This week, Portland city officials cleared an encampment on Marginal Way despite objections from the ACLU. Advocates, like Dani Laliberte, say the clearing of encampments is detrimental to the health of people who live in them. Laliberte says, “You can have an uptick in overdoses and death and loss of important documents, all of their possessions so they have to start over again. It can be really traumatizing for folks.” More tents have now appeared at the homeless encampment at Harbor View Park on Commercial Street in Portland under and around the Casco Bay Bridge. Portland Communications Director, Jessica Grondin, says there were 14 beds available at the Homeless Services Center during the encampment removal on Marginal Way. According to the Portland, Maine unhoused dashboard, there are more than 180 tents throughout Portland. There are a little over 200 beds available at the Homeless Services Center. According to Grondin, Asylum Seekers are using 100 to 125 beds at the Homeless Services Center. Asylum seekers staying at the Homeless Services Center are expected to be directed to the Riverside Shelter, a new facility that is expected to open for them by the end of November. Grondin says this transition should free up more than 100 beds at the Homeless Services Center.Laliberte says availability at Homeless Services Center is not a permanent solution for people living in the encampment. She says the city needs more affordable housing and transitional housing, adding, “I know the community doesn’t love that these encampments are sometimes in their backyard but we need to find a safe place for people to be able to set up tents until there is viable options.” Grondin says the city does plan to clear the growing encampment on at Harbor View Park on Commercial Street. City officials say they will soon announce a date for the tent removals.
PORTLAND, Maine —
This week, Portland city officials cleared an encampment on Marginal Way despite objections from the ACLU.
Advocates, like Dani Laliberte, say the clearing of encampments is detrimental to the health of people who live in them. Laliberte says, “You can have an uptick in overdoses and death and loss of important documents, all of their possessions so they have to start over again. It can be really traumatizing for folks.”
More tents have now appeared at the homeless encampment at Harbor View Park on Commercial Street in Portland under and around the Casco Bay Bridge.
Portland Communications Director, Jessica Grondin, says there were 14 beds available at the Homeless Services Center during the encampment removal on Marginal Way. According to the Portland, Maine unhoused dashboard, there are more than 180 tents throughout Portland.
There are a little over 200 beds available at the Homeless Services Center. According to Grondin, Asylum Seekers are using 100 to 125 beds at the Homeless Services Center. Asylum seekers staying at the Homeless Services Center are expected to be directed to the Riverside Shelter, a new facility that is expected to open for them by the end of November. Grondin says this transition should free up more than 100 beds at the Homeless Services Center.
Laliberte says availability at Homeless Services Center is not a permanent solution for people living in the encampment. She says the city needs more affordable housing and transitional housing, adding, “I know the community doesn’t love that these encampments are sometimes in their backyard but we need to find a safe place for people to be able to set up tents until there is viable options.”
Grondin says the city does plan to clear the growing encampment on at Harbor View Park on Commercial Street. City officials say they will soon announce a date for the tent removals.
In the October BEE, I explored the rise and growth of Sellwood’s commercial district as it shifted from Umatilla Street to 13th Avenue – focusing mainly on businesses north of Tacoma Street. Now, in part two, here’s the story of those merchants and shopkeepers who were such a vital part of the community over a century ago on 13th south of Tacoma Street.
For the twenty years between 1880 and 1900, S.E. Umatilla Street had been the core of the business district for the briefly-independent town of Sellwood. By 1893, tired of running itself, Sellwood was willingly absorbed into the City of Portland – but, to people living on the west side of the river, Sellwood was still thought of as being just a quaint outlying district, and a bit of a chore to get to.
