With my first job being a church custodian every Sunday morning in downtown Portland it was clear to me that the homelessness epidemic has not been clearly addressed adequately. With police being the untrained response to most of the problems that occur, it should go without saying that something has been seriously wrong with how we treat the homeless population. And while leaders are finally starting to realize the problems we are currently facing we need to act in extreme measures and treat this emergency for what it is, an unaddressed humanitarian crisis.
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This Is What We Need To Do:

• Pressure the federal government to repeal the Faircloth Amendment so HUD can build public housing again.

• Build 200,000 publicly-owned homes over the next 10 years in Oregon.

• Support First Time Home-buyers. We need to pressure the federal government to expand the Department of Housing and Urban Development and USDA Rural Development assistance programs for first-time home-ownership, particularly through down payment assistance and direct guaranteed loans.

• Pass a universal Tenants’ Bill of Rights for Oregon.

• Adopt Housing First practices. When investing in direct relief for unsheltered persons, all government programs should utilize the Housing First model, which has proven to improve outcomes when compared with mitigation-based approaches to homelessness and be financially cost-effective.

• Pass rent control legislation with zero exemptions.

• Pass a rent freeze with a sunset clause tied to Oregon's homelessness rate.

• Ban “homestay” rentals, which create artificial scarcity in housing markets with proximity to the tourism industry and open loopholes in renter protections.

• Ban property tax on primary residences, as part of comprehensive progressive tax legislation. 

• Reinvigorate Housing Programs that build publicly-owned housing for families, for the elderly, and for the disabled.

• Deliberately expand Fair Housing programs and actively repair the generational damage done by housing discrimination and redlining.

• Utilize civil asset forfeiture to acquire the properties of individuals found guilty of housing discrimination and utilize the seized properties for public housing.

• We need to provide full funding to all existing project-based rental assistance contracts.

• We must increase funding for the housing choice voucher program to target families who need support the most and provide greater economic stability to the more than 35 thousand households struggling to remain in safe, secure, and affordable housing today.

• Expand Pre-Purchase Housing Counseling. Study after study shows that people who receive counseling before buying a home are more likely to succeed at home-ownership.

• Eliminate the processing fees on home mortgages.

• Implement Credit Score Reform to repair the damage done to credit scores of millions of families due to foreclosures or other financial hardships from the 2008 housing market crash as well as the economic damage that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic.

• Fight to prevent predatory lending. We must require that all mortgage costs are clear, risks are visible, and nothing is buried in the fine print.

• We need to expand homeowner mortgage interest benefits to the 240 thousand otherwise eligible homeowners who do not itemize their taxes. We must also close the “second home & yacht loophole”, a blatantly corrupt tax giveaway to the rich.

• Pressure the federal government to reinvigorate HARP, which was designed to assist homeowners who are currently on their mortgage payments but owe more than their home is worth, by allowing them to refinance their underwater mortgages at lower interest rates. While the average homeowner saves about $2,500 per year, many people who theoretically qualify don't benefit because of various application barriers and inadequate outreach.

• We need a state Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program to help underwater homeowners. The best solution is to keep homeowners in their homes.