The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-04-07

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (31,654 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Councilor Novick. Can you hear us online?

I can indeed.

Thanks. We can hear you as well.

Good afternoon. I am going to call the meeting of the housing and permitting committee to order. It is Tuesday, April 7th at 2 p.m. Diego, please call the roll.

Good afternoon. Pirtle-guiney here. Koyama Lane here.

Novick here.

Green.

Here.

Avalos here.

Claire, can you please read the statement of conduct?

Good afternoon, and welcome to the meeting of the housing and permitting committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at Portland.gov/council agenda slash housing and permitting committee or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others. Testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. Please state your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you claire. All right. And again, welcome, everybody, to the first meeting of the housing and permitting committee. So I have a couple of opening remarks. I am really looking forward to working with my colleagues on this committee. We all know that the work in front of us is both significant and urgent. And across Portland, we're hearing clearly that people want us to make progress on housing, whether that's helping people keep helping, keep people housed, supporting those experiencing homelessness, or making it easier to build the housing that our city needs. This committee reflects a broader approach to that challenge in addressing housing and homelessness. We'll be taking on permitting zoning and land use decisions as well. Those systems play a major role in whether housing gets built and how quickly. So bringing this work together in one place is an important step. As chair, my goal is to make this a productive and collaborative space, and I want to ensure that each councilor has the opportunity to bring forward ideas and priorities, and that we are using our time here to move work forward and not let it stall. I also want us to be thoughtful about how we pace our work. We have a responsibility to move important items, particularly land use and permitting decisions, without creating unnecessary delays while still making space for discussion and good policy development. And importantly, I want to stay grounded in what we hear from portlanders. This work doesn't just happen in this room. It is shaped by the experience of people that we represent across the city, and I intend to keep that connection front and center because this is a new committee with new members. We'll also be spending some time getting oriented to the work already underway and making sure we have a shared understanding of where we're headed. So more on that to come before we get started with the agenda today, I want to pass it to our vice chair, councilor Mitch Green, to share some remarks.

Thank you so much, chair Avalos. I'll keep my remarks brief because I know there's a lot of you here today to testify. We've got a very packed agenda. I just want to say that I'm excited to join this committee and to support you as the vice chair. I've been really very interested in all things housing ever since I was elected to this position, and long before. And now I get to be on a committee that moves that work forward. We know that our communities are struggling with affordability challenges broadly, whether that's fuel, food or utility bills. And housing is just the biggest chunk there. And we we're in a position to maybe do something about that every day. I read in the news about some city that took a bold step on clearing through bottlenecks and taking a very sort of pro pro build approach. And I say, I want that for my city too. So I'm really looking forward to seeing how we can. We can also accelerate and play catch up. And I'm every single member of this committee, I've had conversations with you through my tenure in this building, and you all have great ideas that I agree there's a lot of overlap with. I think all of us on on housing issues. So I'm just really excited to be part of your leadership team here. So thanks.

Thank you, vice chair. All right. So turning to today's agenda, we have two housing finance items before us. First, we will hear an ordinance related to the moderate income revolving loan program. And then we will consider an ordinance regarding unspent funds within the Portland housing bureau. So diego let's go ahead and call the first item.

Item one adopt and implement the moderate income revolving loan program.

All right. So as folks are walking up, let me give you some intro into this item. So the state legislature passed a bill in 2024 that established a moderate income revolving loan fund, or merle, to help cities finance housing development for households earning between 60 and 120% of area median income. This ordinance establishes portland's local implementation of the state's moderate states moderate income revolving loan program, a new financing tool created by the legislature to support housing for middle income households. This proposal allows the city to access no interest state funds and deploy them locally, using prosper Portland to provide gap financing to housing projects that would not otherwise be financially feasible. Importantly, this tool leverages future tax revenue to support housing production today without requiring direct general fund investment. It also aligns state resources with our local tools like tax increment financing, to accelerate the development of much needed housing, near transit and in high opportunity areas. Adopting this ordinance is necessary is a necessary step for Portland to access these limited first come, first serve state resources and ensure that we can provide that we can bring forward projects that expand housing options for our workforce and middle income residents. Now, the city needs to adopt this ordinance, which will allow us to access these funds from the state housing agency. So I will go ahead and hand it off to andrea jacob from the bureau of planning and sustainability and sarah harpole from prosper Portland to provide more information. Take it away.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair Green and members of the committee. For the record, my name is andrea jacob. I'm actually here today representing the dc office for community and economic development. I'm here with my colleague sarah.

Good afternoon. My name is sarah. I'm a development manager at prosper Portland.

And we are going to walk you through the moderate income revolving loan program. Next slide please. So our agenda is to go over some background. I think the talking points are going to sound pretty similar to what you just heard from the chair. We'll talk through some eligible project examples with the implementation pathway. Looks like to get this program stood up. And then a little bit about next steps. Next slide please. So in 2024, the state legislature established the moderate income revolving loan fund within Oregon housing and community services and appropriated $75 million in seed funding. And that was for the whole state. In this last session, the legislature reduced that funding down to 50 million. And the purpose of the program is to support the development of moderate income housing, where the units will be priced for households earning 120% of ami or less. Sarah is going to talk in some detail in a few minutes about how that process works, but at the highest level, it starts with a sponsoring jurisdiction, in this case us, the city of Portland. By passing an ordinance and then borrowing money from cs at no interest. This money is then made available to developers with eligible projects in the form of grants, and the state is paid back in one of two ways. Which way depends on the project's geography? So outside of a tif district, developer pays a property tax fee in lieu. Inside a tif district, the city can pledge tif as an alternative repayment source backed by the city's full faith and credit. The city does not make the decision as to which projects are chosen. That's the state's decision and it is first come, first served. Next slide. So the program's intended to boost construction of higher density multifamily housing. And due to a combination of factors with which folks are pretty familiar, low market rate rents, low confidence from investors, we're just not seeing these larger projects get built. They're not financially feasible. And at the same time, our housing needs analysis and our housing production strategy indicate a need for over 25,000 new units serving middle income residents at that 60 to 120% ami. So Morillo grant can do a couple of important things. It can help a developer fill a gap in the capital stack and at the same time, lock in affordability for ten years for middle income portlanders, teachers, truck drivers, cooks, retail employees. As the market improves. Next slide.

I'm going to speak a little bit in a little greater detail about what it looks like to locally operationalize the program, as you heard, per state statute. And then when coupled with portland's inclusionary housing program, there are two pathways for repayment of that initial loan between cs and the city. If the project that is applying is located in a tif district, tif tif resources must be used to repay the loan. Backed by the city's full faith and credit. The ordinance before you under consideration proposes that no more than $20 million in tif be pledged at any one time, given the backing by the city's full faith and credit. Outside of tif districts. Repayment sources are via fee paid by the developer in lieu of their ten year property tax payments. This fee is collected by the county and used to repay the loan if the project is outside of a tif district and subject to the city's inclusionary housing policy, the developer must comply with the requirements but would be required to forego any associated property tax exemptions in order to utilize the rural tax exemption repayment process locally. We are also proposing a requirement that projects must produce a minimum of 75 new units within close proximity of transit. We know that funding is limited to $50 million statewide and awarded on a first come, first serve basis. Therefore, we do not anticipate Portland will get more than a couple opportunities to submit applications on behalf of projects locally. Additionally, the level of staff effort to work with developers to review and complete required application materials and administer ten years of compliance reporting is generally consistent regardless of the project size, so for these reasons, we are recommending the 75 unit requirement to ensure that this is the most efficient and effective use of the limited refund limited funds we have available to us. Next slide please. Morillo is essentially a form of a tax increment financing tool being used by the state, and therefore it enables the city and prosper to leverage tax increment in locations where tif districts are either coming to a close or in their infancy, or do not exist for the purposes of creating moderate income housing. We know that funds are limited and will unlikely. We are unlikely to see projects in every district, but I want to walk through a couple examples of what that could look like in district one. It could be as the district closes, we are able to continue to deploy resources for projects such as 92nd and herald, and then use the fee in lieu repayment opportunity to support that project. In district two, it could look like, as the interstate tif district sunsets, we're able to continue to invest in that district and using the fee repayment source, or able to advance tif resources in the new district to invest now to be repaid over time as resources accrue in that district. Similarly, in district three, we could advance investment in 82nd avenue as tif district as tif resources are accruing, or in the central corridor to be repaid by tif as those resources grow. And then lastly, in district four investment in the new westside tif district. Again, placing resources today that can be repaid by future tif income. Next slide please. As you heard, state statute requires that local sponsoring jurisdictions pass an ordinance to be provided before hhs will consider any application. So that's the process we're starting with you today. If the ordinance is approved, this will kick off a series of agreements. This includes a master agreement between oaks and the city, as well as an agreement between oaks and the county to provide their services for collecting the repayment fee in lieu resources. It would also require amending an intergovernmental agreement between the city and prosper Portland for the administration of this program, as well as the city and the county, to ensure that there's partnership and the repayment approach. Once those are set up and materials and intake processes are in place to to take in applications, prosper would work with the developer to complete application materials and provide it to the state. If the state awards a program awards a project, the prosper would enter into a grant agreement with that developer, and the loan repayment mechanism would depend on which pathway and location they're located. Prosper then, would work with the developer to complete the ten year compliance reporting process, working with OHSU to make sure all required materials are submitted and the project affordability remains in compliance. During its ten year period. Next slide please.

So this is just what happens if an ordinance is passed there. As sarah just said, there's a number of agreements that have to get executed, the first being a master agreement with oaks between the city and oaks, also the county and oaks. The city and county would also need to enter into an agreement. Prosper in the city would need to amend an existing iga. There is rulemaking that is starting or has started, and we would go into some program development for the next few months and hoping to be open for business by fall of this year. And that concludes our brief presentation.

Wonderful. Thank you. So we will go ahead and enter some discussion. And I know there is an amendment on the table, but why don't you just give a quick summary of your amendment and then we'll go to public testimony and then we'll come back. Sound good?

That sounds great. Pull that up. Colleagues. I've filed a pre filed Green one which amends the ordinance under consideration, which does a number of things. First, it removes the specification that these funds are for projects with 75 units or more, largely responsive to some testimony I received that suggested that that would cut out a lot of really high, high opportunity investments in our community. And it just seemed like an arbitrary number. Then the amendment also strikes the areas that delegate this responsibility to prosper Portland and say instead that this is declared to be primarily administrated by the Portland housing bureau. It expands the the eligibility for what we're calling it expands it to low and moderate income because the state statute actually contemplates this going as low as 50%. Ami. So the ordinance that we're seeing here is more restrictive than what the state law contemplates. So it says, let's bring it from 50% on up. And I think for me, that gets us closer to aligning with social housing concepts that we might want to adopt in our community, irrespective of jurisdiction. And then finally, it adds explicit reporting requirements. So that way we can actualize the parts of the state statute that require that project pro formas are submitted and are inspected, and that they are evaluated that if not for these funds, that this project would not pencil out as it's written. Now, city council doesn't have a very strong there's very weak oversight capability in that regard. So we sort of delegated this away. And we we depend on prosper Portland doing this for us. So that's what it does. You know, we'll hear from testimony I guess. And then I can answer any questions you guys have. And we'll probably want to ask questions of the bureau staff. And if there's a city attorney in the room, that would be helpful as well. So I'll leave it at that for now. And then we can hear from our testimony.

Okay. Thank you, vice chair. So let's go ahead and call up our testimony. Diego.

We have one individual signed up, robert pile. Robert is online. Feel free to unmute and begin your testimony when you're ready.

Thank you. Good afternoon, councilors chair Avalos. And to the new members. Welcome to the housing and permitting committee. My name is robert pile. I'm the principal of oak leaf redevelopment. I want to say thank you to chair Avalos and mayor wilson for sponsoring this ordinance. I've advocated for this with most of you personally, and I'm grateful to see it coming forward. We need all the tools we can get, especially ones funded with state dollars. Thank you also to councilor Green for the proposed amendment, which addresses my primary concern with the draft ordinance. Eligibility should not be restricted to only projects of 75 units or more statute, nor the example of the other jurisdictions in the state that have adopted the program to date support this restriction. I would also ask that you further amend section five of exhibit a to delete the reference to prioritizing mixed use developments. This is a further unnecessary restriction that excludes many missing middle housing projects that are transit oriented, but 100% residential. This program is meant to support housing unit production, not retail and office. The staff presentation suggests that portland's proportional investment will only support 1 to 2 projects. However, this is not a statutory allocation. The program is first come, first serve. I estimate this could support 300 to 800 units in Portland, and given only about 650 units were permitted for submitted for permit in 2025. This program alone could help double unit production in the city, so please adopt councilor Greens amendment, further amend exhibit a to remove the mixed use reference and approve this ordinance for passage to the full council. Thank you.

That concludes testimony.

All right. Thank you. So councilor or vice chair Green, you're still in the queue. Do you want to go ahead and continue expanding on your amendment?

Yeah. Colleagues, first of all, you know, we looked at the underlying state statutes that were that changed house bill 43 seven enrolled, changed section (302) 213-3307 237. And I don't see anywhere in there and maybe I missed it. That requires this to be in a tif district, and that requires our repayment source to be through tif proceeds. It, it sort of, you know, it specifies that the city should be the one to administer this program. Of course, we can always delegate things, but I think that as we enter into another instance where we're going to use public money to support private objectives or, you know, nonprofit objectives, we have to ensure that we have very strong accountability measures. And we've all been experiencing issues related to accountability with our public dollars in the housing sector. And so I'm very concerned of continuing this practice of delegating away from the city of Portland. The the work of doing this due diligence on evaluating whether or not these projects, these developers actually do need the money and whether or not it's consistent with our broader policy strategy as we're doing this unified strategy, housing strategy approach over the summer, I want us to be set up so the city's in the driver's seat for it, and we've not outsourced this work. That's part of it. The other part is just the financing structure in the law sets the city up to take on a liability to the state of Oregon. That then depends upon us being made whole through repayment to the grantees. And so if there's that degree of separation between the city and prosper Portland, what guarantees do we have that prosper's choosing the right projects that have the ability to repay, the obligation that we've now exposed our state to the city? I'm sorry. Expose the city to the state of Oregon. And if the Portland housing bureau is in the driver's seat, this committee can do oversight on that work. It can ask the question of whether or not the the the projects that are under consideration have submitted all the necessary documentation and that the bureau has had an opportunity to actually look at the pro forma and know how much this project is taking in developer fees vis a vis the rest of the public money stack. And so I just want to make sure we're using our taxpayer dollars wisely. And so if there's anyone from the city attorney's office who can speak to whether or not this is really required in statute to be in a tiff district, be repaid in this sort of way. I'd like to see it.

Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. Adrian delgado, city attorney's office. So I think to your first question, another way of looking at this is what are the repayment sources? So one is by fee. And that is only available outside of europe. So if the city wants to charge or whoever is operating the program wants to charge a fee as repayment that's automatically collected by the tax assessor. And then that property project gets a tax exemption. Then that's one path and that's the outside of our path. Then there's the repayment with an alternative source of revenue path. And that will work in a u a r. Alternative source of revenue. As I read, the statute does not necessarily have to be tiff. It could be a loan that's issued to the developer and then the loan proceeds go back for repayment. But I think tiff when this was, is a natural source of repayment that's also allowed.

So would you would, would it be fair to say that this as proposed is posed is an allowable approach. It's an allowable thing under the statute, but it's not a prescribed method of administering this program.

Correct.

Thank you. I think that's the only question I have on the legal front. I think the bigger parts of it are philosophical. It's sort of like, is the threshold number correct? You've heard from robert powell. There's, you know, we can get into a debate about that, but for now, I think I'll just. Oh, yeah. And I guess I would move the, the amendment. I, I move that we consider Green one.

Okay. Moved by councilor Green and seconded by councilor Koyama Lane sorry. Vice chair Green. Got to get used to that. Great. So we will go ahead and move into discussion on the amendment. And I put myself in the queue so I can kick us off. I appreciate the intent and also appreciate the city attorney's guidance that they shared. I think part of my concern with the amendment is just the feasibility of. Who's prepared to administer that kind of work. And in talking with the service area, it seems like it just is more naturally situated with prosper. In addition to all the tiff stuff we're talking about, of course, as you as we heard from the attorney, that doesn't have to come out of tiff, but that's how they've set it up right now. I agree that the 75 amount is aye, Morillo, and it was part of the reason for, from my understanding of why they placed it at that number, it is arbitrary in the sense that they just picked a number, but they wanted a higher number to encourage more units because those dollars are limited and we wanted to spur more, more development. I am comfortable with moving it down to 20. I'm not comfortable with removing the the floor, if you will. So I think by keeping it at 20 units, then that triggers inclusionary housing. And that's a priority to me. So I'm not going to support the amendment as is. I would support a change from 75 to 20. But just based on how the amendment is structured, it's kind of buried in there. So as currently written, I will not support, but I am interested in looking at lowering that. Let's move to councilor. Novick.