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A new report from MaineHousing, the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development estimates that Maine will need roughly 84,000 new homes by 2030 to solve the state’s housing shortage. The estimate accounts for an existing shortage and an increasing population. The state’s population increased by nearly 1% between 2021 to 2022, roughly double the population increase nationally, which was 0.4% during the same period. The increase, driven by the pandemic and immigration, taxed an already limited market. During an affordable housing conference in Portland on Wednesday, developers indicated that it’s gotten more difficult and expensive to create new housing since the COVID-19 pandemic. “Deals that used to take us 12 months for construction, take 24 right now,” Mark Wiesendanger, the director of development at MaineHousing, said. They say they’re up against a number of challenges ranging from supply chain disruptions and inflation to workforce shortages and increasing labor costs. “We have to find ways as a state to attract people into construction in order to get our timelines more compressed,” The Szanton Company President Nathan Szanton said.As outside factors make the development process more complicated, builders are looking to simplify the process wherever possible. “We’ve worked on our site selection a lot,” Kevin Bunker, the founder and principal of Developers Collaborative, said. “We try to pick projects that maybe have less complicating factors. Try, maybe they’re a little more plain vanilla. Maybe it’s another three- or four-story senior housing, single building that’s mostly a rectangle.”In many cases, that means working with the same team of contractors to create consistency, and in some cases, it means sticking to a prototype. “Our goal is to just to do the same thing every time,” Penquis Housing Development Director Jason Bird said. “We’ll change the facade, we’ll change colors and those kinds of things, but yeah, we’ll take the guesswork out of it.”As developers consider new strategies, housing advocates are now looking to policymakers to invest in new housing in order to meet this new goal of creating 84,000 homes.
PORTLAND, Maine —
A new report from MaineHousing, the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, and the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development estimates that Maine will need roughly 84,000 new homes by 2030 to solve the state’s housing shortage.
The estimate accounts for an existing shortage and an increasing population. The state’s population increased by nearly 1% between 2021 to 2022, roughly double the population increase nationally, which was 0.4% during the same period. The increase, driven by the pandemic and immigration, taxed an already limited market.
During an affordable housing conference in Portland on Wednesday, developers indicated that it’s gotten more difficult and expensive to create new housing since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Deals that used to take us 12 months for construction, take 24 right now,” Mark Wiesendanger, the director of development at MaineHousing, said.
They say they’re up against a number of challenges ranging from supply chain disruptions and inflation to workforce shortages and increasing labor costs.
“We have to find ways as a state to attract people into construction in order to get our timelines more compressed,” The Szanton Company President Nathan Szanton said.
As outside factors make the development process more complicated, builders are looking to simplify the process wherever possible.
“We’ve worked on our site selection a lot,” Kevin Bunker, the founder and principal of Developers Collaborative, said. “We try to pick projects that maybe have less complicating factors. Try, maybe they’re a little more plain vanilla. Maybe it’s another three- or four-story senior housing, single building that’s mostly a rectangle.”
In many cases, that means working with the same team of contractors to create consistency, and in some cases, it means sticking to a prototype.
“Our goal is to just to do the same thing every time,” Penquis Housing Development Director Jason Bird said. “We’ll change the facade, we’ll change colors and those kinds of things, but yeah, we’ll take the guesswork out of it.”
As developers consider new strategies, housing advocates are now looking to policymakers to invest in new housing in order to meet this new goal of creating 84,000 homes.
GenX Capital Partners, a Miami-based real estate debt and equity advisory firm, has secured $24 million in construction financing to complete The Mark, a 45-unit, high-end condominium that managing partner Mark McClure hopes will serve the growing seasonal rental market in Portland, Maine.
Washington-based Builders Capital provided the $24 million in senior mezzanine construction financing, which has a 24-month term. The mezzanine debt is secured against C-PACE funding approved by the State of Maine on Sept. 18. C-PACE — which stands for Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy — is a federally operated financing program that allows developers or building owners to access favorable financing terms from states so long as they utilize green energy and renewable energy features in their buildings.
McClure told Commercial Observer that GenX Capital Partners used its own equity and worked with bridge lender Titan Funding in Boca Raton, Fla., to build the first 40 percent of the project using $9.5 million of initial financing.
“We started 14 months ago, and self-funded it as we went for C-PACE approval,” explained McClure. “We’ll be the first C-PACE commercial deal in Maine ever.”
