Housing Nov 29, 2017 at 1:56 pm

But Not Without Concerns About High Costs and Homelessness

Comments

1
If you watched the hearing, during his ramble on the "quality" issue, Fish said something along the lines of how poor and homeless people should have the right to choose to live in really nice housing. Is he fucking kidding us? Now the "housing is a human right" has turned into "luxury condos in the heart of a major high-demand city is a human right"? What a huge slap in the face to every middle and lower middle class person who has busted their ass to afford a shitty piece of an outer Portland neighborhood, that all of a sudden it's supposed to be a "right" for slightly lower income folks to leapfrog them and be plopped in the lap of luxury because...? I don't even know because why. It's insane.

The talk about quality should only occur in the context of durability and longevity of the building and its units. And given how desirable (and therefore expensive) this piece of land would be on the open market, it's criminal that they are undervaluing it for the purposes of "affordable" housing when they should sell it and use the profit to buy a couple bigger parcels farther out along a transit corridor so they could build many more units with the available resources we have. Instead, a handful of ultra lucky low-income individuals are going to live like kings while every other low and middle income person in Portland watches in disgust.
2
Also, how do they pick the lucky ducks who will get to live there? Because presumably there will be upwards of 10k or more people who both qualify and want to be in one of those units. Please god tell me it will be a random lottery process, and not something where we find out a couple years down the road that they were all parceled out by Eudaly to her friends over Facebook messenger in violation of not only the public records laws but a host of other laws as well. It's totally the type of thing that arrogant doofus would do.
3
If the places downtown are to judge by, then those who really devote themselves to it are those who get them. Sure a good number of genuinely disabled and in need are helped by it, but the system is definitely clogged as it is a system reliant on providing help instead of options, ergo you have a number of people intentionally making themseslves helpless. In between it all is agencies like homeforward happily lending a hand and sending out bubble sheet surveys asking if people need help. Check mark yes, okay lets go to city hall and get some money.

The politicians know it is a losing equation favoring only temporarily a select few. They just don't care because by the time anything they vote on comes to fruition most people have forgotten about it.

Durability is not all that should be considered, but even if it were we're doing a laughable job at it; see all that plywood making the walls of all these places? 5-8% glue. Their even using OSB board for flooring now. Particle board for trim, plastic flooring, drywall everything, made in china appliances. This is even the million dollar condos. I know a few places constructed within the last 3 years already getting mold.

Economically this cheap construction we think works in our favor because it produces more housing quickly, but housing has been the leading source of inequality for the last half century - right about the time technology and materials started rapidly changing how quickly and easily we can build things.. Everyone gets hung up on that supply-demand stuff but obviously in the bigger picture there is something seriously missing in that equation this is simply planting bad seeds.

I don't need to be an economist to tell you something is off and this is a lopsided trade. The developer is still going to get their investment while workers get less work out of it. All the while the people are left with rotting and plastic buildings and rents that keep going up like they do in every other town because doing more of the same does not produce different results.

If one of them had a spine they'd call it what it is and stop trying to give people what they cannot afford at the expense of everyone else, provide actual options and create what are actually affordable alternatives so people can make for themselves, and sit back and let people figure out that they either do that or live outside.

And if people had their head anywhere but up their entitled a*** they'd ask for something other than more of the same for everyone whether they can afford it or not, or settle for simply saying, "that is just the way it is so move elsewhere". That line of thinking does not explain the plain and simple fact that there was a time when things were not like this, nor what exactly changed and how we can affect it.
4
I'm from the Chicago area. "Projects" like this are not a good idea, ever. We figured this out 30 years ago, and despite the bleating of the baby boomers in the suburbs, managed to get rid of nightmare hellhole poor-people containment cubes like Cabrini Green. (I am aware that Chicago has many problems, thanks)

It takes a rarefied clutch of totally isolated, coddled, inane, self-fellating local pols with graduate degrees in the worst kind of circle-jerk poli sci to think that putting poor people in giant tower blocks is a solution to escalating housing problems, or is in any way a new concept, despite whatever white paper the initiator of this terrible, old-fashioned housing project (what a loaded word) might have crapped out at Vassar for a B-.

Way to go Portland -- your milquetoast, limp-dick scumbag mayor wants to put the homeless in *old jails and actual warehouses*, and the people who make you your quinoa bowls in *actual projects*, while your batshit old lady city councillor Amanda Fucking Nutbag Fritz gives waivers to her pals in real estate development to build condos so tall they block everyone's view of the river.

So progressive.

Oh hey look a food cart and a man with odd facial hair and wooden-framed spectacles! Never mind everything is a-ok, ha ha wooden frames, how novel
5
The numbers at the bottom of the article only refer to income restrictions, but say nothing about how much rent will be charged. It would be more helpful if you listed the income restriction for an individual who wants to apply for a studio apartment. (roughly 38K by my calculations) and then list how much that individual would be paying in rent.

Also it doesn't make any sense that median FAMILY income would be used to calculate the cost for a studio that would presumably house one person. Is there such a thing as median INDIVIDUAL income? That would make more sense I think.

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