Thank you, madam chair. I just wanted to hear from city staff any thoughts they might want to add on the 75 number? The other aspects of councilor Amendment councilor Amendment, and mr. Powell's suggestion that the mixed use reference be removed. Oh, and also, I think chair Avalos already mentioned this, but I wanted to know about if there's who. And I think this might. The answer might be you. Chair Avalos has discussed with the Portland housing bureau the prospect of their taking this over.

We've got donny here to answer your questions. Go ahead.

Thank you councilor. Thank you, chair donnie oliveira, for the record, regarding the 75 number, I think it's been shared a couple times. I'll just reiterate it. The 75 was arbitrary, but the intent was sound. I believe staff already articulated. There's a $50 million state pot that's statewide. So those dollars are going to be competitive. It is first come, first serve. So while we agree with mr. Powell that we want to see as many units built, the likelihood that we'll have many projects is uncertain. And so the goal with 75 was just to set a bar that we thought we could get. If we're going to get a couple of projects, let's make them large. But that was arbitrary. And so if there was going to be an amendment to that number, we would recommend 20 units so that we were consistent with the I h policy of the city. Just a reminder for everybody, 20 units is the threshold for which h kicks in for development. And we'd like to ensure that we have those those policies intact for that to take advantage of this programing. As far as the ph staff capacity. Councilor, the question really is the housing bureau has a lot of programing that's been placed on them this year. So it's not a matter of is this alone new work? It's this on top of us. Excuse me. The unified housing strategy on top of social housing, on top of existing work we expect to hear later today, it just becomes a question of what is the staff capacity. And having said that, prosper does do this work. They do. They do middle income housing already. They do the sort of underwriting. It is a logical pathway for them to continue. This work can be do this work. Generally speaking, yes. Do we have capacity? We'd have to talk about that. Given everything else.

Thank you. Oh, and what about the the mr. Powell's mixed use point.

I think that's that's another example where we put that in. We think there's a logical when you're talking about development in high density areas, you know, commercial corridors, etc. Those typically are mixed use. If you were going to reduce the 75 unit, you know, threshold, that becomes less of a mandate, if you will. So.

So there's a, there's a link between those two things, the mixed use and the 75.

Generally, yes.

Thank you. All right. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you, chair Avalos. I'm trying to separate my questions about the underlying from my questions about the amendment, but there's a little bit of overlap here. I want to ask a bit more about staff capacity. And I'm not sure if this is a prosper question or a question for the dca, but we heard that 75 was in the comment about 75 units. We heard that in part that was to increase the efficacy of each application and the time staff were putting into it. And I'm wondering about the capacity we heard about fb, but the capacity at prosper to take this on and whether we foresee needing to bring on additional staff if this stays at prosper, and whether we would need to bring on additional staff to do this at fb, or whether because we don't think we'll get a lot of applications through staff can manage this. And I guess related question do we think that there will be a lot of applications? Do we need to be worrying about the difference in capacity between fb and prosper in a significant way?

Thank you for the question. Councilor. Donnie oliveira. Prosper has staff capacity. I think the note was just to articulate that whether it's a five unit project or a 75 unit project, the process is still going to be the same. The underwriting will be a little more complex, of course, for 75 units. But generally speaking, taking a a developer developer in process is is roughly the same amount of time prosper given their workload and the real estate investment portfolio, has this staff already doing this type of work? So to answer your question, there's not a need for new staff at prosper to do this work. It's within their existing capacity, their staff at fb that could also do this work. The difference there is many of them that you work with on a regular basis are also the policy leads doing some of the bigger policy work out of the bureau right now. So while they do, we have people in the bureau that can do this work. Yes. Are they completely encumbered with other policies and priorities? Yes. And so there probably would be a conversation about staff capacity. And the last thing I'll just speak to on this one, generally speaking, we'd like to get this out in the fall. This staff in prosper, who have been working on this for a while now, they have been prepared to get this going as fast as possible, rulemaking, etc. So I would prefer my recommendation would be for the council to contemplate not slowing us down, because we already have staff in the bureau, an agency that is doing the work and ready to go.

Okay. And with removing the language, the amendment removes language around tiff repayment under the amendment. Councilor is your intention. I'm going to turn this question to you in a minute. Dca oliveira but it's your intention that we would not be able to repay the loan with tiff, and that this would remove that path forward, or just that it would not prioritize that path forward?

Yeah. My intention is that the city retains its discretion to design its repayment methods allowable by state law, but it doesn't hard code it right now that if it's in a tiff district, that we are going to take off the top of our expected tiff proceeds from something from a new loan obligation that we've just now put onto it by merle.

Okay. I have to be honest, I'm a little bit torn about this because I had a question on the underlying about whether using tiff repayment for something like this that moves forward outside of the tiff plan process could inadvertently allow us to end run a tiff plan and have projects that were not part of what the community prioritized. And I'm concerned about that. On the other hand, if we repay through diverted property taxes, that's additional money not coming into our city coffers. Whereas if we repay through a tiff plan, that's money we already weren't planning to see to fund housing, which is a priority within tiff. So I'd like to make sure that tiff is still an option, even though I want to return to that question when we're at the underlying. If we were to move this dca oliveira to ph. B and under the language that's proposed here, removing tiff. Do you foresee us still being able to use tiff as a repayment option, or would that become much more challenging?

My understanding is if it moved over to ph. B and we were going to activate tiff dollars, the prosper board, as the overseer of tiff funding would still have an action to take to approve that that allocation. Okay. Even if it's run through php, regardless of tiff though, and, and city attorney can can confirm that if there, if adrian's still in the room. The other part of your question, though, can we use tiff or excuse me, can we have other funding mechanisms? Yes, there's. As the staff outlined outside of tiff districts, there was another pathway to fund backed projects. Thanks, adrian.

I see our attorney coming up also.

Adrian.

I have one other question after this.

Yes, I agree with dani. If we were using tiff as repayment, it would still I mean, if it was at a rate that is contemplated by the set aside, then php has access to those funds. But for 120% or anything above 80%, it would still need to be approved by prosper's board.

Thank you. I appreciate that answer. Final question. By lowering or by adding the word low and or the words low end and having the supply to low and middle income housing council. I heard that your intent there was to allow housing at between 50 and 60% ami level to be included. Do we need to add the words low and. Or do we need to just change the percentages in the section above that that say 60 to 120 to say 50 to 120 and middle income housing would actually capture that? How strict are our definitions in city law?

I'm not sure I'm the right. I mean, I can give you my opinion, but I suspect you want a second opinion.

We have our attorney up here, so I'll look to her.

Sorry, I'm opening the amendment.

So under the amendment, what was five and is now four says 60 to 120. And that's not changed. But the words low and are added below. And if our intent is to capture 50 to 100%, 120%, I'm wondering if we actually need the words low and or if our definition of middle income housing is broad enough to capture that. And I'm also wondering if we need to change the percent in the bullet above or the section above.

Where are we?

Sorry, just give us a moment where we're okay.

While they're looking. I'll just share that I tend to agree with the chair that lowering the 75 could have benefit. I also am interested in capturing the 50 to 60% ami units, so that we can have broader mixed income buildings and neighborhoods. I am not inclined to support all of the portions of the current amendment, though I do think from what I heard from the dca, that if we move from 75 to 20 units, we may need to remove the restriction around. Around having mixed use buildings as well. But if we wanted to move forward a package with those three pieces, I would be a yes vote on that.

Okay, so thank you for that minute to unpack this. So low and middle income, at least under title 30. It's affordable housing is the way we define like the 80% limit. So I think low and middle are just general terms here that don't actually change the definition. I think we look to above for like what the 60% to 20% or use the actual, I think it would be best to define the actual percentages for low to middle. That would be my suggestion.

Okay. Thank you, I appreciate it. Thank you. Chair.

Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Last thing I'll say, and I know that we'll move to a vote because I know that we need to move forward on the agenda is just that, yeah, I don't expect this amendment to pass today. We did have a discussion today, and we can consider these ideas at the full council ahead of that with some opportunity to break these things apart. But what I'll just note is that the low income, low and moderate income that I chose for this ordinance is is tied to the law. The hb 4037, which which points to definitions in rs4, five, eight, 610, which which is what I'm sort of keying my definitions to. So I'll leave it at that. And we will let the chips fall where they may.

All right. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you chair. Vice chair, I just wanted to. Say that what it sounds like I'm hearing is that there are folks open to different parts of this. And so I'm wondering if it makes sense to divide the question and vote on some of the different parts, the the adding the low and low end language with the percentage, the piece around changing the threshold or the the minimum of 75, lowering that. Are you open to dividing the question so we can vote?

I am, but I just there's a lot in that one piece. So do you have a specific idea on how to divide the question? Because I, I don't want to overly complicate it. Like, for instance, if people are interested in just the threshold number and taking that up, then we can say, I want to divide the question on the first vote on that change, and then everything else is the next vote.

I guess I'm wondering if we can vote on what councilor Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney just said, the three areas that she was interested in. That's something we can do now.

Helpful if I repeat that.

It is helpful. Yes.

So I had expressed an interest in you don't have this included, but in changing the threshold, I'm going to try to find where it is in your amendment. Again, I believe it was section. Oh no. Section three.

No section.

You're talking about the 75.

You know, the.

The low.

End. Sorry. Section one in section one new sub four it was five where it says 60%. Changing that to the 50% to capture the vice chairs intent and adding in the words low. And I was interested in all of the portions later in the amendment that would lower 75. And I would defer to the chair and lower that to 20. And then it sounded, from what I heard from the dca, that if we do that, we should probably remove the language around mixed income or apologize mixed use, because a mixed use building with 20 units isn't always as effective as a 75 unit mixed use building. So that would be the third piece is if folks are interested in the suggestion from the testifier to remove the language around mixed use, adding that as well.

I'm very interested in that. If you can hold that all in your head and make that motion, I'd, I'd vote on it right now. Otherwise, I would offer to work with you after this to bring forward a distinct amendment at the full council chair.

What would you prefer?

Why don't we vote on the current as is. That way we can just get that off the, you know, the table, and then maybe we can hear a proposed new amendment. Does that work? Yes. Okay, so let's go ahead and move to a vote. Diego.

We have a motion on Green one moved by Green, seconded by Koyama Lane. Pirtle-guiney.

No.

Koyama Lane. I Novick. No Green. I Avalos. No. With two I's and three no votes. The amendment fails.

Councilor pirtle-guiney. Would you like to introduce the new amendment?

So I don't have this in writing yet. So I'm going to look to the clerk and council ops when I say this to see if it works. I would move that in section one for five because we're not looking at the amendment anymore. So in section one five we change the number 60% to 50%. In section one six we add the words low and between the words development of and middle income, and then. Let's look down in section four where it says 75 units that be changed to 20 units in section five, where it says provide a minimum of 75 new housing units that be changed to 20 new housing units. I believe those are the only two references to the number 75.

And then isn't there one more thing? I would.

Look to committee members and I don't know how casually you want to run this about whether we prefer to keep that mixed income language or not. I was responding to the comment from the dca. I have no problem keeping it. I think in in my district there are many smaller mixed use buildings and I would be happy to have 20 unit mixed use buildings. But if that's not an effective use of this program, I'm happy to include removing it in this amendment for the. The sake of moving quickly.

I would say I would prefer to keep it just because 20 is the floor and so that way it's not limiting it for if there is a 75 unit building, then we can encourage that that be mixed use. So for that reason.

Keep it in and just make those changes that I enumerated.

All right. So that is an amendment. We'll call it pirtle-guiney. One is moved. Do I have a second. Second seconded by councilor Green? Is everyone clear on the committee on the amendment? Are there any is there any other discussion? All right, then let's go ahead and move to a vote.

Pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane. I Novick. I Green. I Avalos. I with five I's. The amendment is approved.

All right. Any further discussion on the underlying ordinance then? Let's go ahead and hold on. Let me get the right language for you diego.

And I apologize chair. Do we have a motion and a second for that one?

Moved by pirtle-guiney and seconded by Green.

Thank you so much.

Yeah. All right. So I would go ahead and hold on. Got to get to the right spot on my list. All right. I would like to entertain a motion to approve as amended, document number 2026 124.

So moved.

Second moved by Koyama Lane. Seconded by pirtle-guiney. Any discussion? Let's move to a vote. Oh, do you have the discussion? Yeah.

Just real quick. I think we've improved what's underlying based upon the discussion today. I'm going to be a no today out of committee because of the prosper Portland and governance controls that I was concerned about. And I look forward to working on that with anyone who wants to work on that with me before we get to the full council. Thanks.

Thank you, vice chair, and let's talk about it more. I'd be interested in exploring that conversation ahead of full council. Diego, please call the roll.

Pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane. I Novick. I Green. No Avalos. I with four I's and one nay vote. The motion carries. It's the motion to refer the ordinance as amended. Document number 2020 6-124 to full council with the recommendation that it be passed.

All right. Thank you. Let's go ahead and move on to our next item. Diego, could you please call item two.

Item two adopt a supplemental budget for the Portland housing bureau for fiscal year 2025 to 2026.

All right. Thank you. So before we get into the details of today's item, I just have a couple of quick thoughts to step back and ground us in why this work matters. Across Portland, we are hearing from people who are struggling to stay in their homes, families falling behind on rent, seniors on fixed incomes, and neighbors who are one unexpected expense away from losing their housing. At the same time, we continue to see more people entering homelessness than we are able to house them. So that is the reality in front of us. We learned that tens of millions of dollars, resources that were intended to support housing were sitting unallocated or planned for uses down the road. That raised a fundamental question for all of us how do we use these resources in a way that actually meets the urgency of this moment? Over the past several months, we've had that conversation. As a council, we held a work session to surface priorities, heard from community partners, and worked collaboratively across offices and with fb staff to shape a path forward. So what's before us today reflects that shared effort. For me, this is about being clear eyed about the scale of the challenge and making sure we are using our limited resources where they have the greatest impact. And it also means recognizing that there is no single solution to our housing crisis. We have to take a comprehensive approach, one that helps people stay housed today, stabilizes the housing we already have and continues to build toward the future our city needs. This is also about accountability. When we identify resources intended for housing, we have a responsibility to make sure they are deployed in a way that is transparent, effective, and aligned with the needs we're hearing from portlanders. I want to thank my colleagues who have partnered on this effort, as well as staff and community members who helped to shape this proposal. And with that, I'm going to invite my co-sponsors to share a few remarks, and then we'll come back and walk through the ordinance in more detail. So we'll start off with vice chair councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you so much, chair Avalos. I'll keep it brief because I don't want to take time from everyone who's signed up to testify. This is probably one of the most important decisions we will make to shape our approach to housing over the next few years. We are responding to both a crisis of transparency into the nature of how these funds came to be, and who gets to talk about that. But then we're also saying we're stepping up to the plate, and we're going to invest one time dollars in things that we think are going to have lasting solutions. And so I think the priorities in the ordinance are aligned with the priorities of our city. And I think we have an opportunity to to shape a good fiscal stewardship approach to addressing the ups, upstream problems in our housing and homelessness continuum.

Thank you, vice chair. We've got councilor Morillo, I think, in the room. Yes. Are you in the corner? Yeah. Come on up. Oh, there you are. Come on up to share some remarks.

