ALL-AGES ACTION
RE: “No Way to Kill It” by Morgan Troper [Feature, Oct 7], about Portland’s undefeatable all-ages music scene.
This article was an amazingly important thing that needed to be said for a very long time. The people who were interviewed are fucking heroes, and are the idols of my generation for sticking it out and hosting all-ages shows. I will always be grateful for the hundreds of shows I was able to attend before turning 21, and before everyone I know became a jaded freak that wouldn’t go to a show that didn’t permit alcohol. (Also before the cyclical hate and in-fighting between bands, promoters, kids, adults, and venues.) Thank you Mo, this article is amazing.
posted by Zoe David Brittell
RANTS THAT WORK
RE: “Hold on to Your Seats and Watch Portland City Council Get the Whatfor During a Hearing to Declare a Housing State of Emergency” [Blogtown, Oct 8].
This month my partner and I were forced to leave Portland, where we’ve lived, paid taxes, and held down solid jobs for seven years. We lived in a 400-square-foot studio apartment in Sellwood. I worked 50-plus hours a week as a department manager at Zupan’s. He worked two jobs, juggling positions at both Lewis & Clark and PCC.
Our rent was over 60 percent of our combined income. We’ve taken our education, work ethic, money, and social responsibility elsewhere.
When hard-working, honest, responsible people can’t get by, they get out. To hell with Portland.
posted by Jack R
I didn’t see the guy’s rant at the city council as anything special at all. He sounds like he wants to curtail the power of property owners rather than have the city council address the reasons that rents are going up. They’re not going up because landlords are being arbitrarily greedy, they’re going up because there is a shortage of housing in Portland, which drives up the price. Portland refuses to expand the urban growth boundary. The city makes it as difficult as it can for builders to add housing. They give tax breaks when they gentrify poor areas of town and then everyone seems surprised when gentrification drives up rents. Portland has pretty solidly elected people whose actions have made the city less viable for the working poor, but nobody ever calls them out on it.
posted by CleatsUp
Rents are going up because there is nothing stopping landlords from raising them—period! The ban on rent control should be reversed, and public housing—not affordable housing as it is currently left to developers—should be constructed. If the city needs the funds to exercise eminent domain, one of the overarching problems needs to be resolved, which is raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Oregon is near the bottom in the country for corporate tax rates. We should leverage that while everyone is moving here like crazy.
posted by Christopher Trevett
IGNORANT IS AS IGNORANT DOES
RE: “Roseburg Rears Its Ignorant Head as Obama Arrives” [Blogtown, Oct 9], in which at least 150 ignorant gun-rights activists protested President Obama when he visited the grieving town of Roseburg.
The only thing ignorant is the knucklehead that wrote this article. We should all be embarrassed this [author] is an American willing to give up their rights to a race-baiting, country-dividing tyrant.
posted by KWA702
You [the author] are severely stupid. They didn’t think he was coming for anything more than a photo op and to cash in on their grief, which is exactly what he was there for. They told him to stay away and this ignorant POS still showed up.
posted by libsarestupid
I think the person that wrote this article is not in touch with reality. It is our right to say and defend our rights, but to call us ignorant just shows how stupid and heartless you are. We have a constitution and it was made for the people. This leader we have is the ignorant one and has proven how he puts his agenda ahead of people’s feelings.
posted by Ronald Doney [who, BTW, has a Confederate flag avatar]
Personally, I’m embarrassed for all this stupidity, as an Oregonian. Obama isn’t running for re-election, and I didn’t hear any great anti-gun arguments from the podium either. Also worth noting was the school shooting in Arizona just before this visit, which made these anti-gun legislation idiots/zealots look even more foolish. He came in sympathy and was met by these fools.
posted by frankieb
I’m so grateful that Multnomah County makes the political decisions for this state.
posted by Nff1987
Short and to the point, Nff1987! You win this week’s Mercury letter of the week and two tix to the Laurelhurst Theater—which is always gun- and redneck-free.
