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Finding Solutions: What Works and Why for Housing
If you're one of the lucky people who live in your own house or apartment, you might look at a white picket fence and think the same thing I do: home, with all the positive associations that come with that word. But for many people who struggle to find or keep a roof over their head, they may look at the fence from the other side: as a reminder of what they don't have.
Today on Think Out Loud we're launching a new series called Finding Solutions: What Works and Why where we'll try to explore just that — solutions to some of Oregon's most pressing problems. Take the need for affordable housing as our first case.
We've done shows on the economy, on foreclosures, and on homelessness. Today we'll explore some of the factors that lead people to need affordable housing, but, more importantly in this case, we'll examine what ideas are out there to provide homes to more people. We'll focus on people who are taking on different aspects of the problem of unaffordable housing and the people whose lives have been transformed by being able to find affordable housing for themselves and their families. In other words, the possible solutions instead of the problem itself.
Have you had trouble finding affordable housing? To rent? To buy? If you're in affordable housing now, what led you there? Did you get help from an agency or program or did you get financial help that allowed you to get into housing? Have you recently moved from a shelter or from the street into your own place? How did you end up with your own place? What from your experience do you think would be useful for other people to know?
GUESTS:
- Yesika Arevalo: Human Solutions client and anti-poverty family advocate
- Jean DeMaster: Executive director of Human Solutions
- Bruce Jaqua: Runs the Ready to Rent Program for Housing Works in Bend
- Sarah Buckley: Executive director of the Clackamas Community Land Trust
- Shaina Proctor: Homeowner
Tagged as: finding solutions · housing · poverty
Photo credit: tim tolle / Creative Commons
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I have a solution that would cost less than one month's average rent. What can you buy for $100 that would last a generation? ANSWER: a single family house in Greater Detroit. Of course these are gutted and need work, but imagine owning your own home free and clear at the age of 22. Rehabilitating a house is a life purpose and education.
Yes, the Midwest is emptying, but there are great bones and opportunities in the decaying city for re-population.
It would be like getting to Portland in 1900 seeking realty opportunities.
See NPR article from AUG2009:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111785752
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What would be useful to know is that the biggest impediment to low cost housing is the high cost of construction permits and building fees and the bureaucracy in general.
While there are legitimate health and safely concerns there is little to negative valued added by the Governments oversight.
It cost an average of $25,000 per unit for permits and miscellaneous fees to build in the tri-county area. These cost have quintupled in the last 15 years. And what do you get for this increase in cost? A process that took days to weeks now takes months or years to get your project, that’s been drawn by an architect and engineered, APPROVED by some overworked bureaucrat. At $25000 a pop only higher end units can be built. That's why there's no "affrodable housing"!
The City of Portland wants $13000.00 for permits to bring water to Dignity Village. This is not $13,000 for a plumber to bring a water line. This is for permits alone! Correct me if I am mistaken becuase I got that figure from a Think Our Loud show not too long ago.
Some plumbing outfit would probably install some showers to dignity village for free to get publicity or a tax right off. But this can’t even happen. Did you know that in the City of Portland you can not install a water line and meter yourself? You can’t even hire a private plumber who paid his business licenses to do this for you. You have to hire the City of Portland plumbing monopoly to install your water line, and, that’s on top of the permit fees. It now cost $4500, up from $500 just a few years ago, to get a water meter installed. This does NOT include $100 a foot to run some plastic tubing down the street to your property.
The actual meter probably cost around $300. But $4500.00 plus $100 a foot goes to pay for a fleet of shiny late model trucks that compete with private licensed bonded taxpaying contractors; and the PERS for bureaucrats to sit around and dream up schemes to create so called affordable housing. and the Portland Bureau of Environmental SeYou can thank Commsissioner Sam Adams. He was Portland's Commissioner of Public Utilities; he ran the Portland Office of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services.
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As your guests can attest the cost in Oregon to produce a new unit of affordable housing through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program is approaching $300,000. At this price we will continually be desperate for greater funding from more sources to meet the rising demand for the safe and decent housing that our workforce -- and the elderly and disabled -- need.
Failure to meet that need is not only a moral failure of our society, it is a fiscal mistake. Families can't remain stable contributors to our community without a safe and secure place to live and build the foundations of their lives. Success with a job or at school is exceedingly difficult otherwise. The public cost that grows from the lack of success by thousands households without that launching place is beyond our ability to comprehend and quantify.
Truly addressing the tremendous housing needs will require a clear-eyed look at today's practices and setting guidelines on which to assess our approaches. Why has the per unit cost risen to exceed the cost of a new single family home in most communities of our state? Why are some projects completed at less than half that amount? Are our existing programs and policies skewed toward serving fewer low income households well instead of a greater number adequately? What defines "well" and "adequately"? Which organizations are best at producing, best at managing, best at meeting the needs of low income families? How do we get them to do what they do best and not expect that all organizations in the affordable housing business are going to be able to do each of those very difficult tasks exceptionally well? Can we accept that while the most pleasing event is ribbon cutting at newly constructed projects, the most cost effective -- and most green -- approach is to do a quality job rehabilitating existing properties?