Oh, it feels weird being on this side of it. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for inviting me to come speak about this ordinance and why I think it is absolutely critical and important. I was running downstairs, so I believe you covered what is already in the ordinance, but I really want to focus on the why and why this matters to our city right now. Every month, Multnomah county is really in dire straits when it comes to our homelessness crisis. We are losing about 300 people a month who are becoming unhoused, and that is not letting up. We have 25% of an increase in people who are becoming unhoused between January 2025 and January 2026, and that is not a trend that is being followed across the country. That is actually something that is unique to Portland, and that is partly because the mechanisms that we are using to address our homelessness crisis are not working, which means that we have to try something different. We have a duty to try something different. Congress expanded lighttech last year, but studies have shown that more tax credits does not necessarily mean more housing. Developers can sometimes use the new credits to finance projects that they would have built anyways, and lighttech units are rarely affordable enough for the lowest income households on their own, and the same bill cut over $1 trillion from social safety nets. Hud rental assistance is being restructured. A minimum of 2000 Portland area households on federal rental subsidies are at imminent risk. Snap benefits are disappearing for hundreds of thousands of Oregonians, and the bottom line is that the federal government is funding construction tools while gutting the affordability tools to make those units reachable. That is the context in which we have brought forward this ordinance. The Portland housing bureau has identified 56 million in funds that can be appropriated now, and they have been working with our offices to put together a package that responds to this moment. I want to talk about why these particular investments matter. There is a difference between a check and a fix, and I know that some are skeptical of rental assistance. I find myself skeptical of it as well. The critique is that rent assistance is just a check to a landlord. It doesn't change the rent, it doesn't change the power dynamic. And when it runs out, tenants are right back where they started. That's a fair critique about rental assistance and how it has historically worked. It is not a critique of what's in this package. Prevention is still the top priority in this package, and keeping someone housed costs a fraction of what it costs to rehouse them after they fall into homelessness. Every tenant who keeps their apartment is one fewer person in the shelter system, one fewer person in the emergency room, one fewer eviction clogging up the courts. As council president Dunphy has put it, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The question is not whether prevention works, it's whether prevention dollars are structured to produce lasting results or just delay the crisis. And this package balances both rent assistance in the short term, it has a flexible aid for people who are about to lose their housing right now, including 2000 households about to lose federal subsidies. We are not pretending that that is a long term solution. The structural pieces are in other parts of the package the debt buy downs, permanently restructure the financing on affordable buildings so that rents can come down and stay down, which is critical because the problem in a lot of those buildings is an operating costs. It's over leveraged debt passed down to tenants. We also have the right to eviction council, which changes the power dynamic in eviction court, where tenants lose their housing more often and more. And most preventable social housing acquisition also removes properties from the speculative market entirely. The rent assistance buys time for the structural interventions to take hold, and that is what's part of the design of this package. What we are doing with this ordinance is we are putting our faith and our trust and our infrastructure behind public ownership. $10 million for direct acquisition of social housing property the public owns permanently. No investor exit, no lighttech affordability restrictions that expire when a compliance period ends. No conversion to market rate. One time dollars should buy permanent assets, and that's exactly what this does. The market cannot fix this alone. The market is exactly what got us here. The gap between what low income portlanders earn and what housing costs is too much and too large for the private market to close down on its own. That's not a criticism of developers. It is a fact about the economics of housing in this country. Construction of affordable housing has never produced a sufficient return on investment to attract private capital without public subsidy. That has been true for 90 years of federal housing policy, and it is true today. We can waive fees, we can streamline permits, and we should. But the cost of materials and labor and financing will always exceed what anyone who is poor can pay. Lighttech is necessary, but it's not sufficient. And congress expanded lighttech last year. But deal flow has actually slowed since the expansion, and more credits does not necessarily mean more housing. We can keep cycling through subsidies that expire, or we can start converting some of those dollars into permanent public assets that never expire and never convert debt by debt. Buy downs are part of that process. Making sure that we are permanently restructuring finances, that we target over leveraged mortgage debt, and that we are changing operating costs. By using acquisition as a tool, we can buy property that the public will own outright, and both are structural fixes. These are not bandaid solutions to these long term problems. What this policy doesn't do is, I think we have to acknowledge that 56 million is not going to sink handedly, resolve our housing crisis or homelessness crisis. It does not close the 300 person monthly gap between inflows and outflows of who is leaving homelessness and who is becoming homeless. It does not replace the federal funding that is being pulled away from local municipalities. The rent assistance package will run out eventually, but what it does do, and what is absolutely critical for this body to understand, is that it keeps people in their homes while we build something that lasts. The debt buy down permanently lowers rents. The social housing acquisition permanently removes property from the speculative market, and those assets the public will own in ten years and 20 years. In 50 years. Everything in this package is a triage to address our problems, and that includes both long term and short term solutions. But to me, the real importance of this package is that it is investing in our permanent infrastructure, and that is what councils before us have failed to do, and that is what we have an opportunity to do with these one time dollars. So I really hope that we will be able to pass this package today for the long term health and well-being of portlanders, not just in the coming years, not just those who are going to remember this for our reelections, but for generations to come. So thank you so much for having me speak today. I really appreciate your time.

Is this working? Okay. Thank you. Councilor Morillo. Our other co-sponsor is council president Dunphy. He is not going to speak, but he shares there he is. He shares all of our sentiments. All right. So I'm going to go ahead and walk through the ordinance very quickly. And then we're going to get right into testimony. So that should be on the screen. And then I also have copies here for my committee members in person. Oh, and councilor Novick you're online, but you've got it online. So. All right. So at its core, this ordinance allocates a set of housing resources that were identified over the past several months and now require council direction. So those include 20.7 million in rental service office funds, 19.7 million in short term rental and transient lodging tax funds, 10.7 million in construction excise tax funds and 4.8 million in river district tax increment financing. Together, these resources represent a significant opportunity and responsibility for council to invest in a way that responds to the urgency of portland's housing needs. And what this ordinance does is take a balanced, system wide approach, making investments across prevention, stabilization, housing access and long term supply. So first rent assistance, a total of 9 million will be allocated, including 5 million for flexible short term rent assistance for households at risk of losing housing before facing eviction, 2 million in expanded funding for rent assistance and rapid rehousing for tenants facing eviction, and 2 million in new funding for rent assistance for individuals experiencing homelessness, next eviction, defense and right to counsel 1.9 million in new funding for eviction defense services administered by the Portland housing bureau, including eviction defense contractors and the right to council pilot. Next is the debt buy down and housing stabilization. 8.8 million in funding to the Portland housing bureau to administer operating supports, including debt buy down to preserve affordability, improve living conditions and stabilize housing providers in the city's affordable housing portfolio. Next, we have landlord tenant education at 200,000 and expanded expanded funding to support landlords implementing tenant protections, expand landlord tenant education and provide an informational campaign so tenants better understand their rights. Next is down payment assistance, 800,000 in new funding to provide down payment assistance for tenants who are ready to purchase a home. Next, we have a general fund allocation. 4 million is going back to the general fund. Then we have broadway corridor, 5.6 million in new funding for broadway corridor parcel six. Next, we have affordable housing development, 3 million in gap financing for williams and russell self enhancement, inc. And urban plaza to support projects moving forward. Next, we have social housing acquisition, 10 million in new funding for direct acquisition of one or more properties for social housing under permanent public ownership, and finally, notice of funding availability 12.6 million will remain unallocated at this time and is intended to support a future notice of funding, availability or nofa for housing development. Taken together, this ordinance reflects a comprehensive approach investing and keeping people housed today, stabilizing the housing we already have and building toward the housing system Portland needs moving forward. So with that here, let me talk about process. So we've got a bunch of different amendments that are proposed. And here's what I would suggest. I'm going to have everybody introduce very briefly their amendments very, very briefly so that we can get right into testimony. But I want folks testifying to understand your intent behind your amendments. Before we get into discussion. After that, we'll move into testimony. Please note we noted that on online, but the time has been reduced to 90s. You know, we're at 3:00 right now. We've got two more hours. I just want to urge the public, I'm grateful for you being here wherever possible to minimize your comments or just say, you know, ditto to what was heard so that we can get straight into committee discussion, because we do have a lot of amendments to review, and I want to make sure we have time to pass this, because tomorrow, what comes out of this committee is going to be placed as an amendment during the tax or, I'm sorry, during the technical adjustment ordinance or tah. And so it is urgent that we get this out of committee today. So I want us to get back to the the discussion. And then we have several people in the room here to answer questions. So with that, let's go ahead and open it up to councilors who have amendments. Any preference on who would like to go first? Oh, here you go. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. Colleagues. I submitted three amendments. I'll save the overarching how they go together for our discussion after public testimony. The first pirtle-guiney one replaces the current debt by down language with more specific language, tying debt by downs to tangible reductions in rent and one time a one time infusion of dollars that can lead to ongoing benefits for the community, including turnover of units, keeping those units full, and security enhancements, as well as, again, those tangible, targeted rent reductions that we've talked so much about. I'm trying to capture the conversations we've had in specific language. Pirtle-guiney two creates a new category of funding, and we've talked about the importance of the deeply affordable housing units in our community. And we know that deeply affordable, supportive housing units are some of the hardest to bring and keep online. But the package, as it currently stands, doesn't target those units in any way. We have a couple of providers who I believe will hear from in public testimony, who will talk about the importance of targeting some of our funds toward these particular units. This amendment ensures that we can keep those units online, many of which were at risk of losing in our community right now. The third, pirtle-guiney three, adds an additional project, and I know there has been some heartburn amongst many of our colleagues over enumerating specific projects, and I hesitate to bring forward another because of that. But I think that this is a really critical project for us to hear about. Hacienda recently purchased a building that was developed or began development as an affordable housing building, but the developer abandoned the project midway through. There is a shell that is finished. The inside is not yet fully built out. Hacienda is interested in changing the footprint of the units within the building so that they are all family sized units, two and three bedroom units. And because the permitting is done, the foundation is in the ground and the shell is created. I believe these are over 50 units that could actually be online by the end of the year, if we can help them with gap funding. This is in line with the gap funding idea that we have for other projects, but adds a project to that list, which again, could get us over 50 family sized units within the year. And I'm hopeful that they're here today to give us more details about that. But I think it's an important piece for us to consider as we try to move quickly with our work.

Okay. Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Councilor. Novick. Can you please briefly introduce your amendments?

Yes. Novick three would the first thing we'd do, and to me, probably the most important is clara specify something which I think chair Avalos said was already your intent that the $8.6 billion from the 2% transient lodging tax, which could all be directed to the general fund legally, will all be directed to the general fund, 4.3 million for this fiscal year, 4.3 million for next fiscal year. I think of that as my found money lay off avoidance proposal or. I would also propose that instead of having some money allocated for specific projects, some money for social housing, some money for nofas, I'm proposing a comprehensive $21 million pot for the creation of a new fund dedicated to loans for long term housing construction, affordable housing preservation, and the direct acquisition of properties for social housing and permanent public ownership. And it clarifies that we actually would expect those loans to be repaid. There's a history in the housing bureau of making loans that are not repaid. Novick two is the simplest of my amendments that that relates to eviction defense, and it's simply lists the elements of comprehensive eviction defense. It's language that we got from service providers. Then we have Novick one a and one b relating to rent assistance. It's my view that rent assistance should be targeted to people who either are homeless or are at severe risk of homelessness. So whereas the current proposal would dedicate $5 million in rent assistance to people who are at risk but not facing eviction, I propose either spending 6 million on people for rent assistance and people facing eviction, and 3 million on people transitioning from shelter to homelessness, or the reverse, 6 million to people transitioning from shelter to homelessness, and 3 million to people facing eviction. And I note that the mayor says that the money he's asking for, for people transitioning from shelter to homelessness, cost about $19,000 per family. Becky strauss at the Oregon law center tells me that the average amount at issue an eviction proceeding is $3,000, and I've read that 16% of people against evictions are filed, actually are evicted, and there's evidence showing a large percentage of those become homeless. So actually, I think that if you compare the two, either we spend $3,000 on six people, and that should result in avoiding one case of homelessness or $19,000 on one person to move them out of homelessness. I think that the impact is kind of equivalent. So I propose those as two alternate to alternate proposals one a and one b.

All right. Thank you. Councilor Novick. So again, please try your best to be brief, but we are looking forward to hearing from you. Let's go ahead and get into public testimony.

Thank you chair. I'll call folks up in groups of five. And just a quick housekeeping for those who are testifying in person. Well, for everyone testifying, you each receive 90s for folks that are in person, you'll see the timer countdown on the monitor in front of you at the testimony table. And for virtual testifiers, you'll see your timer countdown in zoom. So first we have blake baker, kevin cronin, zach white, andy miller, kathleen swift. Kevin will join us online shortly.

Go ahead.

My name is zach white. I knocked on doors for some of you with my work with nextup action fund, but today I'm speaking as someone who was born at Portland adventist hospital. I'm 29 years old. I would love to own a home in the city I was born in. But most of you probably know fortune magazine reported that the average home buyer in the united states is 59 years old. The city is my home, but that is out of reach for many people. Many young people. Today, I pay too much of my income for a small apartment in Sellwood. I love the bald eagles outside my window and the parks. The algorithmic price fixing ban you pass feels like pointing in the right direction. So thank you. I was proud to stand outside while councilor Avalos introduced slow the inflow in December, you told the story of being 12 years old, helping your family live paycheck to paycheck with grace and humor. But the pain and injustice of that hit me really hard. I posted a clip of that online and someone commented that they cried opening their paycheck and seeing they have just enough to pay for rent. In the last social housing report, you saw a double line graph of average rent in Portland rising faster than average income for working portlanders. The math isn't matching. I support the the keep Portland house proposal gap financing for humans. You ate with that? Most young people in the city may not own properties or stock shares, but this city is ours. Thank you for hearing us.

Thank you. Yes.

Vice chair Green, members of the housing and permanent committee. For the record, my name is kevin cronin, and I'm a registered as a lobbyist in my role as a director of policy and advocacy at housing Oregon. We're a statewide association of mission driven organizations that build, finance, operate and support affordable housing. I'm here today in support of the ordinance, especially the proposed investment in operating support, including debt buy down for non-market housing. We need to treat affordable housing like the public service it has become, instead of forcing it to operate like a business. Affordable housing has cropped up far more than just our housing system. We became the place where gaps in the health system, the addiction recovery system, the court system and the safety net all landed at once. The financial math changed. Higher earners saw their incomes rise. People at the bottom did not. Affordable housing operates under rent restrictions and formulas based on area median income that do not always match what extremely low income tenants can actually afford to pay. The result is plain buildings serving the 0 to 30% ami portlanders are often unable to cover basic operating costs. This ordinance has practical tools that can help align rents with tenant income, stabilize operations, fill vacant units, and preserve affordable homes. My last point when the city invests project funds and affordable housing development, those dollars should move through a Portland housing bureau nofa process. As the professional association, we think that is a best practice and creates clear expectations and increases transparency. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Go ahead kathy.

Thank you. I'm kathy swift, senior vice president at heritage bank. Lending to affordable housing, homeless shelters and social safety net nonprofit providers in Oregon, many of them here in Portland. I do believe that with the federal, state and county funding cuts, our safety net holes are widening quickly. And over the next 12 months, there is an accelerating number of citizens who will fall into homelessness. The spending allocation is very well thought out, and while not enough money to solve this crisis we are facing, it is what we have available to triage the worst outcomes. This plan will be effective, in my opinion, and rather than seek perfection in our solution, we can and should use these funds as soon as possible for rent assistance, gap financing on projects really close to closing and bringing on units and debt buy downs to keep projects from falling into foreclosure. I disagree with councilor Novak's proposed amendments, as I don't believe they are as well thought out as several of what's been proposed and as a lender to this sector, action is absolutely necessary now. Thank you.

We've got andy online.

Yeah. Hi. Chair Avalos, vice chair Green and members of the committee. For the record, I'm andy miller. I'm here as executive director of our just future and affordable housing and shelter provider located in district one. While our organization supports a lot of the proposed package, I want to use my 90s today to emphasize and lift up two critical funding priorities. First, we urge the council to fast track and increase your proposed investments in rental assistance for people experiencing homelessness outlined in one c, and specifically to prioritize these investments for people currently living in shelters at risk of closure due to budget contraction, Multnomah county's homeless services department has proposed a budget for fy 27 that would close over 600 currently occupied shelter beds in less than 100 days, with no budget to fund a transition plan without immediate investment, we risk having to discharge 600 portlanders staying at our shelters. Back to unsheltered homelessness. This is a preventable catastrophe targeted rapid deployment of rent assistance to impacted shelter providers can successfully move people from shelter to housing, and avoid the disastrous consequence of returning people currently sheltered to the streets. Second, with respect to portfolio stabilization, we support these investments and we believe they are urgent and will work best if they remain flexible. Across our portfolio of 600 apartments and affordable housing, we're seeing increased financial strain, rising operating costs and real risks to the stability of existing units. We appreciate your leadership and urge you to act with urgency. Thank you.