McClure added that the use of C-PACE funding will allow his firm to borrow more money against the cost of the project, and, hopefully, enhance their profit.
“It was good, low-interest financing. On this deal we got 65 percent loan-to-cost with Builders Capital, but bringing us into C-PACE brought us to 90 percent,” he said. “It’s a great way to add leverage to your deal.”
Located in Cumberland Foreside, a wealthy seaside ZIP code about 20 minutes north of Portland, The Mark will feature one-, two- and three-bedroom high-end condo units. The five-story building will include an underground parking garage with more than 90 spaces and a fitness center built by a firm owned by former New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski.
Moreover, The Mark is expected to offer more than just a home to buyers. McClure noted that his main focus is attracting buyers who will be keen to use the property during the summer months and rent out their units during the other seasons.
“We’ll sell the units as condos, but Maine is such a huge vacation site that there will be a great place for second and third homebuyers to use it in the summertime and rent out in the winter to make money,” he said. “That will be our target market to buy and utilize our short-term rental platform.”
Earlier this year, GenX Capital Partners launched Chill Villas, a short-term rental brand that caters toward luxury properties. The firm acquired a pair of luxury villas in Miami Beach in January to begin their platform.
McClure said that the project’s one-bedroom units could generate $40,000 in net operating income (NOI) and two-bedroom units could generate up to $50,000 in NOI, which could turn into more than 10 percent cash-on-cash returns for the buyer of an individual unit.
The Cumberland Foreside area “doesn’t have stringent requirements on short-term rentals,” he said.
Founded in 2016, GenX Capital Partners specializes in CRE investment in debt and equity partnerships. While The Mark is McClure’s first development, in recent years his firm has closed equity financing for a Chicago multifamily development and refinanced a beach club in Newport, Rhode Island.
Brian Pascus can be reached at bpascus@commercialobserver.com
South west Victorians are lobbying for ban on gillnet fishing in Portland Bay where an informal agreement against the practice has been in place for 30 years.
Key points:
- Portland recreational fishers are calling for a ban on commercial gillnet fishing in the area
- The group’s petition has attracted nearly 7,700 signatures, and the local shire council also supports the ban
- A commercial fisher operating in the area says he is abiding by the government’s rules
The voluntary agreement was made between commercial and recreational fishers in 1994.
The arrival of a new commercial fisher to the area has prompted the launch of community group, No Netting in Portland.
Its petition to Victorian Outdoor Recreation Minister Sonya Killkenny has gathered nearly 7,700 signatures, while the local Glenelg Shire Council has unanimously voted to also write to the minister.
The petition said the Portland community relied on recreational fishing to draw tourists from across Australia to the town and the group wanted to protect marine ecosystems, including endangered Southern Right whales that migrated through the area.
Following the rules
Phil McAdam has been a fisher for more than 45 years.
His adult daughters also worked for their successful family business in Williamstown, Melbourne, where the family had fished for sardines for bait and human consumption.
But in April 2022, state government changes to fishing regulations outlawed commercial netting in Port Philip Bay.
Mr McAdam’s licence was revoked, prompting him to look further afield, where he landed on Portland as a viable option to relocate with his fishing licence.
No Netting in Portland’s public Facebook page has drawn comments from many concerned locals, some of who have made threatening comments.
The ABC has viewed comments, which included people posting it was time to “start cutting his nets up” and put “holes in his boat”.
In response to the Portland community’s concerns, Mr McAdam said his fishing practices were legal and abided by official rules.
“I just want to be left alone to do my job. It’s as simple as that,” Mr McAdam said.
“I moved down there knowing the laws in place and I was happy to abide by those laws, which I have done.”
The Victorian Fisheries Regulations prohibited use of certain types of nets — including mesh — in Portland Bay between the Lee Breakwater and Snapper Point at particular times, including between December 24 and January 22 every year, Easter weekend, and on long weekends.
