I’m not sure we can give Larry credit for all of our successful collaboration, but he certainly inspired us to define a unified agenda, taught us the value of message discipline and helped inspire us to pull towards a common goal.

Yes, collaboration does feel good, especially when we look at the results, and the ever-increasing visibility and impact of the coalition.  And even a chocolate lover like me has to admit that the benefits – to Oregonians who need a place to call home – are even better than chocolate.

Housing Alliance Results:

2005:    Regular Session

• Expansion of the Oregon Affordable Housing Tax Credit cap by $2 million

2007:    Regular Session

• $26 million in new one time funding to house working families, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities, and to preserve existing housing.
• Another $2 million expansion for the Oregon Affordable Housing Tax Credit.
• Protections for renters displaced by condo conversion.
• Improved protection for manufactured home park residents.

2008:     Supplemental Session

• $2 million to seed the ‘Housing Acquisition Fund’ to preserve the homes of thousands of vulnerable Oregonians.
• $4 million for the Oregon Affordable Housing Tax Credit.

2009:     Regular Session

• Housing Opportunity Bill creates a dedicated revenue source for affordable housing.
• Funding for Emergency Housing Account and State Homeless Assistance Program spared the worst of the budget cuts.
• Tenants living in foreclosed properties gain some protections from hurried eviction.
• Lottery Backed Bonds support preservation of existing affordable housing ??
• Expansion of Oregon Affordable Housing Tax Credit ??

2009 and beyond: There’s more to do!!!