Once more for blake baker. Next is molly hogan. Mandy campos, giovanna bustamante, becky strauss, squire, squire.

Hello committee members, my name is molly hogan and I'm the director of welcome home coalition, a multicultural housing justice alliance that believes we can have a system that ensures everyone access to a home, no matter their income, for the sake of so many households on the verge of losing their housing this month and on the verge of becoming housed again, I beg you all to move forward together to pass the keep Portland housed ordinance and stop sitting on millions of dollars that could help real people. Now we know that eviction prevention, legal services and rent assistance dramatically slow the number of people falling into homelessness, data shows four out of five people stayed in their housing from receiving era after eviction filings. I also want to set the record straight on comments made that Multnomah county has spent tons of money on eviction prevention, and it hasn't helped. In actuality, last fiscal year, Multnomah county spent just 3% of its supportive housing services funds on eviction prevention. While we want to see this proposed ordinance move forward, I must call out two areas of allocation we find problematic one, sending $4 million back to the city general fund while mayor wilson is going to neighboring counties and begging for money is nonsensical. Keep your own housing money to pay to address homelessness. And two. Giving $5.6 million of public money to a for profit developer is so disappointing. Can you, as leaders, prioritize people's right to sleep and survive with safety and privacy over someone's right to make a profit? The city is not in dire need of more $2,500 a month apartments opening in five years, but we are desperately in need of public dollars being spent to make more $500 a month apartments for our neighbors who will never reenter the workforce and deserve dignity and housing. And quickly, I want to say I do not support Novick amendments. They don't make sense. Elana pirtle-guiney your amendments. First time I heard them made sense. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Hello, my name is mandy campos. I'm with the welcome home coalition, but I'm testifying from my own experience as someone who has worked in housing for the last six years, from housing subsidies for young parents coming out of homelessness, emergency rental assistance for eviction prevention, and renters rights education. I have seen countless firsthand accounts from our ongoing tenant crisis and real life people, families, and stories impacted the constituents you owe a responsibility towards, not to be seen as numbers and data, but as your fellow neighbors. My experience has shown me that eviction prevention through emergency rental assistance is a bandage to a bleeding wound, to a larger systemic failure that needs to be addressed. However, it is a wound that is urgent and must be attended. Nonetheless, we can look ahead while also meeting people and their needs where they're at. The cost of living goes up. Affordable housing is not affordable. Affordable wages stay stagnant and the conditions of properties do not improve with each rent increase. This only perpetuates the cycle of homelessness where we can prevent it before it starts. We need emergency rental assistance to keep households afloat while we figure out how to do more than the bare minimum for our communities. To quote the 101 notes of the l.a. Tenant union. Note five when we call this a housing crisis, it benefits the people who design housing, who build housing, who profit from housing, not the people who live in it. Instead of putting part of these funds in the house in the hands of for profit developers, it needs to go to eviction prevention, debt, buy down or public acquisition categories. Do right by the people in your communities you serve. Thank you.

Hi, my name is giovanna bustamante and I work as a director of economic and sustainability for program hispano catolico. Today I want to start by sharing a participant's story which helps them, which I hope demonstrates how critical rent assistance is before an eviction notice. The. This participant participant showed up in extreme distress, unsure of how they would be able to pay rent due to. Due to their advanced age and this participant didn't work and relies on fixed ssi income. They shared an apartment with their adult son who had been covering most of the household expenses. Unfortunately, this participant son was suddenly deported, leaving them alone without the financial support they need. They needed to maintain their housing by providing rental assistance program, I was able to prevent their eviction and secure an additional two months of housing stability. This extension allowed the participant time to work with their caseworker to apply for, for, and for transition low income housing. This is just an example of how a providing rental assistance can support a community, a member, and someone before the eviction is present. Our program helps maintain housing stability, reduce entry into shelter, and support families during crisis situations. I urge you, I urge this committee to approve the budget relocation support to to support programs like us in the communities we serve. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos. Members of the housing committee. My name is becky strauss. I'm here on behalf of the Oregon law center in support of this ordinance. Thank you for the opportunity. Our client community includes the six 16,000 people in Multnomah county struggling with homelessness, and the thousands more who are living on extremely low or fixed incomes and are rent burdened in their housing. We are a contractor, current contractor with the city for eviction prevention legal services. We're ready to scale up. We appreciate the investment. I'm in support of Novick two. I think that makes sense. Lawyers are critical to help people know their rights, help them navigate a very fast and complicated process, and avoid an eviction judgment. But rent assistance is what keeps people stable and housed. It's the smartest and most important investment in this proposal. As you all know, there was a big spike in eviction filings in January and 12% in Multnomah county. That was 13%. Over 90% of those cases are nonpayment of rent cases. Those are safety net failure. Evictions and rent assistance can keep tenants housed in those situations. The average is councilor, Novick noted, is about less than 13,000, but I saw filing in the docket just looking today from a February filing that was $47. That was at issue in the case. That's less than the filing fee to take the case to court. Another case I was looking at was for $220 in the. That was at issue in the in the eviction, the tenant went to court. She didn't have a lawyer. She negotiated with the landlord's lawyer and she sent a payment plan for over $7,000 on a $220 eviction. Of course, she didn't make those terms. That also included the landlord's fees. She got a judgment against her and she got evicted. We could have prevented that eviction with rent assistance. Availability $220. Thank you for.

Your time is up.

Thank you for. Thank you for.

Listening, I appreciate you. Thank you very much.

Looks like we have squire squire online.

Good afternoon. My name is squire and I'm a street librarian for street books mobile library, serving people living outside and on the margins. I support item 2026 125 with amendments. It's hard to believe that in the last six months, the city of Portland has uncovered millions in unspent housing funds, unspent, unused while people fell into homelessness waiting for help. While we are desperate for permanently affordable housing, while we see more and more people lose their homes every day, our patrons are more than percentages. They are more than numbers. They are names. They have stories. Their resilience is humbling. All Portland housing bureau dollars should be directed toward the people who need it the most. Our city government should spend our tax dollars to bring down the cost of housing. Housing is expensive. Housing dollars should not be going to the general fund. Mary wilson has already wasted over $325 million in his failing overnight shelter project, and to the abhorrently inhumane sweeps plaguing our most vulnerable neighbors, housing dollars should not be going to the for profit broadway corridor project. It is unconscionable to give housing dollars to developer companies to create more unaffordable housing. Portland let's be honest, fair market housing is not fair. We need to invest in social housing acquisition and development. We need to support public acquisition of underutilized private market property. We need to apply continuous pressure on our local governments to invest in making housing affordable for all. It is vital that we create forever affordable housing. Thank you.

Next up, we have councilor Loretta Smith, benjamin gilbert, anna krenitsky, sarah fisher, crystal delahanty. Sarah will join us online virtually.

Go ahead councilor.

Thank you so much. It does feel different when we're on this side of the dais. And I just want to say, councilor Avalos, to your first five points. Ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto. And to you, Elana pirtle-guiney your amendments. Ditto, ditto, ditto. I'm supporting your supplemental budget budget that directs unallocated funds into to what matters most emergency rental assistance, affordable housing options and pathways to home ownership. This is such a time sensitive time in this housing crisis. These are dollars we can use right now to stabilize families and invest in long term solutions. We have here in Portland an opportunity to put real action into our housing crisis. Too many of our families are struggling to stay housed, and behind every number, there is a real person. Specifically, I support what you're trying to do with the broadway corridor with williams and russell and building home ownership, and also making sure that our most vulnerable folks who are facing eviction, that they get those dollars first. I also want to say specifically, let's support hacienda. We can put about 50 units on on live by the end of this year. And secondly, oasis of praise, which is in district three. Those folks need an opportunity to serve our houseless and our vulnerable individuals with mental health warming and cooling centers. Thank you so much for allowing me this time.

Thank you councilor. Whoever wants to go next, go ahead. Ben.

My name is ben gilbert and I'm a tenant in district four. I'm also a volunteer lobbyist for the Portland democratic socialists of America, a mass democratic organization with over 3000 dues paying members in the Portland metro area, many of whom are struggling renters being crushed by the rapidly increasing costs of housing services and consumer goods, the working class desperately needs the government to step up and work for us. With that said, we generally support the supplemental budget for the Portland housing bureau for this fiscal year. We support the debt buy downs because they lower rents, stabilize affordable housing and fill vacancies. We're very supportive of funding for the acquisition of social housing because it is essential to a truly affordable future. Portland the market has failed to deliver affordable housing, and social housing is a proven solution. In fact, projects like parcel six, funded almost exclusively with millions of public dollars, should be the types of the types of developments that we include in our social housing portfolio. We support eviction defense because it works and stops the inflow into homelessness. We saw how effective prevention worked during the pandemic to dramatically reduce the inflow into homelessness. One change we would like to see is the general fund monies reallocated towards rent assistance, rent assistance, rent buy downs and social housing. Every dollar towards the general fund is a dollar taken away from mitigating the housing crisis in our city right now. And to conclude, we strongly advocate that city hall adopt and operationalize the renters bill of rights. Again, renters are being crushed under the weight of this economy. And will the bosses and the lobbyists at the metro chamber cry about tax cuts? We desperately need direct assistance and protections for tenants. Thank you.

Thank you. Anna.

Good afternoon. I'm anna kurnatowski, executive director of community warehouse, the Portland area's only furniture bank I support generally support this supplemental budget's investments in eviction prevention, acquisition of existing housing, rent assistance and rehousing. These are critical, especially after federal, state and county cuts. From our vantage point, furnishing homes for thousands of families each year. Full spectrum housing investments are what make the system work. When someone gets a housing voucher but has no furniture, their housing isn't functional or stable, the data shows. When people transitioning out of homelessness receive coordinated support, they're most likely to succeed. Also, prevention is exponentially more effective than crisis response. The biggest indicator of someone will experience homelessness is if they've experienced it before. Eviction prevention must remain a priority. While this budget fills some gaps, we know it doesn't resolve everything and we cannot keep making reactive decisions in crisis mode. Community warehouse joins the welcome home coalition and housing organ and calling for the city and county to collectively and immediately map fy 27 resources and gaps across all funding streams. Please engage service providers in service planning. Strategic planning. We are on the front lines and we see what works as you. Map resources include the full spectrum of housing stability services. How are essential supports like furniture funded? I urge you to support these investments that address housing and equity, not additions to the general fund, and to commit to comprehensive resource mapping with service providers at the not proverbial table. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is sarah fisher. You're online. I think you're still muted, sarah.

Here I am. Good afternoon councilors. My name is sarah fisher. I'm a street chaplain in the Montavilla neighborhood. And I'm here today alongside other providers and advocates from east Portland. I am here for people with whom I worship every Sunday evening in Montavilla park, some of whom are desperately trying to hold on to their housing and others who are waiting to get into housing. They are tired of being on the street, and they are even more tired of hearing about millions of hidden and unallocated housing dollars. I am here to ask you to ensure that the 9 million in rent assistance and rapid rehousing be equitably distributed with intentional investment in east Portland. There's a poster in the city hall building, which I know many of you are familiar with, suggesting that 1500 shelter beds are equivalent to a bed for every homeless portlander. This is simply not true. Congregate shelters with extremely limited services are not for everyone, and that does not mean that the thousands of people still homeless don't deserve to be helped through these funds. I would love to see $6 million to help people who are currently homeless, but shelter providers should not be prioritized in the allocation of those funds. On the ground in east Portland, sweeps have increased dramatically. But unlike the sweeps touted by the city's social media, there are no outreach workers visiting people, living their unsheltered and offering them resources. Please pass this crucial ordinance and please prioritize geographic equity. Thank you.

Thank you. Normally, normally we don't let people clap. I'm letting you clap. I really don't care that much, but let's just try to keep it quick. And if you can do this, that would just help us keep it moving. But okay. Next. Diego, can you call the next person? Yeah, thanks.

Next is crystal delehanty, desiree eden ocampo, michelle hornbeck, sahan mckelvie, aman. Rutherford. Green.

Go ahead. Crystal.

Good afternoon, council and committee members. My name is crystal delahanty and I'm the executive director of pdx saints love and a steering committee member for welcome home.

I'm here alongside our collective of providers, advocates and community members in strong support of the keep Portland house resolution. We support this because it reflects what we are seeing every day. Homelessness is being driven by economic displacement. In 2025, thousands of people became homeless for the very first time in their lives. This was also followed by approximately 12,000 evictions filed. And I found out this morning, just year to date, 3058 evictions filed this quarter. Families are not falling into homelessness because of a single crisis. They are being priced out and left without stabilization. It costs double or sometimes triple to rehouse an individual once they are in the court system, which shows us that it's not only less traumatizing for the people, but also cost effective efficient for all of us. People should not have to face the devastation of eviction before they deserve a life raft from us. We strongly support the $9 million in rent assistance and rapid rehousing, and we ask that it be equitably, equitably distributed with intentional investment in east Portland over the past. Over the past year, funding shifted towards downtown and old town, and we saw hundreds of family in east Portland lose their housing while shelters became bottlenecked without placement out of them. We support without changes the rest of the amendment, and we want to thank councilor Avalos for your leadership, for listening to community, to thoughtfully put this package together. I look forward to the rest of the committee support here.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, councilors. Thank you for having me. My name is desiree ocampo. I'm the executive director of rehab sisters. We are a day center in east Portland along 82nd avenue serving women, trans and gender queer individuals experiencing homelessness, poverty and housing insecurity. I'm here to support the package as written and also echo the sentiments of councilor, Morillo and many of the many before me have already testified. Especially about social housing. But I'm here to also speak directly with the line item number one, as written, without amendments, because it prioritizes allocating $5 million to support households at risk of losing housing before facing eviction. And the key thing here to underscore is before facing eviction. I want to underscore also that it is exponentially more cost effective to intervene with eviction prevention. Housing stability efforts before an eviction is filed. Sisters, we can help prevent eviction for up to ten households, if not more, who are at risk of losing their housing, as opposed to only one household who has had an eviction notice for the same amount of money. But hearing councilor Novak's numbers earlier today, I'm going to change that to 15. If the council wants to be prudent with these funds, it needs to keep the $5 million in line. Item one a and that is the fiscal response fiscally responsible thing to do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos. Vice chair Green and members of the committee. My name is Sameer mckelvie and I'm the director of advocacy and engagement as self enhancement, inc. Ci is here today in support of this proposed ordinance. And we would also support councilor Pirtle-guiney amendments. However, the primary thing we want to say is we urge you to move this forward as quickly as possible. These dollars represent a critical opportunity to make meaningful progress on housing stability in our community, and I continue to be a strong advocate for alignment in our housing system. At ci, we consistently see three areas that remain deeply underfunded and disproportionately impact the families we serve. These are rent affordability, eviction prevention, and real pathways to affordable homeownership. We appreciate that each of these priorities is reflected in this ordinance today. For families living month to month facing rising rents or the constant fear of eviction, timing matters. Delays don't just slow outcomes, they deepen harm for those experiencing homelessness or displacement. We can't wait weeks or months to provide desperately needed help. Tomorrow is often too late. This is why expediency is essential. We strongly encourage the committee and council to align and approve this ordinance. There have been many ideas brought forward over the past 3 to 4 months by multiple councilors, but we will achieve the greatest impact when we move forward without concern for who gets the credit. You have an opportunity, but only if action matches urgency. Our communities are counting on you to lead decisively and move with the speed that this moment demands. Thank you.

I hate going out there, son. Hi. Thank you for letting me be here. My name is aman rutherford. With. Also with welcome home. I'm a person that lives with lived experience and I testified it many times, but this is the first time I'm testifying saying that I'm not homeless. But because of how the system is working, I put my. I might be back in the homeless situation because I can't afford to pay rent. I got three jobs. I do the best I can, but the system is not working with fathers to be a father to his child. And the system told me to come here to be a father to my kid, but they didn't care about if I was homeless or not. So I'm hoping that you guys are, you know, care about fathers and allow fathers to be there for their kids. Because that's what I was here for. And as my baby's mom celebrate her birthday, I'm here talking to you guys and hopefully I won't be evicted, but I need help. So I need that rent assistance because I don't want to go back to a shelter. But after I leave here, I will be one of the people to do the wrap around services because my job is part of as hygiene for all is to help give blankets and different things to people that's homeless. And I talk to people that's homeless every day and we need rent assistance. So that's my.