Working to ban netting
No Netting in Portland wanted commercial netting banned in this area all year round, in addition to prohibiting all forms of commercial netting in Portland Bay along the coast from Lawrence Rocks to the Fitzroy River mouth.
Spokesperson Mat Nash said he did not condone the social media comments about Mr Adams.
He said his focus was to raise awareness and seek to change the regulations in place that allowed gillnet fishing in Portland Bay in the first place.
Mr Nash called the coastal town a fishing mecca, with tourists coming from far and wide to enjoy recreational angling in the area.
“Commercial fishers have gone above and beyond that, so it’s been very rarely netted over the last 30 years,” he said.
He was concerned about the potential for gillnet fishing to deplete fish stock levels, as there was no restrictions on the amount of fish commercial operators could pull from the water.
“There’s no quota limits, so it’s very hard to regulate,” Mr Nash said.
Concerns about bycatch
Mr Nash said he was also concerned about the amount and types of bycatch caught by netting.
“Our bay is a nursery for juvenile fish to come in when the water warms up,” Mr Nash said.
“When they are caught in a gillnet, they’re dead.
“If those fish are undersize, they’re thrown overboard. For me, it’s not a sustainable way of fishing.”
Mr McAdam declined to comment about the volume of fish he had caught so far, but said that 80 per cent of the fish captured were not target species for recreational fishers.
He said he had fished 13 half days — heading out before dawn and returning to shore before midday — since he began operating in the area in April 2023.
The rules permitted him to use a mesh net with two-inch holes (five centimetres) up to two kilometres in length.
Victorian Fishing Authorities and the Outdoor Recreation Minister Sonya Kilkenny did not respond to a request for comment.
Portland’s newest seafood restaurant is open for business, and it’s been a long time in the making. During its grand opening in the last weekend in July, The Clam Bar was so popular, they ran out of food. The much-anticipated Clam Bar has taken over the site of the former Benny’s Famous Fried Clams. Now, there’s a pavilion with a covered seating area connected by wooden decks, a draft house serving beer on tap, and the Royale Kitchen serving coffee and breakfast sandwiches. Co-owner Garrett Fitzgerald says the food has a bit of the familiar — with a kick.”New England classics with a little bit of South American feel to them,” he said. “It’s just sort of the way I’ve always cooked. My wife cooks that way and it really fits the vibe pretty nicely.” His fellow co-owner, David Bromley, explains how they incorporate some of Maine’s fresh seafood with their own favorite flavors.”The Jalisco steamers have brisket in the broth, and that’s a house favorite,” Bromley said. The menu also boasts lobster rolls and hot dogs, along with fried clams and clam fritters. The Clam Bar will stay open through December, so they plan to continue the long-honored tradition of selling Christmas trees alongside the decks.
PORTLAND, Maine —
Portland’s newest seafood restaurant is open for business, and it’s been a long time in the making.
During its grand opening in the last weekend in July, The Clam Bar was so popular, they ran out of food.
The much-anticipated Clam Bar has taken over the site of the former Benny’s Famous Fried Clams. Now, there’s a pavilion with a covered seating area connected by wooden decks, a draft house serving beer on tap, and the Royale Kitchen serving coffee and breakfast sandwiches.
Co-owner Garrett Fitzgerald says the food has a bit of the familiar — with a kick.
“New England classics with a little bit of South American feel to them,” he said. “It’s just sort of the way I’ve always cooked. My wife cooks that way and it really fits the vibe pretty nicely.”
His fellow co-owner, David Bromley, explains how they incorporate some of Maine’s fresh seafood with their own favorite flavors.
“The Jalisco steamers have brisket in the broth, and that’s a house favorite,” Bromley said.
The menu also boasts lobster rolls and hot dogs, along with fried clams and clam fritters.
The Clam Bar will stay open through December, so they plan to continue the long-honored tradition of selling Christmas trees alongside the decks.
A new report shows high demand for affordable housing in New Haven as more young people move into the city — a demand the report says could be met by making changes to the city’s zoning ordinances.