Surely we need to find new resources -- and Oregon Housing and Community Serivces and the City of Portland and other jurisdictions have done a remarkable job of finding new resources. But we also need an unbiased analysis of what we do, how we do it, and what outcomes we are expecting if we are going to make great strides in addressing what should, like universal health care, be a fundamental right in this, the most prosperous country on Earth
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Hello,
My pay dropped 67% having being laid off from Nike in 2008. I have to pay over $5400 in property taxes for WA County in 2009 for my house. Something must be wrong that I, as a white male can not qualify for WIC food stamps, Free school meals for my two children within the Hillsboro school District etc. Every day I see Hispanic people in Winco with WIC carts of food better than I can purchace and they buy the beer with rolls of cash post WIC purchases. I am about to live in my car to save money to buy my family food!
Regards.
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WIC and Food Stamps are two different programs. WIC is a federal nutrition education program with food vouchers. Your children might qualify. I suggest you talk to a social worker about your options and not judge others based on their economic status or skin color.
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In my opinion, this is not just affordability that contributes to the issue. As a self-employed and a 1st generation immigrant who lived out of his car for 2 years, I would mention that the application process is ridiculous. How do I get rental history if I never signed a lease before? Why do I need to wait to get my taxes done to prove that my income is legitimate? Everywhere else, when I spend my hard earned money, my business is appreciated, and I do not see how exactly housing should be different. I do not need no favors. I am good credible creature that has a job, and a private business, over 700 credit score(would be even higher if it wasn't for a PO box address), working all the time, and living life to the fullest, I do not understand why people whose paychecks I am going to sign should act condescending. There are places with "for rent" signs all over the place and I would be glad to do business with them, if it wasn't for their horrible attitudes. I do not see a difference between renter and homeless, both are equally right-less, at least homeless aren't paying other's children college tuitions. Guess I'll just work and sleep till I can buy something "detached", thanks crisis I cant finance and need to come up with cash for the purchase price....
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Homes are not quite cheap enough to be considered affordable to buy yet and the govenment seems to be doing everything it can to keep it that way. Having the $8k buyers credit, low interest rates and FHA loans with only 3.5% down all are being done to keep house prices from falling to fast which would cause more foreclosures and possible bank failures. What we need to have affordable housing is to do away with all those programs and let the market take care of itself. Home prices will drop severely, there will be lots of foreclosures and many people will lose the homes they paid too much for. The end result after the pain will be affordable housing. The way we are doing it now will have the same end result but take many more years to do it before a recovery can happen.
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Solutions? You've upped the ante. And, here, I thought things were plodding along just fine...
Solutions often come more easily once we figure out what or where the problem actually is. To begin with: is housing not affordable? If so, for whom? How many? And, well, why? Does it cost too much to build? Is demand too high? Are the prices inflated? As a commenter 'seriously' said above, perhaps, people need to move to cheaper cities. Which leads to such questions as: Should every state, city, neighborhood have affordable housing for all budgets? Should prime areas like the West Hills or, even, Beverly Hills cater to the lower incomes? Do we expect too much? Should anyone be able to find housing in every area? Or are there certain areas where poor people should, or be willing to, live?
The difficulty in remedying the 'affordable housing problem,' aside from the technical and the functional, is: How do you fix inequity---equitably? How do you draw fair lines? How, or can you, give without taking away from others? Who, and how much, must we sacrifice? And, what exactly are we trying to accomplish? And, for who? Are we talking about everyone? Are we talking about the poorest of the poor? And, on and on...
Sorry, no solutions! But, honestly, I am not sure what, or where the problem is? Or, if there is one at all? And, I mean that without sarcasm. Perhaps, the problem isn't even housing, but our economy---how much we are willing to pay people? What kind of economic services are we collectively willing to provide? How much financial assistance are we willing to give? Isn't housing all part of this larger problem? Or, a result of this larger problem? Assuming, there is one at all.
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Scottmil,
Your overall point is well taken: we probably could have done a better job defining the problem today before we moved on to the solutions. (In fact, we saw our recent homelessness series as a sort of natural lead-in to today's show, but we didn't make that connection explicit.)
In any case, look for more clearly defined problems in the future!
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Sorry---I didn't mean to come off like that at all! I wasn't picking on the show. I think it was totally fair to ask for solutions. The show was totally commensurate with normal discussion---I just think we often try to find solutions to things that may not exactly need fixing along the lines we focus---not on TOL, but everywhere. Or we try to market solutions to problems we haven't entirely defined, don't exactly understand or don't know how to put into perspective. I guess, that was sort of my solution, being sure we know just what we are up against, so we can fix it efficiently. At any rate, sometimes you don't know why things are happening, you just have to patch them up and do the best you can---put some crutches in place and hope the temporary measures provide more answers.
