We basically are at a dead stop in housing production. This is a full-blown emergency, and we need to act now.

Housing is too expensive, and there isn't enough of it.

Last week, the Portland City Council approved a detailed housing production plan. I want to laud the early project prep work done by Commissioner Dan Ryan, and Commissioner Carmen Rubio who really delivered in bringing the project home.

My concern is the agreed upon next steps are not urgent enough. 

Current situation:

• Local housing production is at a virtual standstill, with only 500 units in the pipeline, the lowest since 2009. (The Oregonian)

• To meet demand, we need to build 6,800 new housing units a year for the next 25 years. We aren’t even close to being on track to do this.

• Most renters are cost burdened and spend 30+% of their household income on housing alone. (KGW) That’s too much.

• Our housing shortage will push more neighbors into homelessness. (ECOnorthwest)

• People who are currently homeless are waiting up to 5 to 10 years to get into permanent housing. (Willamette Week).

This issue is personal to me:

I grew up in public housing with my mom and siblings after my parents divorced. It helped get us through some tough times. I don’t know what we would have done without it.

My life experience fuels my affordable housing public service commitments:

• Under Mayor Vera Katz I helped lead the city’s financing efforts to redevelop North Portland’s Columbia Villa into the New Columbia neighborhood.

• While mayor I budgeted $280 million for affordable housing and created the city’s first Bureau of Housing. (2009-2012 Mayor’s Proposed Budgets)

The big challenge now:

While the City Council has approved a housing production plan, we lack the necessary emergency "booster rockets" for implementation.

We risk repeating the City’s underwhelming results of Ordinance 187371 from 2015, which declared a housing emergency, but failed to achieve needed results because no one person is in charge and has under-powered implementation requirements. We can’t afford to let that happen again.

The big solutions needed:

My Emergency Housing Production Implementation Proposal provides the needed focus, funding, and accountability of emergency-level actions to build more multifamily rental housing faster, including: 

Unified Leadership

• Appoint a “Housing Production Czar” and get the county, the cities, and state on the same page with one accountable person leading the local process for all in a coordinated way.

• Place all housing related staff from all departments in all governments, including all permitting and zoning staff, under the matrixed direction of the Housing Production Czar.

Community Engagement

• Create a diverse Emergency Housing Production Implementation to advise Housing Production Czar.

Rapid Action

• Develop a Production Plan with five-year phases over 25 years. Key upfront actions include:

  • Cities and county enact local funding plans (more on this below) for 1-80 MFI housing subsidies.

  • Approve 400 shovel-ready and nail-ready sites for 35 apartments at each site.

  • Reverse engineer multifamily housing developments to reduce costs per unit at every possible inflection point.

  • Provide development bonuses for required prevailing wage construction and expand union skilled trades apprentice training programs to meet workforce demands.

  • Conduct outside review of why national funders are bypassing Portland for multifamily housing investments and seek to address concerns.

Secure Funds Now

• Cities and the county should redirect up to 50% of funds, on an ongoing basis, for housing from ballot measure approved programs when their tax proceeds are higher than what the proponents forecasted.

  • The type of housing subsidized can fit into the measures’ mission (i.e. Preschool For All funds going to subsidized housing for single parents like my Mom).

    • Include in this funding a redirect effort for the Streets to House Services, Portland Clean Energy Fund, Portland Children’s Levy, Arts Tax, CEO tax, new TIF districts, and Preschool for All programs.

Given our urgent housing crisis we need bold, decisive actions to address it. This is not the time for slow, incremental steps—it's a moment that calls for transformative leadership and an aggressive, focused implementation strategy to increase housing production now.

I have a proven track record of helping to create and implement large-scale initiatives just like this. I understand the complexities involved in affordable housing development, from public-private funding and zoning issues to community engagement and cross-agency collaboration.

Multnomah County deserves bold leadership that can navigate bureaucracy, secure the necessary resources, and drive urgent, large-scale action to tackle this crisis and others head-on.