Job.

Once more. For michelle anne hornbeck. Okay, we'll move on to amanda bowman mejia, Ryan salas, gus krol, lisa jackson, spotted elk and miss cheryl carter. Amanda is joining us virtually. Feel free to unmute and begin when you're ready. Amanda.

Dear city council, I am here today to testify in support of the keep Portland housed ordinance. I'm a school social worker at centennial school district, and I support many families who are unable to afford rent and are at risk of becoming homeless. My heart breaks when I hear of a family who needs rental assistance to stay housed, because there are little to no resources to support our families. In particular, my immigrant and non-english speaking families have the highest barriers to getting rental assistance. When families experience homelessness, it greatly impacts their child's ability to attend school and thus impacts their learning negatively. Furthermore, chronic homelessness can greatly impact a child's chance of graduating due to the instability and trauma they experience. Families in east Portland have the highest barriers to accessing resources due to historical and current institutional neglect. I urge you to prioritize our families in east Portland, as well as to ask that funds are distributed in a way that is accessible and transparent for our students and families. We do not need to waste time or money in creating new programs or systems that gatekeep funds from those who need it the most. Thank you.

Ryan, you're up next. Once more for Ryan solis. Not seeing them online. Gus kroll.

Yeah. Oh, sorry. Where's the notes? Sorry, I had it up. Councilors. My name is gus kroll. I'm here speaking only for myself. I'm a proud member and union steward at afscme local 88, sub local three. I work for transition projects as a veterans. Income development specialist. My job is to help vets who are receiving rental assistance to also look for employment. I have 15 years in the field of homeless services as well as personal lived experience of homelessness. Today, I'm here to ask you to do your best to retain the highly skilled and culturally competent staff that serve unhoused community every day. This work is hard and it is not for everyone. We want to ask that the members of this council to do what they can to make sure that the services that are paying for the services that you are paying for are the ones our poorest neighbors deserve. That means drawing on this, the service providers with a depth of knowledge and experience. Instead of shopping around for the cheapest contractors. I'm here to day to support commissioner Avalos proposal, but also to ask you to retain the skilled workers who know how to do this work and the people with the with the people with the most barriers to getting stayed into housing long term, because investing in skilled staff means better outcomes for our most vulnerable community members in the long term. Thank you.

Lisa, you can go ahead. Or if there's no lisa, miss cheryl.

Good afternoon councilors. My name is cheryl, miss cheryl and I'm a part of this community. Have been for more than 16, 20 years maybe. But what I came to say today is we have to help this crisis. I've been a part of t I I'm now part of oj, I'm also a part of Multnomah county. Those are boards that I sit on, and those are boards that I believe in that will help curb some of this. I live downtown at jefferson and 11th southwest, and I see this every day when shelters are closed. What happens when agencies for addictions, mental health curve? I see what happens. A lot of them live in front of my building, and I would like to see a lot of this cleaned up because I experienced homelessness for more than eight years. And I'll tell you, if we don't do something, if we don't curb this, the crime rate will skyrocket and it will be overnight. So I thank you guys for allowing all of us who have spoken up to come and let you guys know that in the streets, it's real in these boardrooms. It's real also. But we have to do something because we have this power. Thank you. And in the voice of doctor maya angelou, still I rise.

Thank you.

Next we have rina casey, madison moskowitz, pastor mark jackson, lauren armony, pastor david greenwich, devin ruiz. And brian. Now feel free to begin when you're ready. Perhaps no. Raina once more. You can go ahead. Madison. No. Madison. Once more. Okay, pastor. Mark.

Yeah. Thank you. Pastor mark jackson, board member for voices of praise. I want to want to just appreciate the investment allocation toward cy williams and rustin. Also hacienda, I'm here today just to again, to call to your attention the important work that oasis has been doing in district three around housing services, behavioral mental health supports and whatnot. Southeast Portland, southeast Portland is a real service desert, and we've been doing special work for nearly three decades now. I just wish you all would consider, again, our capital project request to really kind, to acquire, to renovate our space, to include a community resource center, to continue all the great work we've been doing to address the drugs in our community, the homelessness, where we provide not just rental assistance, but also temporary housing, as well as warming centers and also access to showers. So as you all continue to explore these, these funds being allocated, consider the great work being done in district three with oceans of praise. Thank you so very much.

Mitch Green: I'm also pastor david Green, and I've known pastor mark jackson for many years and support his work. I also used to be the executive director of constructing hope, an organization that helps provide offenders with jobs in the construction industry. And we did affordable housing really, really excited about oasis appraisers doing. They've been in Portland metro areas. Pastor jackson has stated for many years they are serving people with crisis response, emergency management, mental health services for the poor, family counseling, social life skills, youth and family outreach programs, businessconsulting resource information sharing, hot meals, community clothes, closet, warming center shower facilities, hygiene products, rental assistance. The last thing is rental assistance that they, as well as the coalition of african and african American pastors, distributed over $1 million to help people. The money went fast. The need is great. So we fully support oasis of praise and the other organizations that need help at this time. Thank you.

Lauren, I believe you're up next.

Thank you.

Chair Avalos, vice chair Green and the rest of the city of Portland housing and permitting committee. My name is lauren armony, and although I work with the welcome home coalition, I am speaking on behalf of myself in support of the keep Portland house proposal. I was born and raised in southeast Portland and I graduated from cleveland high school go warriors. I have watched the city that raised me that I love grow increasingly unaffordable and continue to witness the impacts of that unaffordability myself and the people I went to school with and grew up with are not only unable to afford the neighborhoods that we grew up in, we are ending up homeless. Like myself. Portland can no longer be said to be the place where young people go to retire, which was the appeal for so many people who moved here the past 20 years. We have the incredible opportunity to use these supplemental funds to target upstream measures that will stabilize and protect portlanders. My colleagues uplifted my other concerns, so I want to speak to the one I am most excited about, and that is social housing and call it what it is, social housing. I was one of the lucky individuals to join the delegation to vienna this past September, and it was the first time in my life I left the united states, and it was also the first time in my life that I felt the visceral effects of a city and government that truly supported its residents. Housing was beautiful and affordable. Transit arrived every 3 to 5 minutes. And yes, there were sausage and döner kebab stands every ten blocks. They may have started 100 years ago, but they had to start somewhere. We have the chance to start today with these record low market rate housing opportunities for acquisition, please look ahead to a more diverse, dignified and beautiful future and fully invest in the allocations for social housing. Thank you.

Devin, I believe. Yep.

Chair Avalos, vice chair Green and members of the committee. My name is evan ruiz. I'm ad2 cully resident and a lobbyist for. Next up, we're a local nonprofit that works to amplify the voice and leadership of diverse young people to make a more just and equitable organ. Since 2022, nextstep has paid all program participants this year, starting $23 an hour. Because we know that despite housing being a human right, our young people are being crushed by this manufactured affordability crisis. All portlanders deserve to have access to stable and secure housing, and as such, we urge you to pass the keep Portland keep Portland house resolution with amendments suggested by the welcome home coalition. As someone who was raised in a studio apartment by a single mother in a city that luckily had rent control, I want to see all Portland housing bureau dollars directed towards the people that need this most. The city and its residents feel every day how expensive housing is, and we know that preventing evictions before they occur is the most cost efficient way to address homelessness and protect low income renters. Focusing on programs like debt buy downs on home ownership, social housing and acquisition create pathways for sustainable housing going forward. I do not believe in housing dollars. Going back to the general fund or giving limited public tax funds to developers who will create more unaffordable housing opening in five plus years. We know that that's not where the need is. We need public funds to create more affordable housing. Today, these dollars have been held from the community for too long, and we hope to see your actions as soon as possible.

Next up, we have. Annie berry, andie mendenhall, justice, reggie beth cooke, colleen carroll. Annie, feel free to begin when you're ready.

Hello committee members, thank you so much. And I'd like to speak on the 100 plus million dollars that was discovered in unspent housing funds. I'd also like to point out that we had a homelessness and housing committee, which was originally credited with finding these funds, but was disbanded only to only in the last two weeks. And now we just have the housing committee and. These funds now appear to only be applicable potentially to housing and housing options. And. I think that we as a public lack clarity on why that is. Homelessness services and pdx, especially in old town, have been facing severe financial challenges. Grants are underfunded. Services which have existed for years are not receiving the funds that they need to be sustainable. I think if we could see the funds be used to sustain houselessness services, including housing that already exists and are currently underfunded, I think I agree with most people here that this money should not be going to developers. It should not be going to long term projects. It should be going to things that exist already. And. I strongly also recommend some oversight and public accountability around these funds so that we can see where they're going and that they're going to places that are needed the most. And I think the public deserves clarity on why the homelessness committee has been disbanded and rebranded as housing first. Thank you.

Andy, you're up next.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair Green, members of the committee. Andy mendenhall for the record, president and ceo of central city concern. In my brief time allotted, I want to address why there is such a significant demand for preservation dollars and offer some suggestions for consideration. As mr. Cronin from housing Oregon noted earlier, affordable housing providers, especially deeply affordable housing providers like central city concern, are frequently serving residents with untreated substance use disorder, severe mental illness, and increasing levels of aging and cognitive decline. These realities have changed over the past six years in particular, and have fundamentally changed what it takes to operate housing safely and successfully. This is not theoretical, it's measurable. Very briefly at central city concern, our partners at health share of Oregon crosswalks, homelessness information with an analysis of high acuity behavioral health folks. And in 2025, roughly half of the residents that we serve, more than 1100 individuals fell into one of those high acuity behavioral health needs. So in recognition of the increasing costs, we'd like to ask council to do three things. First, prioritize the preservation of deeply affordable and supportive housing, especially for extremely low income households. Second, allow flexible use of these funds for operating support, debt restructuring, capital repair, safety improvements and supportive service stabilization. I'll hold the third. I do want to be very clear and just say that preservation funding is in no way, shape or form a bailout. It is repayment for years of unfunded, underfunded, essential work in the affordable housing space. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Justice. Feel free to go ahead.

Peace. My name is justice raji. I'm the director of advocacy and civic engagement for the urban league of Portland. I am a registered lobbyist with the city of Portland. To keep. Portland house package demonstrates the city council taking action to move resources into action, as is the responsibility of government to meet the will and the needs of the people as our representatives that you assign our precious public dollars to actually do the work that the folks need. Housing is a complex issue, and all of the things addressed in the current package try to meet some of the needs that are necessary to not only keep people housed, meaning rent assistance. That is one of the most effective ways to keep people in their housing rent by downs that make sure housing that is already affordable remains just that affordable, and also creating space to create, to fix and fill the gaps in affordable housing projects so that we continue to allow our community based organizations that are some of the leaders in the cutting edge of actually trying to connect development to the people and make it be centered on the people in the service of public dollars, to do the will of the people and take care of folks, as opposed to primarily looking for profit or other folks benefit, or to make the city somehow more attractive to people who weren't going to come here anyway in the first place. With that, I will be very brief and try to model wrapping up as soon as possible that appreciate the the pirtle-guiney amendments and look to. And thank you for taking action to get these funds in action now.

Next is beth cook.

Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair Green and members of the committee. For the record, my name is beth cook, chief advocacy officer with new narrative. We are a nonprofit community mental health provider serving adults across the greater Portland region. New narrative is in strong support of councilor Pirtle-guiney amendment, allocating $3 million for general operating support for deeply affordable, non-market housing. I want to briefly share an example that illustrates a strong gap in our system. The bridgeview community is a 47 unit, single room occupancy housing program in downtown Portland. It serves people with severe and persistent mental health conditions who are transitioning out of homelessness, the state hospital and other institutional settings. Bridgeview provides 24 over seven support on site case management and daily structure so people can remain stable and housed. Each resident holds their own lease and the building is supported through mission based property management. Most people have never heard of bridgeview, but programs like it are essential for people whose needs are not met by traditional housing and who do not qualify for institutional care. These psh plus programs fall in between funding systems that were not designed to support people with this level of need. Most resources are designed either for independent housing with minimal services or licensed treatment settings that can bill medicaid. This type of deeply affordable, service rich housing does not fit cleanly into either category. As a result, it is often sustained through short term funding, underfunding as you heard or left unsupported altogether. At the same time, there is growing interest in this model. The governor's recent executive order 2601 calls for the development of intensive, service rich tier three permanent supportive housing for people with the highest needs. We already have programs doing this work today, and without ongoing operating support, we risk losing them. That is the gap that this amendment addresses. I urge your support. Thank you.

Colleen, you're up next.

Hello to the committee. My name is colleen carroll, and I'm a member of the research team with the evicted and Oregon project at Portland state university. I'm not here to testify in support of or against any particular ordinance or package. But to summarize some of our research projects findings that are related to eviction prevention and diversion. Evicted in Oregon for the past six years has been researching evictions in Oregon. As you've heard, eviction is a complex, multi-step legal process, and our project publishes data statewide and at the county level, as well as evaluates eviction prevention and eviction diversion policies and programs, and has conducted research assessing tenant experiences of eviction in Oregon. Our research concludes that legal services for tenants facing eviction are emergency rent assistance, and other eviction prevention measures should be understood as a tourniquet, a life saving measure to forestall the worst outcomes, not just a band-aid, emergency rent assistance and legal support for tenants work well together. When tenants who received emergency rent assistance in addition to legal services, they had markedly better outcomes than tenants who received legal services alone. As you heard a little bit earlier from becky strauss, tenants without legal representation struggle to use any of the tenant protection ordinances provided at the city or state level and are often left in negotiations where landlords extract unnecessary and at times unlawful concessions. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Next up we have councilor Dan Ryan, sandra comstock, khadj or I'm sorry, k jensen, aaron fairchild, mobhi munoz chi will be joining us online.

Councilor. Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Hi. Good afternoon, chair Avalos, vice chair, Green and committee members. For the record, I'm councilor Dan Ryan. I want to bring into focus something that we have thus far neglected to publicly discuss. Our affordable housing partners are too often failing to provide stable, safe places for portlanders to call home. As we all know, the ongoing challenges with home forward are well documented in the media. What I've learned from many portlanders underscores these findings. People are concerned for their safety within their own homes. We know there are vacancy problems, maintenance issues, capital project backlogs, often involving behavioral wellness and substance abuse. I have two requests for my council colleagues. One, let's have a transparent discussion about accountability and identity and identify what success will look like as it relates to safety, living conditions and vacancy rates for projects and organizations that are funded through tax dollars. Two city funded housing awards should be included. Should include achievable outcomes for partner organizations providing data driven performance metrics. I'm sharing today to advocate for residents who are afraid of going into the hallway of their own building. I trust you are receiving these emails and calls too. Please believe them. Please hold them in your heart as you make these decisions. Thank you.

Sandra, you're up next.

Thanks. Sandra comstock, the executive director of hygiene for all. And I'm here today to ask you to please vote for the ordinance before you. As is, is the first step towards a unified, swift, regionally shelter and streets to housing strategy and away from the city's siloed shelter only gambits of mayors wheeler and wilson, which have sadly spiked homelessness and driven up economic and community costs. With the spending and outcome data in. It is clear what the. That the time for such evidence free gambles is over. All our local data shows that investing in housing stability and paths to housing is the most effective way to reverse our terrible track record. Comparing 2025 costs and outcomes explains why, specifically in 2025, eviction prevention with rent assistance costs approximately $11,000 per person, where 92% of participants stayed housed. Permanent supportive housing costs 16,000 per person, where 92% of recipients stayed housed. By comparison, congregate shelter cost 37,000 per bed. However, because only one person got housed for every two beds operated, the real cost of that one person getting into into housing was actually $82,179. Meanwhile, the safe rest villages cost 51, an average of $51,000 per pod. However, because only one person got housing for every four pods operated, the real cost to housing. One person in the village was $244,530. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you.

Next is chi chi's online. You're welcome to unmute and begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Hello, councilors. My name is kai jensen and I've lived in Portland for 13 years. I've experienced housing instability for much of that time, and I've lived at 11 different addresses while being a teacher, a nonprofit worker, and a civil servant. Obviously, I'm a renter. I have myalgic encephalomyelitis or m.e. Which has many common traits with long COVID. I've been able to work full time with accommodations over the past eight years since this chronic illness started, but my condition continues to worsen. I worry that soon I'll be unable to work and unable to afford to remain housed in my studio apartment while waiting through the disability benefits process. I have no wealth and no family to fall back on, trying to navigate the overnight shelter system and day systems that currently exist would kill me. As a 17 year old, I was homeless and I don't want to repeat that experience. I should be able to stay in my community even though I'm disabled. There are plenty of other people who have a variety of reasons why they might be one unexpected bill away from eviction. My neighbors and I deserve dignity and permanent housing. I think that it is vital that we explore things like community land trusts and other innovative solutions so that everyone who calls Portland home has a safe place to live. That's different than a cot to sleep on.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next is erin.