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I am looking forward to your next guest, Sarah Buckley from Clackamas Community Land Trust. I work for Earth Advantage Institute, a non profit sustainable building and education organization. CCLT made an important committment to developing affordable housing that is sustainably built. Too often, I hear that the objectives of affordability and sustainable design and construction are at odds - CCLT is proving that this is not the case. Sarah, could you comment on this?
Thank you for your work!
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Having shopped for housing several times since I moved to Oregon 19 years ago, I noticed many zoning or other property restrictions that kept costs high; especially those that prevented the placement of affordable manufactured houses in many locations.
Meanwhile, specific developments for manufactured houses were often no more than glorified trailer parks, with a homeowner at the mercy of the property owner who could raise lot rents at will.
So I would advocate laws that would give owners of factory-build houses the right to build on any lot they can afford; and other regulations that would give tenants of trailer parks the right to purchase their lots, or at least “rent to own”.
Finally, I would also like to see the return of the small and affordable “shotgun house” that served so many young & working families in the first half of the 20th Century.
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My mom won a drawing for housing assistance for 1 year in Polk county, and was told she needed to find a house to rent immediately or she would no longer qualify for the assistance. She was required to find a 4br because of the number of children she has, but Housing would not pay for anything more than around $800/mth (including utilities). It was near impossible to find a house that had the right number of bedrooms, low enough rent, pass inspection, be in an area that my siblings would be safe in, and allow Section 8! During this whole process my mom was practically homeless, living in a tent at campsites and in my grandma's backyard (thank goodness it was dry this summer). My siblings were spread out among different family members and friends. And when my mom finally did find a place, after being told her voucher would expire if she didn't use it right away, it ended up that Housing didn't even have the funds available to pay the rent! She is now living in a townhome, and we are very thankful for the assistance that Housing provides, but the whole ordeal was incredibly stressful and disheartening.
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Bruce Jaqua said he had a work accident claim that was denied. I have found that SAIF is a group that is set up to protect Oregon businesses from having to pay claims to workers harmed by accidents at work. I was denied a claim also, many years ago, and I have heard of lots of other stories about denied claims.
In my opinion,the SAIF protects businessmen from the cost of the workers harmed by their business practices.
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I think everyone should know about a free resource for helping Portland area residents find affordable, accessible, and special needs housing -- housingconnections.org.
I work for a nonprofit, 211info. We connect the people of Oregon and Southwest Washington to the community services they need. We also work in partnership with the City of Portland to manage HousingConnections.org.
It is a really great online resource to find affordable housing.
Also if you don't have online access you can call 2-1-1 or 503-802-8562 and someone will help you find what you need.
-Matt
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I believe that a successful approach must include a continuum of housing options and ensure equitable access for communities of color. NAYA Family Center seeks to provide a range of housing resources that reflect the needs of Portland’s urban Native American community. This includes anti-poverty services such as rent and utility assistance, support services for survivors of domestic violence, affordable rental housing and homeownership education and coaching.
Portland's Native American Community is underrepresented in rates of homeownership and overrepresented in experiencing homelessness and over-crowded, substandard housing. Culturally specific organizations can offer successful ways to address the barriers to accessing housing resources that are often experienced by communities of color.
Jen-NAYA Family Center
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One of the problems about housing is that the bankers specify the minimum size of house that they will loan on and the larger the house the more money they make.
How about some starter houses that fit a single or a couple, maybe 600 to 800 square feet? Most people will want a bigger house eventually for whatever reason, family, entertaining, or workroom. And a 700 square foot house could be very affordable for the starter-outer. No garage, just a small house. Easy to heat, clean, and pay for.
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Homes that size do make sense for some people. One of the problems with them is the "most people will want a bigger house eventually." In a normal housing market - where home prices go up at the rate of inflation and not like they did in the last decade - it may take 5-7 years of owning a house for it to make sense over renting. Many people would outgrow that house before that time is up and they would have been better off renting. If an 800 square house will fit your forseeable needs for 7 years it may make sense to buy one.
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Working in the commercial construction industry, in order for our company to stay afloat, we all took a 1/3 paycut from two years ago. I purchased a modest home 5 years ago in Vancouver, built an addition, and tried to sell it in February 2008. With the housing market in the tank, I could not sell it and break even. With little option, as a divorced father with 3 young girls, I rented out my home, and moved in with a friend in Portland. She has 2 daughters as well. Although it was very crowded during the holidays, it made for a new experience for everyone, and an affordable solution for both my friend and me.
