Brew Dr. Kombucha recently purchased the house I was renting/running 2 businesses out of... if that's not some gentrification on some portland level I don't know what is. But seriously... renting in portland is insane

Buri comes in at 48:50, by the way.

3 Bedroom apartments in Rockwood are going for $1300.

Can't wait to see all the U-hauls on I5 headed away from town when the rain comes back. Oh sweet rain, please separate the true Oregonians from everyone else. This long summer has really created a lot of disillusionment of what it's like to really live here. Soon newcomers will see what a real Oregon winter is like, and I really hope they hate it.

Can't wait to see all the U-hauls headed away from town on I5 as soon as the rain comes back.

This month my partner and I were forced to leave Portland, where we've lived, paid taxes, and held down solid jobs for 7 years. We lived in a 400 square foot studio apartment in Sellwood. I worked 50+ 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% of our combined income. Repairs requests, even ones relating to safety issues, were never completed. The building was quite literally falling apart. 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.

Everyone agrees it's a big, sucky crisis. But I seldom read much about what concrete, effective actions a city can take to help.

Maybe pass a law that says rent can only increase a certain percentage each year? Is that legal? I don't know, and I'm surprised Portland, Seattle, and SF don't seem to know what to do either.

A

Azure: That's the point. Buri is putting down his big ante (a year notice on large rent hikes, stopping all no cause evictions, etc) hoping that the council will weigh their thoughts on progressive legislation vs their political careers because all of this shit is perfectly, legally stacked in favor of the property owners.

My girlfriend's landlord, all legit-like, just upped the rent by $200 with a month's notice because her roommate was taking off to greener pastures and though "fuck it, he's not my landlord anymore, I can call this asshole out", failing to consider that my girlfriend would have to continue to pay rent as she had done for nearly a decade (under increasingly shitty circumstances). It's retaliatory, it's greedy and she needs to find a place in six months.

She will not find a place. If she does, it will be some shitty APM Shithole with pipe burns in the carpet. In a year, that shitty APM Shithole will be sold, renovated, flipped. It will have a nice dishwasher.

We've got to start somewhere, because this shit is just intolerable.

Jack R, I'm sorry for your situation...but I can't possibly understand how a 400 square foot studio in Sellwood cost you over 60% of your combined income...I'm a bartender and my girlfriend works at Nordstrom. We have a 1200 sq ft apartment on 23rd street in NW that costs us 1450/month. By my calculations, you and your partners' combined income would have to be less than 30k to make the apartment I'm currently living in cost 60% of your income...wtf?

I can get a 700 sq foot studio in NW right now for 1100 dollars. Unless you and your partner are both making well below the poverty line, 60% of your income should land you much much more than a 400 sq foot studio in Sellwood...your story can't be true.

Mule: This might be a shock, but a whole lot of people live below the poverty line. Have you seen it lately? It's right there.

@Spaceman - They're not living below the poverty line if they're working 50 hours/week as a department manager, and their partner is working two jobs on top of that. There's no way that math checks out.

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 to control their own property 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.

Rents are going up because there is nothing stopping landlords from raising them - period! That the "market" is tight simply exacerbates all the issues Buri outlines. 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. The corporations have nowhere to go to get a "better" tax rate, they aren't going to move out of state.

I don't mind paying 1000 dollars a month for rent as long as I get value back. But, I don't get it. I was hoping for better here. I am still holding out for better but our leaders must listen to us and take further actions with regard to livability. I want to feel like a cherished, and invited guest and there needs to be places we can go to network publicly and indoors during daylight hours into the twilight hours for folks who don't have the choices others have. In other words public sanctuaries for those who aren't just tourists going around buying out the stores. Work on our our behalf at least half as much as council does accomodating the needs of the land baron building owner movers and shakers.

We are getting tagged from all ends. Low Corporate taxes, no sales tax on luxury items on all the billions being carted out of here nationally and internationally, through the port and such. the big shoppers and sellers have a virtual piracy ring going on here and we don't get back in trust one red cent. If Oregon is going to flourish , somebody has to pitch in. That's all of us, but tourists won't stop visiting and shopping here from all over the world if we tax them fairly on their purchases. Right now, we are battling the feds over planned parenthood funding. But, all we need do is look at the money not collected on the billions of dollars, duty free being shipped out of Oregon to know that we are getting shafted regarding infrastructure investment. I'm not saying the builders should shoulder all the responsiblity for the livability perks provided their user bases. I am saying we must start looking at a policy of social inclusion rather than social isolation and putting people into slot categories and watching that they don't step out of line. It starts with not bending over for big business and commerce and nudge them to include more livability factors. That goes from the parking lot owner to the Bank president. they take with both hands but they also must give something back to us to create more social parity. Commerce has always been a balance of accounts recievable as well as accounts payable. Pay it forward to us Portlanders and I promise you for all of us we will be a worthy investment.

"When hard working, honest, responsible people can't get by, they get out. To hell with Portland."

I'm not disputing the fact that its getting increasingly difficult for some people to live in Portland. But I know lots of people that make below 30k/yr that do it just fine. To paint the picture of a city where two fully employed people can't even afford a "falling apart" 400 sq ft apartment in a suburb seemed a tad disingenuous to me.