Hello.

My name is erin fairchild. I'm speaking in my capacity today as a human, as a business owner and as a member of a collective of local business owners called Portland businesses for all. Thank you all for your work as business owners. We know that when all portlanders thrive, our businesses thrive. As business owners, we want eviction prevention, we want debt buy downs, and we want public acquisition of underutilized private market property. We arer city to prioritize policies that create real path to low barrier, stable, social, permanent housing. We are not interested in prioritizing profits over human lives, and we know that our success as businesses is bound to the success of all of our community members. Many of us as small business owners, are actually just a few bad revenue months away from homelessness, and many small business owners are gig workers being exploited by the same systems and corporations that fuel this housing crisis. Additionally, connected and cohesive neighborhoods with investments in affordable housing not congregate night only shelter prevent multiple forms of violence and crime, including those types of violence that most impact children and youth. These are all better for our businesses as humans, with hearts and with businesses, we know that not a single person in this city should be made to feel like they are disposable or trash to be swept away. It's deeply disappointing that this money was lost, but now it's found and our city council must do the right thing. Now local business owners are in support of the keep Portland housing housed ordinance, minus the novak amendments. Thank you.

Bob, you're up next.

Good afternoon. My name is bobby munoz. I am a housing real estate consultant and a member of the Portland metropolitan association of realtors. I've spent over 25 years helping Portland families build stability through home ownership. We cannot solve the housing crisis if we only focus on survival. Rental support matters, but we also need to invest in home ownership because ownership is how families stay and communities stabilize. Thank you. Right now, median home prices are around 500 to 550,000. Buyers need 20,000 to 40,000 upfront. At the same time, many families, especially black and latino households, earn far below what's needed to compete in today's market. In my business, about 75% of my clients need down payment assistance. They can afford the mortgage. They cannot afford to overcome the upfront cost. After years of rising rent, displacement doesn't end with another lease. It ends when a family can finally buy a home. That's why reducing down payment assistance to 800,000 is wrong is in the wrong direction. I urge you to restore funding to at least a million. If we are serious about closing the homeownership gap, this is not the place to cut. Thank you.

Next group we have connor lennon, jordan lewis, dwight miniware, mario de leon galan woodsong. And feel free to begin when you're ready. Jordan or I'm sorry. Connor.

Thank you. For the record, my name is connor lennon. I'm here today in support of most of the underlying budget ordinance for the housing bureau. We are living in a time where the cost of living is high, and for many of us, we're paying most of our income straight into rent. We need rental assistance, but we also need to look towards a long term solution. I believe the answer we need is social housing. We need to begin to land bank. Now. We are paying more for less. So why not start paying less for more? Social housing will get us more. And other countries renting is cheaper than owning and residents can count on that. Here in Portland, Oregon, the only thing we can count on is a mayor that tries to make backdoor deals with code names before begging for money. For a shelter system that is not working that we cannot keep up with. This is a system that we can outpace. But we need to start now. I do not want to see any of this money go back into the general fund, and I definitely don't want to use it to see it used for the broadway corridor project. Our money should not line the pockets of private developers. The current reality portlanders face cannot be our long term reality. Rental assistance now. And long term social housing is how we take care of us. Thank you.

Jordan, you're up next.

Hello housing committee. My name is jordan lewis. I'm a volunteer lobbyist with the Portland democratic socialists of America. I'm testifying in support of the underlying budget ordinance for Portland housing bureau, with some changes I will get into shortly. But first, some context. If you have a budget, if you have a college degree or over the age of 50, you may not be aware of how bad it is out here for younger people who mostly rent. But it's really, really bad. My generation spends most of their time hanging out in basements because they can't afford to go out to eat. It's detrimental for society, actually, when no one can afford to go support their local businesses. I'm reminded of a testimony from last year's tao, where someone used the term gentry blight. And when you suggest to most electeds, the main issue is rent the $1,500 check. They have to cash every month. They look at you like you're nuts. But that is the truth. Back onto the amendments. I'm opposed to money going into the general fund when we know our mayor is probably going to blow it all on cruel congregate shelters that he has no ongoing funding for. I'm also generally opposed to market project gap funding, except some special cases. I say as someone who personally likes new market development in the urban core, but they're just nice to haves. And last year we decided as a region that reliable bus service was a nice to have. So I'm just being consistent here. Market development is nice to have while social housing, rent assistance and buy downs are sorely needed, times are tough and we may have to tighten our belts. Thank you.

Dwight, you're up next.

Hello, I'm pastor dwight merriweather. I'm the executive director of straightway services and also the site operator of oak street village, where there are 29 tiny houses. And I'm here representing those people today that are seeking to move from the shelter into their permanent housing. And the issue that we're having is not the motivation of the people wanting. It's just that we have nowhere or no funding or ways to put them in the places that are desiring, as we have entered into our contract here. Our first year, we met our metric at five move outs, and this year already in the beginning of our year, we have five. So we're meeting the metric. Even without the supports, we're imagining how much more could happen if the things that we're talking about, I would say pretty much arguing about and not coming to a solution that needs to be happening now. So I just suggest that we do it now. Whatever we're going to do, let's do it now.

Mario, you're up next.

How are we doing? It's my first time up here, so I'm kind of nervous. Thank you. My name is mario de leon. I've been in Portland since 1989. I'm a local artist. Local muralist here. So it's safe to say. You know, I've seen the rising cost of what it is to live in Portland and in east county. I grew up on the other side of the 205, you know, now is is even living in the barrios is as much as what it used to be in the pearl district when I was in high school. And it's getting ridiculous. And if it wasn't for rental rental assistance, even, even my small business wouldn't be able to function, you know, and it's something that people we need as a father, as a father of two daughters, right. Who supports his family off one income, if it wasn't for rental assistance, sometimes I wouldn't be able to make it. My daughters wouldn't have a place to live. So anything that we can do to make this happen, to make rental assistance happen immediately for people, we need it. We need it now. People need it now. So and that's that's it. Thank you.

Thank you and great job for your first time.

Thank you.

The final group is going to be garland woodsong. Rachel hemingson. Michelle sheehan, waylett thomas, diana nunez. And I believe garland is joining us online. You're welcome to unmute and begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon councilors. My name is garland woodsong with the Oregon cooperative housing network. I'm here to urge you to prioritize using available funds to acquire existing housing and convert it into community ownership, including limited equity co-ops supported by a meaningfully capitalized revolving loan fund. This approach will create permanent affordability without ongoing subsidy. Stabilize residents right now by preventing displacement, and deliver housing faster using buildings we already have. There's also a bigger issue here. If all new multifamily housing is rental, then as we grow up rather than out, we are locking in a future where most people cannot access ownership. Co-ops provide a pathway to ownership within multifamily housing, which is essential for an equitable future. This is a chance to turn one time public dollars into permanently affordable, community owned housing. I would also urge caution in how these funds are deployed, rather than transferring them out of housing and into the general fund, or assigning them to a small number of projects without a clear process. This is an opportunity to establish a revolving loan fund and a transparent, no process that can support multiple acquisitions and conversions over time. That is how we begin to build a social housing system for the needs, including the limited equity co-ops that are currently missing from our housing landscape. I urge you to take this opportunity. Thank you.

Rachel is up next.

Good afternoon. I'm rachel hemmingsson. I'm an east county gal. And ditto to garland woodsong. Yeah, I'm here pretty much to support the same thing he's speaking about, which is creating community housing. I have been one of oregon's very first seniors real estate specialists for over 20 years. I'm also part of the age friendly movement for about 15 years. Part of the. Yes, the village movement. Since its inception, Oregon gerontological association. I've been a loan officer working with seniors. Thank you very much. So I've been working up close and personal with people, and there is a lot of underutilized housing in the city, and I have been looking for. How do we create pathways to create affordable housing through existing housing? And so this idea of purchasing and creating community housing is near and dear to my heart. And also I've been learning and it's a somewhat complicated issue, but I've been learning about the use of co-ops. And I think it is a key element to creating ownership opportunities for people in these existing properties, rather than creating more rentals. So that's what I'm here to support. Let's see if there's anything else I want to say. Let's do it.

Michelle, you're up next.

Yes.

Good afternoon counselors. Thank you for your time today. My name is michelle sheehan. I'm a realtor here in Portland and I'm a member of the Portland metro area realtors. And I work every day with families trying to find stability in this market. I want to speak to why homeownership needs to be a bigger part of this funding conversation. Over the past several years, the city has made important investments in homelessness response and rental stabilization, and that work matters. But home ownership changes the trajectory entirely. When a family owns their home, their housing payment becomes predictable not just for a lease cycle, but for the long term. There's no surprise rent increase, no uncertainty year to year. And while they're making that payment, they're building equity. They're building a future. In my work, I meet people who are ready. They have stable jobs. They qualify for a mortgage, but they can't get past the down payment. That's the barrier. And when we help them cross it, everything changes not just for them, but for the broader housing system. A renter becomes a homeowner, a rental opens up, pressure eases across the market. That's the triple effect. We don't often talk about right now. We are helping too few buyers to make a meaningful impact. If we want different outcomes, more stability, less displacement, real pathways to equity than home ownership needs to be part of the strategy, not as an afterthought, but as a priority. Thank you.

Next is ouelet.

Good afternoon, city council members of Portland. I want to speak plainly because this because what we are experiencing in the city, the men's honesty and simplified language. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I am tired of walking through our city and being forced into a degrading daily reality, looking down at the sidewalk and wondering whether what I am seeing came from a human being or an animal that should never be normal. And yet, here we are. Let's be clear this is not simply a sanitation issue. This is not about inconvenience. This is about the visible, unavoidable evidence of a system that is filling its people. At the most basic level, when human beings are forced to live without access to housing, restrooms, or stability, this is the outcome. No person, no man, no woman or child should be sleeping in the streets surrounded by insects, rodents and exposures in the city with resources and capacity that Portland has. So I ask you all, why are we still responding with temporary fixes to a permanent problem? Why are we tolerating conditions that degrade both those experiencing homelessness and the broader community? If we are serious about addressing the crisis, then the response must match the scale of the problem. We need to invest in the housing that is truly accessible, not just the radically available. We need strong, proactive eviction eviction prevention so families do not fall into homelessness. We need coordinates, long term strategies designed to reduce and ultimately end homelessness, not just to move it from one block to another. Because cleaner streets are not achieved through displacement, they're achieved through stability.

Stability. Thank you. We're out of time. Appreciate you.

Next is diana.

Good afternoon.

Chair Avalos, vice chair Green and members of the committee. For the record, my name is diana nunez caceres and I'm the chief operating officer of hacienda cdc. I'm here to advocate for the direct allocation for the existing project in north Portland that councilor Pirtle-guiney has put forth in the amendment. As my ceo has briefed you over the past several weeks, this project is half built and was abandoned over a year ago, a year ago, by former developers. The metro regional government approached us to seek advice on and asked whether we could do anything to save this project, including preserving millions of taxpayer dollars already invested. Monarca is ready to deliver 57 new two and three bedroom affordable rental home units at 60% ami or below to the overlook neighborhood formerly known as minnesota places. This project was abandoned before it could deliver on its promise. A publicly funded affordable housing. In December. Ohc has committed the maximum allowed lighttech allocation, plus additional funding for almost 14 million to hacienda to save this building due to the cost of reconstruction, upgraded livability and sustainability sustainability features, we still need 3.5 million to complete our financing and bring these units to the people of Portland. Once funded, our team is ready to deliver these units on an 8 to 10 month construction schedule, providing rapid relief to the city's families struggling with unaffordable rents. This is homes for families in the. By the end of this year, we respectfully request 3.5 million from the city council's allocation. What is at stake is if this project does not receive local support, it will be foreclosed. Compounding the city's challenges in attracting investment to Portland. Additionally, the city will lose 57 new housing units for for profit to a for profit developer who will acquire this building for pennies on the dollar. Thank you, thank you.

Appreciate that, dana. Okay, that is the end of our list. Yes, diego. Thank you, everybody, for being here for your testimony. We are going to take a very quick ten minute break. We'll be back at 432.

Here we go.

All right. We're going to call this meeting back at 432. So folks, we've got quite a few amendments to discuss. And we've been given the okay to go until 530 if needed, but that is a hard stop. So let's do our best to get through this within the next hour. As far as who would like to go first in proposing their amendments, I don't really have a preference. Is there any councilor Novick are you do you want to put your things forward? Councilor pirtle-guiney you two can duke it out. Who wants to go first?

Councilor I'm happy to go ahead, but if you'd like to go first.

With some of.

Yours.

That's fine.

I'll go ahead if that's okay. So Novick three again, would one significant part of it is that it would allocate the entire 8.6 million from the transient lodging tax to the general fund. And I heard people say they don't want this money going to the general fund. I was trying to use economizing my words at the beginning. I did not explain what general fund does. The general fund goes to public safety, including police, fire and other public safety entities like Portland street response and community violence prevention funds. And it goes to parks. That's where the bulk of it goes. We are going to be in this tough budget system this season. We are going to be making cuts to those things. And I want and we are going to be laying people off. And I want to avoid those cuts as much as possible. Now, I should say that in fire, it's likely that the cuts are going to come in district four because that's where the tops, the the bottom six stations in terms of call volume are. But I used to live in district four, and I care about whether people in hillsdale or burlingame have fire protection too. So I strongly recommend that since we legally can direct 8.6 million to the general fund, that we do that the rest of Novick three. As I said before, instead of breaking out money for social housing and nofas and for specific projects, would establish a $21 million revolving loan fund to address social housing and affordable housing preservation and a variety of other things, relying to the extent we're not buying things for the city ownership, largely on loans. So I would move that amendment. I would also move my amendment amendment two. That simply clarifies the kind of services that are involved in eviction, defense and alternatively, depending on which has the most support amendments one a and one b, which would one of which one a would dedicate $6 million to rent assistance to people exiting sheltered housing? Andy miller talked about the importance of that and 3 million to rent assistance for people facing eviction. The alternate proposal would dedicate 6 million to people facing eviction and 3 million to people transitioning from shelter to housing. And again, I think it's important that that money be targeted. There's 30,000 families in this city that are severely rent burdened. They're paying more than half of their income on rent. We cannot help all of them. So I think that the judicious thing to do is to spend our money either on the people who are directly facing eviction, 16% of which will actually be evicted, and the majority of those will wind up homeless, or the people who are already are homeless. So I move all three and a half of those amendments.

Councilor. Novick. If I could recommend that we try to do them one at a time, just to make it a little simpler process wise. So do you want to move Novick three? It sounded like that one was most urgent to you. Can we just do that and then open that discussion and go from there?

Sure.

Okay, so councilor Novick moves Novick three. Do I have a second for that?

I'll second it.

Okay. Seconded by councilor Green. So now we will enter discussion on that amendment. Councilor Green, you're in the queue. Yeah.