Tom
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I find it odd that no market rate housing development guest is part of this conversation. Housing that is subsidized by the public in some manner is an important part of our socieity’s housing equation; however, it by no means is a “solution”. The Housing Partnership Network (the nation’s leading alliance of non-profit affordable housing developers) report they collectively developed 225,000 housing units since 1990. While this accomplishment is laudable, its impact is insufficient when compared to the 28 million+ housing units created by the private sector over this same period. As out housing stock wears out and people’s preferences shift, solutions that enable the private sector to deliver housing more affordably are the only true long-term solution.
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Of course people don't get a lot of money out of a land trusted house. But that's not the point! They have been living in a house of their own that they can invest in! I just enjoy fixing my own house and outfitting it for heating costs. I only need a slight appreciation in wealth when I sell. I just wanna live in a house I've taken care of.
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I bought a house through the portland community land trust (now proud ground), with help from a grant from PDC. I would never have been able to buy a home without this help (it was a $95,000 grant), and it has changed my life, and will change the lives of future generations of my family. Many people thought it was a bad idea to buy from the land trust because I can't make a profit, but, the idea of passing on the savings to another low income family goes with my ideals. (I actually work for Human Solutions with homeless families.)
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I would like to commend you for starting a new series focused on solutions rather than on the overwheling problems we hear daily from mass media. Portland has a robust industry of affordable housing organizations who each day are working hard to help many families in need to have access and stay in decent and dignified housing built with public-private investments. At Hacienda CDC we use housing as a stabilizing platform from which our working class tenants can build their individual assets through education, skill building, culturally-specific supportive services that help them integrate into our society and feel welcome, productive members. The difficulty for us is to operate within the confines of limited resources available to serve an ever increasing number of persons facing dire economic adversities. The solutions to our problems are well known and proven organizations like your guests from Human Solutions provide strong evidence that efforts like these need to be supported and celebrated.
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Proud Ground is a nonprofit with a program similar to Clackamas Community Land Trust serving Portland. Our mission is to create equity for homeowners today and maintain affordability for the generations that come after us. We buy down the purchase price of the home by $40,000 to $80,000 making your mortgage affordable.
We've helped nearly 120 families buy their first home. Today, the average Proud Ground homeowner who has owned their home for more than five years has more than $25,000 in equity, not to mention the principal they've paid down on their mortgage.
Proud Ground has homes for sale now beginning from $125,000. You can learn more at www.proudground.org.
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Every time I turn on the radio looking for some positive and interesting conversations that I could listen while I have my breakfast, the only thing I hear is talks about low income housing or homeless population. Why do you always discuss these issues? Isn't there anything worthwhile to discuss? Is there anything more interesting and more exciting going on?
How about making Portland downtown a better place to live?
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I'm flummoxed. What do you mean by 'positive?' To be fair, the focus was about solutions.
I would suggest, that (maybe) Oregonians romanticize the underdog or people they see as the victim. Everyone is looking for a cause. Something to fix. The more evidence we find of the ills of the capitalist system, then the stronger the case, we feel, we have against it. In many ways even the smart people have become part of the conspiracy. We overstate everything. With everything overstated, it all becomes easy to miss.
Do you not care about the problem? Or think the problem isn't that big of a deal? Or would you just rather hear about something else?
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The Portland Housing Center is a non-profit that helps people achieve affordable homeownership. Between July and December of 2009 PHC helped over 200 households in the Portland metro area achieve homeownership affordably - that's more than one homeowner every single day for six months. In Portland we have a network of non-profits that support people to build housing and financial stability through homeownership - including programs like Proud Ground (the land trust in Portland), the Portland Development Commission down payment assitance programs, a wonderful Oregon Individual Development Account program (providing matched savings for home purchase up to $9000). Many of the households this networks supports are single parents and represent communities of color. Find out more about how Portland Housing Center helps people achieve affordable homeownership at www.portlandhousingcenter.org.
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Comments are now closed.
There is one solution to this problem which, although not available to everyone, is available to more than we like to think: move. That’s what I did. I moved from an extremely expensive large city to Portland where a comparable house was much more affordable. Consumer magazines show that there are many, many places with housing cheaper than Portland (some in Oregon itself). Not for everyone I know. Especially for older people with ties. But for younger people, if it is unaffordable now, rather than struggle for decades, try a Midwestern city with comparable housing one third as cheap as Portland. The geographic trends of affordability/unaffordability will not alter in the future, they will intensify. And these trends cannot be reversed by governments. People will move to desirable parts of the country—and bid up the housing there. If you cannot afford a certain city now, it will be worse in ten years. It is not helpful to people who cannot afford a city to suggest to them that it is possible to swim upstream. Better “go with the flow” in a cheaper city. Not always possible, I know, but we should not ignore what is, for many people, a real (and realistic) long term solution.