I’m a landlord. I’ve heard much complaining about how rents are rising too quickly and I completely sympathize. By and large though, the renters that think they are getting screwed are simply feeling many of the same pressures landlords are feeling. For example: I raise rents diligently so that I am not giving excessive increases in any given year. This year I am repainting a building. The cost of this is $30,000. 2 years ago the price was $20,000 but I didn’t have the cash on hand to do it. Property taxes continue to go up, miscellaneous repairs, the occasional crappy tenant who trashes a unit for $6K to $8K and good luck on collecting from that kind of a loser, and the expenses go on. At the end of the day the rent increases I have given out over the past 6 years covered about 60% of these costs. Now granted I can live with these operating imbalances because I know the property is going up in value (or rather keeping pace with the market). But that’s why I bought the damn thing. It’s an investment, not a gift to all those who can’t find their way to ownership. I want to provide a safe and respectable place for people to live while protecting my investment and giving myself a cost of living increase, not a new yacht every 5 years. For the most part this works out. But for people to think that every rent increase is gold in my pocket is just an ignorant claim on the part of all those that do so.
I was born and raised in Oregon, Portland for 20 years now. I love this city and have watched all the changes that have taken place here over my life. I miss many of the old Portland things, mostly less people. But it can’t be stopped. Not as long as people keep breeding. 20,000 people moving to our area per year, Air-bnb conversions, lack of adequate planning on the city, all of these stack up against the renter and will continue to do so, SADLY. It’s simple economics supply and demand. Little difference from any other commodity. That’s why gas prices go up and down. I wish I knew the solution. Tell ALL your friends to make sure they don’t make babies?
Here’s the other thing Portland: Rent control can have many unintended consequences. S.F. and New York have rent control and they still completely outpace our city for rent issues. Seattle is in a major rent crush as we speak, it will get worse before better and rent control is being considered there. But the studies are mixed and if you read up on the impact of rent control you start to understand the quagmire. It is far from a cure all and can create scarcity amongst other problems. At the end of the day I want my rentals to be solid investments but I never saw them as instant gold mines. I prefer the eclectic, creative and artistic qualities that make a city interesting (S.F. is devoid of this now from the days of old due obviously to cost of living) and I want to contribute to keeping rents reasonable for our city. But as I’ve pointed out, I also have to deal with ridiculous price increases on my operating side. At the end of the day blaming landlords is at best just one piece of a multi-layered puzzle. If rent control is put in place, and I’m not arguing one way or another on this, I am certain that new problems will arise. We didn’t arrive at this problem in 15 minutes. It’s been created over 15 years of our city being discovered as a mecca of sorts. Likewise it will not be rebalanced in 15 minutes particularly with the on-coming pressures. The last thing I want is for Portland to become some version of an over gentrified S.F. No thanks! The only solution I see is for the city to form a crack team to study what cities all over the U.S. and Europe have experienced both as pitfalls and success, put together a 20 year road map and move pragmatically into the future to make this a livable city for all incomes. Oh geez! And then there’s wages. All part of the puzzle. But I’ll stop for now.
MJM
Hey, Mercury – you printed that idiot’s ridiculous ‘cost of moving’ diatribe. Why not interview Mattmo here about his expenses as a landlord? Why not run a fucking article explaining basic supply and demand?
This presentation from the State Economist’s office shows that Portland needs 40,000 more apartments to balance current demand, not to mention the people who will be moving here next here. file:///C:/Users/bmhawkey/Desktop/tmp_512_…
Well said Mattmo. Well indeed!
I still have to make my way over to the daily blogs and see what was written by likely Shelby on the dumbass freeloader sitting atop a Hawthorne house slated for demolition to make way for condo’s — more dense population living — in a city that embraces the Urban Growth Boundary.
Your words were sane.
I suggest a Shelby / Mattmo article of youthful idealism vs reality, and how it plays out in a city that wishes for more population density to protect forests and farms, and yet cannot let go of its’ past.