Thank you, chair Avalos. Councilor Novick. I support Novick three and I want to explain why we're facing a $160 million budget deficit. And so even if the mayor found money for every part of his existing shelter program, every dollar that's in Portland housing bureau, we'd still have a significant deficit to close. And I am worried about closing fire stations, and I am worried about making cuts into the parks bureau. And these are areas that come from the general fund. By the way, right after we passed the levy and we told voters that we were we were going to maintain the current service level. And so it's not my favorite thing to do in the world to move housing money into the general fund to fill a gap. But we're in a situation where we've lost control of our revenue structure a little bit. We're dealing with. A critical juncture in our city. And so I'm going to support that piece of it. Even though it wasn't something that I advanced in the first place because of the color of money makes it work too. I also support the added language that you have on broadway corridor that suggests, let's see here, make sure I orient myself. I'll tell you what. So. So if Novick three passes, I'm going to introduce another amendment, but doesn't make sense unless Novick three passes. But my amendment will be to cut $800,000 from the fungible piece. That's the revolving loan thing, and put that into the bigger social housing revolving loan bucket. For all the reasons we heard in testimony, the only reason I'm supporting any money going to broadway corridor is that there is $4.8 million of restricted money in the river district tif, which can only be used for this type of purpose in that in the west side tif district. And that's the only project that's on on offer at this point. And we couldn't use that money for rent assistance. We couldn't use that money for any other purpose. So my, my support comes from that place. But I'm thinking after the testimony we heard, I think it should be 4.8, not 5.6 million. And then finally, I think that collapsing the nofa buckets and the social housing line item into one big kind of revolving loan fund, social housing acquisition piece is an elegant solution to. Something that I've grappled with, which is like sort of getting ahead of policy development, doing line item and by name allocations to specific gap financing needs. If we just put a flag in the ground and say we're going to capitalize the revolving loan funding with this one time money and explicitly name that it can be for social housing, it can also be for things that garland mentioned about limited equity co op conversions. Then we can engage in a sort of competitive and directed process to make sure our projects don't stall out. Importantly, when montgomery county did this in maryland, they just capitalized a revolving loan fund and they were able to finish projects that were entitled, that were partially built, and they just needed that gap financing to get across the road. So I think about things like hacienda being able to sort of apply competitively for this as well. So I'm supporting it for all these reasons. I don't think it moves me off of my my initial conception. When we when we talked about the in the housing work, the March 3rd work session anyway, so I appreciate the intervention. Councilor. Novick. So I'm prepared to support. Novick. Three and if that passes, I will introduce a Green one. Okay.

Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Did you want to speak to the amendment?

I do, thank you, chair. Councilor. Novick. I appreciate you bringing forward something that allows us to have the conversation about general fund. General fund, as you stated, supports public safety broadly, and our park system, both of which are facing critical cuts in this budget. We also can come back in our budget discussion to these funds and talk about any number of uses, including housing needs. If we determine that we didn't do enough today, we don't limit our flexibility. We increase our flexibility by doing this. And for that reason, I came in today prepared to be supportive of maximizing dollars. Going back to the general fund, I am still prepared to be supportive of maximizing dollars. Going back to the general fund, I am also supportive of creating a revolving loan fund to address our ability to acquire properties and bring them into public ownership, to provide affordable housing in our community. But I can't support the deletion of what is currently item eight or sub item eight, which is ensuring that gap funding is available for some specific projects that are ready to go. Now, if councilor, you and your seconder on this are interested in an amendment that would restore what is currently subsection eight in the original proposed, I would be interested in supporting or if this fails in its current form, and you are interested in bringing it back in that more narrow form. I would also be interested in supporting. But I can't support it with the deletion of section eight. Thank you.

Thank you. I put myself in the queue. I think councilor or vice chair Green made all of the points that I would have made, and so I do plan on supporting it. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you.

Chair, I appreciate that Novick three proposes an increase to the amount available in the general fund. Expanding our flexibility is really important. There is a huge range of needs that we will need to address in our next budget. So thank you, councilor Novick for working on this. I want to acknowledge what we heard from community members who came to testify. Several folks expressed concern that shifting more resources into the general fund could ultimately result in those dollars being directly sent to the mayor's shelters, overnight shelters. And I want to be clear, for the record, that's not how I'm interested in using those general fund dollars. I'm. I would also welcome hearing from my colleagues on the committee about their intentions so we can make sure that that that those concerns are addressed and reassure the public. I also want to share that when I first saw the amendment, I did have. I was concerned that specific projects weren't named except broadway corridor. But now I understand from what folks have shared that this is specific to those tif dollars for the river district, and they're restricted and have to be used in specific ways. So that's why broadway corridor is still named there. And that clarification was helpful for me. So I wanted to explain that. So overall, I appreciate the direction this amendment is taking and particularly the creation of the revolving loan and social housing fund. I plan to support the amendment.

Vice chair Green.

I'm just asking the staff to move something. Oh, okay.

Okay. So then, is there any further discussion on Novick three? Seeing none. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: I just wanted to say that I think, and I agree with what several of our colleagues have said over the past month and a half, that or so that we have shouldn't become a grant making organization. So I'm generally resistant to the idea of naming specific projects, and I think it would be a strong signal from this committee if we send something out that does not name specific projects. I'm willing to backtrack and sometimes in specific circumstances, and I hear councilor Pirtle-guiney about the hacienda project, and I won't rule out the possibility that after she and councilor Smith have had their chance to make their case for that at full council, I might go along with them. But for right now, I would like to have this clean package which just with the exception of broadway corridor, for the reasons that councilor Emily mentioned, just strips out all references to specific projects.

Thank you councilor. With no further discussion, let's call the vote on amendment Novick three.

We had a motion from Novick seconded by Green pirtle-guiney no. Koyama Lane.

Yes.

Novick.

Yes.

Green.

Yes.

Avalos I.

With four I's and one nay. The amendment is approved.

All right, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, chair Avalos. I'd like to move Green one, which does just one thing. It amends the allocation to broadway corridor down to $4.8 million instead of 5.6. This should be in your inboxes. It strikes the reference to $800,000 loan from Portland housing bureau to complete capital stack. It strikes that same language from the funding source, and it adds $800,000 to the newly established revolving loans and social housing acquisition bucket. I think this is important for not just the reasons that we heard in testimony that we should not be taking the fungible sources of money, that we have to actually allocate to a broader array of things, and developing and plowing it into a for profit developers balance sheet, of which we don't even know the nature of their pro forma and whether or not they even need it. And we can put it in this bucket of sort of a kitty for people to apply to competitively. And I think it actually offers a parity condition for folks who might be really worried that we just took out a number of by name grant, you know, entities that were previously thinking, hey, we can get a grant of money to close my capital stack if you take those out, why are you leaving in a what is essentially a grant of money, even though it's a loan to another thing in my district, which is a for profit developer. And so if we take that one piece out, they're pretty close to completing their capital stack. I'm sure the developers can find $800,000 in their deferred developer fees to get this thing over line. It's a $140 million project. So $800,000 on $150 million is not the reason why this thing won't get done. We're allocating $4.8 million from the tif district to get it done. So I think this is a pretty straightforward way to get some parity in play, especially since we've now amended out to two projects in district two. So that's that's my motivation. And I move Green one.

Do I have a second. I'll second it. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you, chair. Councilor Green. I know sometimes up here it's easy to think, okay, well, if we just do this piece, remove this piece, they'll be able to fill the gap. Have we had any conversations with folks at the housing bureau, with folks within this project, this specific development or the broadway corridor project more broadly, to understand if the removal of the 800,000 would essentially make the 4.8 we're putting in useless because they need the 800,000. Also.

Can I direct respond? That specific. I don't have an answer to that specific question on this specific intervention, but what I can tell you is I have met with melvin. Mark and I have met with agents associated with this development, and I've asked to see the pro forma and they said, sorry, can't show you. What I do know is there's $4 million from their side. That's part of this capital stack of deferred developer fees. What I don't know is what's the rest of the developer fees? I understand that they're in the business of making some money, but if they can't answer the question on whether or not they can find $800,000 after completing a very large public money stack, then I'm not really inclined to to trust at that point. And so I think that part of what I'm up to up to today, and this is related to my interventions on the first item that we heard is I'm, I'm really kind of tired of, of being told, sorry, you can't see my pro forma. You'll just have to trust me and I need this. So you need, you need to show your work. You need to you need to demonstrate that if not for these monies, it won't happen. And I just have not received a satisfactory answer on that.

Thank you. Colleagues. I'm not opposed to moving in this direction after having the time to make sure that we are not making the rest of our investment meaningless, because the 800,000 is is critical potentially. If this were something coming after we had time to to ask about it, I might be able to support it. I can't support it today, but I am happy to consider it as we continue moving forward.

Is there any other discussion on Green one? Seeing none, let's move to a vote.

On Green one. We have a motion from Green. Second by Avalos pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane.

I'm sorry.

You can change your.

Can I change that to a. No. I was looking ahead to the next thing already.

I've done it before too.

No one nay for pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane. I Novick. I Green. I Avalos. I with four a's and one Green one is approved.

All right. Which next amendment are we moving into?

I councilor Pirtle-guiney do you want to trade off?

Why don't you keep going and then I'll run through mine.

Okay?

Okay. Novick amendment one a would take the existing allocation of $9 million in rent assistance and shift it to $6 million in rent assistance to people exiting shelter to homelessness, and 3 million to people facing actually facing eviction. And I think I've already sort of explained my rationale for for that.

You are moving it. Yes, yes. Moved by councilor Novick. Is there a second?

Councilor this is one b that you're moving or one a?

Let's see. I hope I'm not getting it wrong. I thought it was one. I thought one a was hang on. Oh good lord, someone not able to open my phone.

I got you one. A is the 3 million on b and six on c?

Exactly. Yeah.

Okay.

I'll second what.

Okay. So it has been moved by councilor Novick and seconded by councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Any discussion? I'll put myself in the queue here. I'll just say. It is really critical that we support dollars before people face eviction. I think one key thing, a statistic that keeps being brought up is 16% of people facing eviction. But what's really important that's being missed there. There are a lot more people that prior. Often before, instead of getting evicted, they make a deal with the landlord to just leave. And so that is still displacement. So I don't think we can rely on 16% being the number of who actually gets evicted. There are far more people that are not recorded in our numbers that are just simply getting pushed out. We heard one of our testifiers say that they had to move 11 times over the last couple of years that they've been in Portland, so I think that is a critical amount of money that we need to protect. And importantly too, we there's news that came out that essentially now more dollars are lost for families that are mixed status. So there are a lot of children right now at risk of homelessness, children who are citizens who are born in the states and who have parents who are not born here and now have no access to any dollars because the federal government continues their campaign against our immigrant community. That is particularly impactful for east Portland. And so I do not plan on supporting this. We need to keep those dollars for people before they face eviction. That is a very critical gap that is not being met by so many of our systems, and we need to put those dollars there. So I don't plan on supporting one a or one b. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, chair colleagues. I have wanted us to spend funds on one time things as much as possible in this package, but I know that there's a real interest in spending funding on rent assistance as well. And we heard today from many portlanders about the need. And I've heard two things that really stand out to me in terms of why we have a one time need right now. And as I'm looking at where we put dollars that we don't have continuously, that's what I'm looking are looking for. Are those arguments for a one time need? I heard an argument that we need more money to support individuals who are currently experiencing homelessness, because we know that the county is going to be closing a significant number of shelters, and we need to get those individuals into housing before they end up back on the streets. And I've heard, as our chair just said, that we have individuals who are facing eviction because their circumstances changed, because people in their family who are helping to support paying the rent have been evicted or are no longer able to work because of fear of eviction. Those to me feel like one time needs that we're facing that create an argument for spending these one time dollars on rent assistance. And I'm very interested in thinking about how we can use this $9 million to support those needs as much as possible, because this amendment prioritizes one of those two needs, the assistance to people who will otherwise potentially be facing going back out onto the streets soon. I am interested in the conversation and in supporting.

Thank you.

Vice chair Green.

Yeah, I think that I'm going to be pretty firmly attached to making sure that we're investing in the upstream sources of homelessness, and I think making sure folks have access to rental assistance, rental assistance before they're facing eviction proceedings is really important to me. I'm not opposed to adding more money to the other categories. I just don't I don't want to take it away from that category. And as we get into the the fy 2627 budget year, we're going to have some tough choices to make. And I'm, I'm prepared to take money away from sweeps. I'm prepared to take money away from some other things that I think are that cause harm to the unhoused community and put them in the bucket to say, we're going to help you find a find a path home. That's what I'm prepared to fight for as we get into the bigger budget. But I can't take it away from this, this pre eviction bucket as as it's currently written. So I don't support one a or one b in that for that reason.

Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thanks chair. I'll be quick. I agree all of those buckets and the rent assistance category are all very important. I can't support any amendment that is going to eliminate or reduce the funding for flexible short term aid for households at risk of losing housing before facing eviction. Thanks.

Thank you. That is the end of our stack. So let's go ahead and call the roll.

Pirtle-guiney.

Yes.

Koyama Lane.

No.

Novick.

Yes.

Green.

No.

Avalos.

No.

With two a's and three nays, the amendment fails.

Councilor. Novick. Which amendment would you like to do next?

1b1b again is sort of the reverse of one a it would allocate $6 million to rent assistance for people facing eviction, and 3 million to people who are experiencing homelessness, trying to exit shelter for housing. And my rationale here is that it's very hard for us to know who is actually going to become homeless. If you look at the 30,000 people that are severely rent burdened, some of them are going to wind up being homeless. A lot of them are not. But if people are actually facing eviction, the odds of becoming homeless go way up. 16% of people facing eviction actually being evicted is a high number. And as chair Avalos pointed out, there's some people that leave even before they're evicted and people who are evicted. There's a couple of studies, including one in seattle, shows that a very high percentage of them wind up homeless. So I propose that we put the bulk of the $9 million into this category of people who are actually facing eviction.

All right. So moved. Do I have a second? There is not a second. Are you about to second? No.

I can second, if we want to have the debate.

No need.

It's up to you. I'm going to vote no, but up to you.

I heard.

The councilor Say no need.

So.

All right, one b has failed. So what is your next one? Do you want to do it a two. Oh yeah. No. No it doesn't. Sorry. Go ahead.

Yes. And two simply lists some of the elements of eviction. Defense is based on a conversation with with Oregon law center. And I think they also workshopped it with other providers. And it just says 1.9 million in new funding for eviction defense services, including, but not limited to full scope legal representation, citywide intake services, legal case screening, eviction docket, data collection analysis, courthouse, clinic hours, legal education resources, case management, and relationships with assistance providers to be administered by the Portland housing bureau. Funding may also be utilized for right to counsel pilot to be launched in a limited geography that offers every household facing eviction that geography, access to legal assistance. And the idea here is to kind of actually kind of like councilor Koyama Lane amendment on discrimination against people in different family groups. To clarify that all of this is covered so that there's not a debate as to whether all any of it is covered.

Thank you. Are you formally moving?

Yes.

All right. And a second by councilor Koyama Lane councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: I had put my hand in in the queue just to confirm that you had talked to the Oregon law center, and you answered that. And I just wanted to thank you for actually having those conversations with folks in the community that have been doing this work. They've been working on the Oregon eviction defense project for a long time, and I think it's something that we need to see more of, actually listening to the folks that are on the ground doing this work, the experts that have been supporting folks who are dealing with evictions. So thank you for that. And I'm I will be voting yes.

All right. Seeing no one else in the queue. Let's call the roll.

Pirtle-guiney aye, Morillo Koyama Lane.

I Novick. I Green. I Avalos. I with five I's the motion carries and Novick two amendment is accepted.

All right. And that's all of your amendments, right? Councilor. Novick.

That is correct.

All right. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you. Councilor. I will start by moving. Pirtle-guiney. One. This creates more specific language in the debt. Buydown. Section, that is section three of the ordinance before us. It replaces what is there with language that says that there are essentially two categories of use here. One is debt buy downs that enable targeted rent reductions, support for preservation and financial stability. That could include returning units to market after they've been vacated, and for enabling ongoing security enhancements that we've heard. Many of these buildings are in desperate need of. Secondarily, the funds could be used for one time security enhancements that provide ongoing security support to existing affordable housing facilities. We have this bucket of money one time. We should be using it for. For investments that create an ongoing benefit to the residents of these buildings. That's what we've talked about in all of our debates. And this would just clarify those types of uses. Councilor Green flagged for me that in rewriting the language, we lost the term nonmarket, which could be important to have. And I would be happy in the title to say non-market affordable housing portfolio stabilization, if that helps to, to bring confidence to all of you. I think that's something that I can just do as an on the fly amendment without needing to retype this up. But I'd look to the clerk and council ops staff to confirm.

So pirtle-guiney one is, as is with the addition of nonmarket at the beginning of the title. So it will say non-market affordable housing portfolio stabilization. Are we good with that? Clark. Okay, great. Do I have a second?

Second.