The ‘Breaking Ground’ document, released by Elm City Communities, the housing authority for New Haven, details the current state of the city’s housing market and proposes solutions to the existing problems.
“New Haven’s housing crisis is severe and New Haven’s housing crisis is wide ranging,” said Karen Dubois-Walton, president of Elm City Communities, New Haven’s housing authority. “We heard very clearly the pain it causes is immediate and dire and it requires urgency of action.”
Elm City Communities serves over 14,000 individuals and more than 6,000 families find affordable housing through initiatives of public housing, housing choice vouchers, and low-income housing tax credits.
Will Viederman, housing policy manager at Elm City Communities and the primary author of the report, said between 2010 and 2019 the city became more affordable to live in as rent burden rates dropped. The rent burden rate is a measure of the number of households that pay more than 30% of their income toward housing costs.
However, this progress was stalled during the pandemic as rent prices began to increase faster than wages and more young people, ages 18 to 34, began looking for homes in the city, dropping vacancy rates to below 3% and spiking rent prices, he said.
“The city’s economy is growing, people are making more money. But, when there’s not enough vacancy, that extra income gets swallowed up in housing costs to keep rent growth below income growth,” he said. “The city needs vacant homes, and to do that as the city is growing, we need to build new homes.”
New Haven has approved less than 5,000 homes to be built in the period between 2010 and 2019, according to the report. Viederman however, estimates that the city needs to construct 8,400 new homes by 2030 in order to solve the current problems.
US price and wage increases slow further in the latest signs of cooling inflation
Viederman’s report proposed several steps the city could take to bring about the needed change. These include: eliminating parking requirements; shrinking the citywide lot size requirements to a minimum of 1,400 square feet; and changing zoning codes to allow for more housing developments in exclusionary neighborhoods.
However, Viederman’s ideas may face challenges. Changes to zoning laws have historically been a contentious issue both statewide and locally. During the last legislative session, statewide changes to zoning law failed to pass in the legislature.
Report: CT’s lack of affordable housing ‘a significant driver’ of eviction rate
Opponents have said that statewide zoning reform proposals would impose a one-size-fits all solution that wouldn’t work for every town and would dilute local control.
But Dubois-Walton remains optimistic about the report’s proposed solutions and the changes that they can bring.
“Our statewide legislative agenda remains in effect,” she said. “We will continue working at the statewide level on all the things that need to happen in the surrounding counties, in the surrounding region, at the state level to break open the opportunity for housing development in those areas.
“But this report is specifically about New Haven right now to address it. New Haven can take on a much larger zoning reform. This is sort of like the low-hanging fruit. This is what can be taken on right away and that could make some significant changes, particularly if taken on as a package.”
“It’s exciting that advocates are encouraging the development of additional affordable housing,” said New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker. “We’re enthusiastically in favor of many of the things they suggested. We’re already doing a lot of the work that was outlined in the report and are energetic about doing even more.”
Some states protect Section 8 renters, but enforcement is elusive
Cities such as Minneapolis, Portland, and New Rochelle in New York, have similar policies to those proposed in the report to increase construction of more housing. The result of this is a greater supply of housing leading to rent prices growing at a much slower pace than in New Haven County and nationally, according to the report.
Home sales in June fell to the slowest pace since January with near-historic low inventory for sale
Donato Davis is CT Mirror’s 2023 Emma Bowen Summer Intern. He is a rising junior at the University of Connecticut.
- A property developer who has been operating in Portland for four decades is pulling out after he was forced to take a 50 percent hit on a building
- The building had become home to homeless squatters who continued to live there even after the building was boarded up
- Kevin Howard first listed the building in January 2021 seeking $795,000 but ended up settling for just $412,000 when he sold this year
A property developer who has been operating in crime-ridden Portland for four decades says that he’s pulling out of the city because he has ‘nothing left in the tank’ after recently selling one property for nearly half its listed value.
Kevin Howard, 75, told KATU in a recent interview that the property in question had become home to squatters after the pizza restaurant that had been renting the space shuttered 2020. He listed the building in January 2021 for $795,000 but ended up selling for $412,000 this year.
