We exceeded our new housing goal by 43%!
This week I presented at City Council the latest report on the impressive track record of Portland’s Housing Bond. It has been seven years since we asked voters to invest $258 million of their property taxes into the City’s first housing bond – and our efforts are exceeding all goals in building new, permanently affordable homes for Portlanders.
The report details how the Portland Housing Bureau has done a fantastic job of leveraging these funds through thoughtful, exceptional projects — like the Hazel Ying Lee Apartments, which opened last month in Southeast Portland, representing the bond’s largest new construction apartment complex to date.
Voters took a leap of faith and trusted us to deliver affordable housing with these public funds. As rents have risen in recent years, Portland’s Housing Bond has been exceedingly important in preventing more low-income neighbors from becoming homeless.
Portland Housing Bureau’s management of these bond resources has been undertaken with accountability, transparency, and efficiency to ensure strong alignment with our community’s priorities. It’s how we ensure affordability, prevent displacement, and create more housing solutions — so that we actually meet the real needs of families and address homelessness.
Now that all of those bond dollars have been allocated, I am proud to report that we have vastly exceeded our goals: Across 15 projects, the bond is funding the creation of 1,859 affordable homes — 43% more than initially promised. It is also funding more family-size homes, more units of Permanent Supportive Housing, and more deeply affordable homes than we initially promised.
To surpass our goals by creating 43% more new homes than we promised is truly remarkable.
These homes will be regulated and restricted for individuals and families ranging from 0% to 60% of the Area Median Income for the next 99 years, ensuring that generations to come can benefit from access to stable, quality housing.
I am deeply appreciative of the continued focus to ensure these investments center racial equity — from construction to providers to housing residents.
I’m also encouraged to see how many of these buildings include Permanent Supportive Housing. Thanks to our partnerships with the Joint Office of Homeless Services and Home Forward, these units have dedicated rent assistance and the types of supports and services that residents need.
I’m eagerly looking forward to seeing the four remaining buildings funded by this bond cross the finish line and open to residents in the coming months.
Even as we exceed every target, stretch every dollar, and provide new affordable homes for thousands of Portlanders, we also know that thousands more affordable homes — and homes of all types and sizes — are needed, in every neighborhood of the city, in the coming years.
The good news is that we know what works: Funding the construction of affordable housing is one of the best investments we can make for Portland families.
This will be among dozens of strategies that will be included in the Housing Production Strategy I’m bringing to Council later this summer. Stay tuned for details!
In solidarity,
Carmen
At $422,333 per unit who in their right mind thinks this is affordable housing? Affordable to whom, certainly not to Portland’s taxpayers?
The thing about these numbers is that they don’t account for significantly large costs for the City Staff and agencies that mount into many millions of dollars, nor for the cost to taxpayers to run the public housing something that they have failed at time and again due to DEI policies and the lack of management skills in many who have been hired under these flawed requirements. Does Columbia Manor, the destruction of which added significantly to the decline of our centralized African American community, and the horrendous crime and living conditions in outer SE Portland,
For $400,00 we could “GIVE” a nice house to the 206 individuals and families who will inhabit this new apartment complex. For $32,000,000 I can build 600 brand new houses in a series of parklike settings that will rent for <$900/month, pay back the original investment in 3+years, and allow residents to own their home at the end of 10 years of successful renting. All of these 600 units will be built in less than one year as long as our local governments live up to their many Emergency Declarations to solve the housing, drug, mental illness, and crime crisis that we have seen do nothing but grow in desperation since 2016!
The parks will be vehicle free, with all parking on the perimeter, shielded by vegetation from the housing units and landscaped common areas.
Housing developments like my proposed plan have already proven very successful for several decades in the Sunshine States of the Southern portion of the country.
Get the Politicians out of the way and let’s get people housed where they can enjoy their lives and create the bonds of community that are essential for human happiness.
We can do this over and over again until every Oregonian has adequate housing, a chance to build currently non existent generational wealth, and the wrap around services to help them manage their problems and to restore their emotional health. We can do what the government cannot. Please respond to this email with any interest and questions, or much needed help in assembling resources to get our neighbors into truly affordable housing!
Carmen this is EXPENSIVE housing paid for by taxpayers. It’s not a win. What we need is end the enabling of cruel street camping. It’s not compassionate and NOT due to housing costs.