Housing

The supportive housing tax built to address chronic homelessness in the Portland metro region has failed to meet its initial goals for its first fully-funded year.  The measure, overseen by Metro Regional Government and passed by voters in Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington counties in 2020, uses a tax on high-income households to fund a litany […]

ejs9 / Getty Images City Council will vote to roll back a 2020 city policy protecting tenants from unfair fees Wednesday, in order to settle a landlord-led legal challenge. The policy under scrutiny is the security deposit policy enshrined in the city’s Fair Access in Renting (FAIR) ordinance. The policy limits how much a landlord […]

Alex Zielinski Art Rios has never seen the sidewalks of Portland‘s Old Town neighborhood this empty. “Yesterday, there were nine tents on this block,” said Rios Thursday morning, looking out from Do Good Multnomah’s Downtown Shelter onto NW 6th Ave by NW Hoyt. “Now there’s just one. The rest—gone.” Rios is a program manager of […]

Tenants at the Allen Fremont Plaza apartments protesting about living conditions in 2021. Court filing A group of tenants living in a fixed-income apartment complex for elderly residents in Northeast Portland are suing their landlord for not keeping the complex in “habitable condition” in recent years. The five tenants, represented by pro bono attorneys, live […]

A view of the original SE Water location of the Queer Affinity Village from the Hawthorne Bridge on-ramp. Daisy The city-funded homeless village for LGBTQ+ residents, formerly located on SE Water Ave, is moving today to one of the city’s first “Safe Rest Village” locations on SW Naito. The move of some 25 tenants comes […]

Multnomah County’s homeless population has grown by more than 1,000 people since 2019. Motoya Nakamura / Multnomah County The total number of homeless people in Multnomah County is up 30 percent since 2019, according to data released by the county’s Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) Wednesday. The majority of the increase is made up […]

Thomas Winz / Getty Images In Multnomah County, a major barricade between getting unhoused people off the street and into permanent housing is a lack of available property. While past ballot measures have created funds to build new housing for people leaving homelessness, the number of available apartments doesn’t meet the current need across the […]

Doug Brown After having its initial ballot proposal rejected for failing to meet constitutional muster, political group People for Portland has filed a new, nearly identical ballot initiative. Like its predecessor, this proposed measure would take taxpayer dollars reserved for permanent housing solutions for homeless individuals and instead use them to create more temporary shelters […]

Dirk Vanderhart The local ballot measure proposed to repurpose tax dollars set aside for supportive housing programs and use the funds for short-term homeless shelters has been rejected by Metro Regional Government’s legal team. The measure, introduced on March 25 by lobbyist group People for Portland, addresses a previously-approved 2020 Metro ballot measure. That previous […]

A photo of Agape Village, one of the six villages analyzed in PSU’s report. PSU Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Residents’ sense of control is key to a successful village for formerly homeless people, according to a study published by Portland State University (PSU) Tuesday. The study, a two-year analysis of “tiny pod villages” in […]