All right. Seconded by councilor Novick. I put myself in the queue. That does help me a lot because that was one of my concerns. I think that the way that it was originally written, you know, thank you for rewriting that. The intent of the original is what you've essentially written out. My only concern, it's not enough to get me to vote no on it, but I think we tried to keep it broad to make sure that it could really, you know, capture a lot of what would qualify under operating support, which was always intended to have for things like security enhancements. But the reason I I'm like iffy about removing that language is because I just want, I don't want it to be to feel so limited to just debt buy downs and security enhancements, because there's lots of other aspects of the stabilization portfolio. I had a meeting with a bunch of affordable housing providers and they urged the flexibility, and that's why I wrote it in that way, especially because they're facing things like they're going, some buildings are going to have to go without insurance, for example. And so being able to help cover some gaps on insurance would be critical. There's lots of other different things. So I guess I want to hear your intention here. And. Just make sure that we feel like that's going to be able to cover all of that, because you kind of narrowed it in a way, and I wanted it to be more broad. So can you speak to that?

Yeah.

Thank you chair. I've also had a number of conversations with various housing providers and trying to figure out what the right balance is. And I think what I am looking at is if we have this one time pot of funds, how do we make sure that our affordable housing providers are prioritizing uses that create an ongoing benefit for the portlanders who live within their buildings, not just, okay, we'll lower the rent over the next six months, but then we're going to run out of the money that we have, but we're going to take an action that will increase our cash flow over the long term, so that that cash flow can be used for ongoing needs of residents and ongoing needs of the building. That's why I've focused on that debt buy down piece to increase cash flow. I also understand that there are buildings that have some one time security needs, which again, would create ongoing benefits for the residents of those buildings, which is why we added that second section after a number of conversations.

Okay, I appreciate that. Again, it's not enough for me to not vote for it. I totally agree with your intent. Just wanted to flag that. But I do think it's still can meet that, especially with adding the non-market because that was going to be my, that was going to be the thing that tipped me to not vote for it.

So absolutely.

And non-market was the intent there. We just in keeping the heading lost that word.

I get it. Okay. Councilor or vice chair Green.

Thank you, chair Avalos. I'm prepared to support pirtle-guiney one today. Thank you for clarifying that. It's it's non-market. I think when I, I entered into this discussion and I think when we first got the presentation, the finance committee, I was compelled by, I think by many of my colleagues to chase down this rabbit, which almost felt like a, oh, by the way, we're doing this, but it's like, no, this is a big deal. Let's keep doing this. So the Portland housing bureau has been really pioneering on this. So I wanted to do more of that. That expanded into conversations with housing organ, that expanded into conversations with a number of providers. And my takeaway was we're, we're, we're facing a system threat to the holistic cdc and affordable housing portfolio as a whole. And they have complicated interactions and different needs. And for me, clarifying that there's two classifications of one time expenses is helpful, especially when we had been talking informally about this, this kind of like security need. I had a conversation with someone who's in a deeply who's in an affordable housing unit also shares those same. So I'm hearing that from people with lived experience. The number one item. Number one, I read it as like, it's really about the debt buy downs, buying the space and the purchase on the balance sheet to do a range of things to include rent, targeted rent reduction, support financial stability, preserve the thing and enable like that headroom and cashflow. Is that how you're suggesting it?

That's exactly the intent. And to to the point that councilor Avalos raised that chair, Avalos raised, we tried to create significant flexibility with what could be done after those debt buy downs occurred. With that increased headroom, the idea is how do we how do we create that increased headroom, that cash flow so that these things can be ongoing?

Yeah, and that's great. I think that's why I'm able to support it. I appreciate that you need to carve off a second bucket to be explicit that there might be some one time expenses that don't necessarily fall into debt buy down. I think my intention here is by doing this, I don't want to hear an excuse down the road that, well, we can't lower the rent or we can't do these upgrades that we need to do, or we can't fix this unit because we can't afford to because of the debt overhang we're stepping in. We're helping solve and heal that balance. And so let's work together on that. And I think our our tenants will, will thank us for that. So thanks for bringing forward this amendment. I can support it.

Councilor. Novick.

Thank you, madam chair. I just wanted to ask the carrier, when you talk about support, the financial stability and preservation of existing deeply affordable housing units, does that would could that include some of the money goes to maintenance of those units? Because I think that. But part of the reason that some of those units are empty is that they're falling apart.

We specifically talk to providers about whether this language would allow that increased headroom. So again, we're talking about increased headroom created by the debt, by down, making sure that that language would allow the increased headroom to go to things like turning over units that are currently not rentable because of damage or contamination from previous renters, and making sure that those could be brought back into rentable quality. With that added headroom.

Thank you.

All right. Seeing no further discussion, let's call the role.

Motion for ep g one, as amended. Who did we have them moved? And second, by apologies.

It was moved by councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Seconded.

Novick o Novick did. Yes. Sorry. Councilor Novick. Seconded.

Thank you.

Pirtle-guiney I. Koyama Lane I.

Novick I.

Green I.

Avalos I.

With five I's. The amendment is approved.

Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you. Chair. I would move pirtle-guiney to pirtle-guiney two and you should have in your email a new version of pirtle-guiney two. I don't know if we need to rename this or not, but we've added one sentence to the end for clarifications sake. This creates a new bucket of funding for deeply affordable, non-market housing support. And what I heard in the conversations that I had with providers, including two that we heard from today, was that there are units on the market that are very hard to support, very hard to replace, that are generally very affordable, less than 30% ami units, some go up to 40 or 45%, but generally the most affordable units on the market that are there to support individuals who need permanent supports in their housing. We heard from beth cook with new narrative that one of their units in this category provides this in-between level where you have constant supports on site, but in a non-medical or or institutional setting. And none of the work that we had done elsewhere in this ordinance specifically supported the needs for preservation for these units. I wanted to call out the very real needs for preservation for these units who are facing significant budget shortfalls and have faced years of underinvestment, but where we know that we need these types of supports in order to fully address the housing crisis that we have before us, these aren't the units that support our families who have simply been priced out of the market. There's a huge need there, and we're doing other things in this ordinance to support that need. This is to support the individuals who are struggling to to remain stable in housing that doesn't have supports on site. We know that that is another piece of the housing puzzle in our city. And I wanted to make sure that we were addressing some of those needs within this proposal as well.

Okay, so that is moved. Yes. Do I have a second? Okay. Well, councilor Novick, you're in the queue, but there's no second. Are you trying to discuss?

You got a second?

I had a question, which is probably irrelevant if there's no second.

Okay. Well, there's no second, so I guess we keep moving.

Okay.

Colleagues, I would move pirtle-guiney three. I flagged a project at the beginning of our meeting within. A project that I think everybody has heard about, but that we hadn't previously talked about that is being brought to fruition by hacienda. It's called the project, and this is our opportunity to have new units come online as a part of the work that we are doing today. By the end of this year, this would be over 50 family sized units that are already half built. The original developer was not able to complete the project. And if this project goes to into foreclosure, we not only lose the public investment, but it will become market rate housing that was subsidized through public investment in the initial construction phase. That is unacceptable to me, especially at a time when we know that what we need are more two and three bedroom apartments, and I would say even larger apartments, though here we have the opportunity for two and three bedrooms. And I think that a small investment here could pay big dividends and give us that early win. Within this proposal, I'll note that there were. Well, yeah, I'll leave it there. Thank you.

And then for clarity, because we have mpeg four in our inbox, which is an adjustment of note Novick three, but I emailed back because it seems like the math might be off on that. So is it like, do you want to move epg three or is it four?

I apologize, the math is off on epg three, because we were having some discussions as a staff about whether to include hacienda in that or not. I wanted to bring the hacienda project forward separately, since that's not something that we had talked about through the process. Four should say 3 million.

Oh, I see what.

You're saying. Get that fixed.

Epg four should say 3 million. The hacienda project is not spelled out in epg four. The number is just incorrect.

Got it. Okay.

So you want them to be two separate votes, essentially. So this one is for hacienda epg.

Three.

Hacienda epg.

Three.

Which is $3.5 million.

Got it. Okay.

That has been moved. Yes. Is there a second? What's your hand for?

I was going to ask questions about this, but I'm. But I'm also not seconding it.

Okay, maybe.

Maybe I'll second it just so I can have the conversation. Okay, I'll second it. I think that's a great project in terms of. That's a great example of. For a very low dollar per unit cost, we can convert a stalled project into housing. I think that that is something that we should fund out of this revolving loan fund to close our capital gap. I there there's more ways than just a grant to do it. I think a $3.5 million loan from a revolving loan fund would solve their problem and get this thing entitled or get moving out of entitlement and moving. And so for that reason, I'm not going to support it as written, but I just want to call out that I think that this revolving loan fund should be supporting high opportunity projects like this, even though we're not naming them as such. And I expect that if this passes and becomes law, the Portland housing bureau will move expeditiously to to seek out these sorts of these very opportunities. So I'm not going to support it. But I wanted to to talk about that.

Okay. Thank you. Vice chair councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: My views are very similar to those of councilor Green. I did want to say that I'm. I would like to know before we. I assume this will come back at full council. I would like to know whether it seems possible that this project, which is somewhat urgent, could move through a competitive process to get some of those loan funds. So again, I'm not prepared to support this today, but I'm interested in that question. I also just wanted to note that in terms of the financing for this project was listed as coming from, among other things, the transient lodging tax, which we have already allocated to the in its entirety, the general fund.

Councilor councilor.

Pg three was written before Novick three passed, and if there is support for the concept, we would need to update where those funds are coming from to be the large bucket that you created with Novick three. Colleagues. I understand that there's not an appetite on this committee to name projects, and I'll note that you have a new version now of pg four in your inbox, which would restore funding for self enhancement inc. Williams and russell and urban plaza projects. When we started this work many months ago, there was a conversation about whether or not to name projects, and there seemed to be an appetite from this council to name specific projects. We have many members of our community who have been working on getting us information about gap funding needs over the last four months. Because of that, and. You know, I'll say this now instead of saying it when I move ppg for we have less money in this proposal for home ownership than we did in some previous proposals. I think homeownership should have been a bigger piece of what we did here, but I was willing to accept that because we had an entire home ownership portion of one of the projects that we removed funding for that's now gone. There were things that could have moved quickly that we talked about at various points, and we decided not to move forward. I said

At one point, if we were going to do rent assistance at all, we should do it as quickly as possible, not spread it over years, but get it out the door now. Folks said no, spread it out. Let it wait. So I brought forward in pg three a proposal to at least get us housing units as quickly as possible so that we can address the crisis now, not over years. And it looks as though that's not going to pass. I bring those two pieces up because while I understand that we don't want to be choosing winners and losers here. In making that decision now months into the process, in reversing a decision that we had as a body seemed to make previously, what we're doing is changing the flavor of what this package is pretty significantly. And I've got some major concerns with that. So I would ask that you consider this as an opportunity for us to ensure, not hope that in a process down the road, we're not sure when the housing bureau will have everything together to do the work. But now we can capitalize on public investments that have already been made. We can ensure that a project doesn't revert to market rate, and we can get over 50 additional family sized units just a few blocks from the max and a few blocks from the freeway. Online by the end of this year, I hope that you'll support pgy three. Thank you.

Councilor. Koyama Lane.

I just I wanted to thank councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Because I do think what you're bringing forth is a genuine response to community coming to you and asking for support. I know this hacienda project, monaca. I remember seeing this in my inbox when the money was found and they were like, well, don't forget about us. I on my my gut reaction is I feel I feel a little uncomfortable anytime we're naming specific projects. And I also hear, hear what you're saying. And this has evolved, and I think we all are, are dedicated to trying to get this done today. But I think just in general, this is my first day on the housing and permitting committee. But I do kind of wonder, is this part of our role to be deciding who gets funds? I genuinely don't know the answer to that, but I think I'd like some clarity on roles and responsibilities. Or is that something that the housing bureau should have a process for, or is that something we do sometimes? I, I want to thank you because I do think you're bringing this from a genuine place of hearing community. And and I look at these projects and I'm like, I love what ci does and I love urban plaza and. And I don't know william and russell, but maybe I love you too. But like, I, I feel a little bit like I don't even know how to choose. And so that's why I'm not, I can't support this right now, but I, I want to have this. I want to have more of a conversation around this.

Vice chair Green.

Thank you. I'll keep it brief because I know we're running out of time. On March 3rd, we had a work session, and that was the first time that I really articulated my position in all this. We had committee meetings in a committee that I wasn't part of, and then we had multiple competing ordinances and resolutions, and that's where I showed up with an organized set of thoughts. And if you look at the transcript, I said, I don't think we should be by name allocating these. And so so I've been pretty consistent there, I think, over the last month. And since my thinking on this, I appreciate the intervention from councilor. Novick. The money exists right now. And if we appropriate this money, the Portland housing bureau has every tool, every legal tool to go out and start issuing loans to, to entities that have a really urgent need. And so if there's a property that's facing imminent foreclosure risk, then I have every confidence in our staff to be able to say, let's write, let's write a loan for you. Let's help you close this capital stack. So I don't think that we're we're missing opportunities to fund these projects. I just don't think that we should continue this practice of issuing grants, no strings attached, because we've got to stop doing that, especially when we have one time money. We have to have a competitive process. And we have to say that we're capitalizing this fund and we're not going to eat our seed corn anymore. So that's that's very much why I'm supporting this. And I, I, I echo everything that councilor Koyama Lane said. I get it and I know, I know why you're fighting for your district. I know why you're fighting for your community members. And I, I have every intention that the revolving loan fund that we've capitalized today should be used precisely to help close these sorts of capital gaps, capital stack gaps. Thank you.

Put myself in the stack. Yeah. I have the same feelings that I've heard from my colleagues on either side of me here. I feel, you know, I original sslinfo did not have those projects named and iterations of it in the future or after that did, but those were not my choice. Those were, you know, it's complicated, but I'll just say, I feel like I have always felt that it's important that we have a process for allocating dollars for projects, which is why I supported Novick three. You know, I we included that in this original ordinance because we're just trying to get to the package that is going to, you know, be most supported by council. But I yeah, I have a lot of difficulty with us naming projects without a process because I just don't think that's a good precedent for us to set, I know that. I'll just leave it at that. So anyone else in the queue for this amendment, then? Let's go ahead and call the role.

Pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane no Novick no Green. No Avalos no.

With four nays and one I vote the amendment fails.

Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you chair. I am not going to move pirtle-guiney for because I can read the writing on the wall, but I will make sure that it is filed for when this comes before full council. I do want to flag something though, because we've talked about some projects and there is a never ending list of good things we could support. But I need to flag one because if this is moving forward and we're going to have council intent all over the types of things that we might want the bureau to look at when they look at the revolving loan fund and the other funds that have been put together, there's a really important project in our community that I want to make sure is captured in the intent that the housing bureau looks at as well, and that's the albina vision trust. When we first started doing this work back in December, I was under the impression that they were not yet ready for support from the city. So I didn't bring forward any proposals to include their work in this process. But they are now. And so I want to mention that here today, because if the housing bureau goes back and says, well, we know council's intent was to look at these things, they were pulled out. They want us to look at them. I want to make sure that there's intent on the record, that I hope that they also look at the needs of albina vision trust. This is the biggest community led redevelopment project in the in the nation, not just in our city or in the state, but in the nation. Right now it is happening in my district. It is happening in our city, and it is going to be incredible for portlanders, especially for portlanders who were previously displaced from lower albina. And so I want to make sure that that's on the record and part of the intent that moves forward when the housing bureau looks at this proposal, they are ready to have some support from the city, and I hope that we can do that for them. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing. Let me just make sure seeing no one else in the queue. I would like to entertain a motion to adopt ordinance document number 2026 125 as amended, and send it to council.

So moved.

One of you needs to be a second.

Okay, councilor Vice chair Green moves Novick seconds. Let's call the role. Oh wait. Any discussion? Okay, now let's call the role pirtle-guiney. Oh, sorry.

That's okay. I'll say one sentence. Now. I'm not sure if I'll be supportive as this moves through committee, but I'd like or through council. But I'd like to make sure that we get to have that full discussion. I'll vote yes today so that we can continue the work I.

Koyama Lane yes.

Novick I.

Green I.

Avalos I.

With five a's. The motion carries and the ordinance document number 2020 6-1 25 will move to the full council as amended, with a recommendation to pass.

Okay, colleagues, thank you for the very fruitful discussion. As I have stated, this will come tomorrow to the table as an amendment, so we will see you there. Our next meeting is Tuesday, may 5th, where we will be anticipating some discussion around social housing, unified housing strategy, as well as bringing affordable housing providers to talk about exactly what we were discussing earlier. So the goal is to get that on to the may 5th agenda. Stay tuned. But for now, I will adjourn this meeting at 5:30 p.m.