‘The supposed homeless came in and kicked in the door, the front door, and lived in it. And I waited until they came out, and I had to board it up,’ Howard said.
Despite boarding up the property, Howard said the squatters were able to break-in again and resume living there.
When he called the police, Howard said the was referred to another government office, Central City Concern, but was told that they agency wouldn’t be able to do much other than provide coffee and soup for the vagrants.
The cost of a security guard was estimated to cost $15,000 per month, something that Howard couldn’t afford. Eventually, he ringfenced the building, something that took four months to organize.
‘I said, ‘Why?’ They said: ‘Because homeowners like mad are fencing their property to keep the, you know, the drug addicts and homeless out.”
With the building fenced off, trash began to pile up, Howard said. He was issued with a fine of $540 from the city, which he agreed to pay.
On top of everything else, Howard said that the city mishandled his check and issued him a new fine that included a late payment fee, coming to $640. At that point, Howard said that he was told a lien had been placed on the building.
‘I just remember the phrase ‘The City That Works.’ The city that jerks. I mean, how can you be this dysfunctional?’ City officials told the station that Howard no longer has any outstanding debts with the local government.
‘I’ve been all over the world. I lived in Australia for a couple of years. I’ve been to all 50 states and all over. I came back to Portland, and I came back to Oregon because I loved it. I loved the people, the greenery, the lifestyle,’ Howard said.
Over the past 12 months, Howard told KATU that he has spent a total of $23,000 on managing the property, including the cost of fencing as well as multiple cleanups that needed to be done on the space.
Online records show that Howard, a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, is the founder of Northwest Self Storage, which operates in three states in the region.
Howard’s story is nothing new. In September 2022,
Homelessness and crime continue to be rife in Portland. Earlier this month, officials announced that they would be removing tents that were blocking sidewalks in the city.
This came after Portland settled a lawsuit with a group with disabilities.
Lifelong residents Bruce and Rebecca ‘Becky’ Philip who told DailyMail.com that they’re ‘done with Portland’ due to the increasing number of homeless camps that have trickled into the suburbs from downtown.
‘I’ve been here 65 years but I’m done,’ Bruce Philip said. ‘I’m done with Portland.’
‘What’s there to say, they move in, take over the neighborhood, do their drugs, play their loud music, and make a mess,’ he said, adding that the homeless crisis has ruined not just a few neighborhoods, but all of Portland.
The couple also pointed out that the sweeps of the homeless camps are not the final solution and have not changed their minds about moving.
‘The city comes in and cleans it up and then two weeks later, they come back,’ Bruce Philip said. ‘It’s a vicious cycle, and I’m done.’
Local realtor George Patterson told DailyMail.com that the homeless encampments encroaching on residents’ front lawns is a topic that comes up with his clients ‘every day’, and that deals are falling through homes for sale in the area.
In one case, an early offer for a three-bedroom home asking close to $700,000 near a sanctioned homeless encampment, called Multnomah Village.
‘We had early offer on a home, but it fell through and there was some concern there with the Multnomah village site,’ Patterson said.
‘I can say [homeless encampments] are definitely affecting the property values.’
The federal class action lawsuit, filed in September, alleged that the city violated the American with Disabilities Act by allowing tents to obstruct sidewalks. The plaintiffs included a caretaker and nine people with disabilities who use wheelchairs, scooters, canes and walkers to get around. The settlement still requires approval from the City Council and the U.S. District Court in Portland.
The settlement comes as City Council prepares to consider new restrictions on camping. The updates to the city’s camping code would ban camping between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. in many locations, including sidewalks.
Mayor Ted Wheeler plans to present the ordinance Wednesday. The City Council previously voted in November to gradually ban street camping and create at lease six large, designated campsites where homeless people will be allowed to camp.
Oregon’s homelessness crisis has been fueled by an affordable housing shortage, a lack of mental health treatment, high drug addiction rates and the coronavirus pandemic.
In Multnomah County, home to Portland, there were more than 5,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2022 — a 30 percent increase compared with 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal point-in-time count data.
In 2022, the city approved the release of $27 million in funding to pay for new homeless camps.
At the time of the approval, Mayor Wheeler acknowledged the measure was controversial but that he nonetheless believes in it ‘very, very deeply.’
Wheeler and other supporters of the measure contend it will make streets safer and connect homeless people with social services.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Signs of the housing crisis in Oregon are widespread: cluttered tent encampments in city parks, and along bike trails and sidewalks, as well as people living in parked recreational vehicles.
Sky-high property prices and a shortage of 111,000 housing units in Oregon have exacerbated the situation. Now, Oregon Gov.-elect Tina Kotek says solving the housing crisis will be her top priority.
“On Day One, I will issue an executive order to increase the pace and scale of housing production statewide, with a focus on financing housing that’s affordable for middle-class families,” Kotek told The Associated Press in an email from the campaign trail.
Homelessness, and the increased cost of living in cities like Portland, were major issues during the governor’s race. Kotek defeated former lawmakers, Republican candidate Christine Drazan and unaffiliated candidate Betsy Johnson.
It’s also an issue in other West Coast states. This month in California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom halted $1 billion in state spending for local governments as he seeks to reset the state’s strategy ahead of the second term that he was just elected to.
For decades, California’s state government has viewed homelessness as a local issue, giving cities and counties tens of billions of dollars to get people into permanent housing. But with high cost of living only increasing the scale of homeless encampments throughout the state, Newsom said he would pause spending. He will meet with local officials on Friday to “review the state’s collective approach to homelessness.”
On Nov. 3, Portland City Council members voted to establish at least six designated campsites and to gradually ban street camping within the next 18 months. On Thursday, Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed spending $27 million to jumpstart construction of the campsites. The city council will consider it on Thursday.
The Oregon Mayors Association has asked the Legislature for $124 million annually “for this crisis to be humanely and timely addressed.” The mayors pointed out that that amount wouldn’t cover the construction of shelter and transitional housing projects statewide.
Kotek, a former House speaker, didn’t share details about her planned executive order on expanding available housing. Experts say that element is crucial.
“It’s a false dichotomy that things will get better if we put shelters in while we wait for housing, because people are still homeless in shelters, people have trauma in shelters,” said Marisa Zapata, a professor at Portland State University and an expert on homelessness. “Some people don’t even want to live in shelters — they feel safer outside.”
During the gubernatorial campaign, Drazan and Johnson blamed Democrats for the problem. In a campaign video, Johnson referred to Kotek, a Portland resident, as “Tent City Tina.” In the same video she referred to Zapata, who criticized Johnson’s characterization of Portland as “the city of roaches,” as “some woke professor from Portland State.”
Zapata, who now calls herself “Some Woke PSU Professor” on Twitter, said she’s looking forward to learning about Kotek’s plan for expanding available housing.
“It is largely a lack of affordable housing that causes homelessness. So I love that that’s top and center,” Zapata said.
Kotek also said that in her first month as governor, she will form a team to address homelessness among veterans, families with children, unaccompanied youth and seniors by 2025.
“I will immediately prioritize expanding managed shelters, improving access to mental health and addiction services, and getting new street outreach teams on the ground to help people,” Kotek said.
Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, which assists homeless people, approved Kotek’s game plan.
“It addresses the long-term supply side problems, which may take a decade to impact in a meaningful way,” Jones said. He also praised Kotek’s plan to increase access to shelters, substance abuse treatment and mental health services.
Kotek said she plans to travel around Oregon starting in January to talk to community leaders about issues facing the state, particularly the shortage of affordable housing and addiction treatment.
If more money is allocated to address homelessness, Zapata said that funds may need to come from other city programs. But according to Zapata, it’s not only homeless people who stand to benefit.
“When we focus on what we need to do, which is to provide housing, the negative consequences — people who are seeing homelessness or having to clean up after encampments — automatically go away.”
