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Monday, September 14, 2009

Portland / News A Memorial For Affordable Housing

Posted by Matt Davis on Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 4:22 PM

"In the world through the eyes of Jesus, the business community has as much responsibility to look after the poor as churches, or synagogues, or mosques," said Reverend Chuck Cooper, from the United Methodist Church in Gresham, delivering a eulogy for Portland's affordable housing at city hall this afternoon. "If you do not care for the poor, your own soul cannot be saved. And that is not just the individual soul, but the soul of a city, the soul of a state."

memorialaffordablehousing.jpg

AFFORDABLE HOUSING GRAVES: 39 BUILDINGS, 1612 ROOMS LOST IN PDX DOWNTOWN CORE SINCE 1994

"Everybody that lived in these homes had to leave, and had to go somewhere," said Cooper. "And so we do not only mourn these buildings, but we mourn the people that had to leave them. We mourn the soul of a city that allows this to happen."

The memorial was organized by nonprofit Soapbox Under the Bridge—to draw attention to the decline in affordable housing here in Portland. As we wrote last month, affordable housing for people in Portland's downtown core is down 23 percent over the last three years. Soapbox organizer Olivia Johnson introduced the memorial, saying Soapbox wants to stay focused on solutions and on "directing attention to the real need." Organizer Patrick Nolen read off the names of all the apartments which have gone, including the Roosevelt Plaza, which once held 56 rooms of affordable housing, and is now inhabited by yuppies like me. Activist and mandolin player Barry Joe Stull played some somber music and then ripped up the various "grave" placards, to symbolize the destruction of the homes.

City Commissioner Nick Fish was there. "We're in the top five in unemployment, in hunger, and in homelessness, and these are statistics with a terrible human face, and an unfolding human tragedy in our community. At a time when our country was doing well, we continued to lose affordable housing."

"With the help of advocates like you, we've achieved some important victories this year which I want to acknowledge," he said. "We've launched a new housing bureau that will be more accountable, and my commitment is we'll put more dollars where they are needed to house people who are the poorest in our community. At the same time we've increased funding for the poorest in our community. Most bureaus took a five percent cut, we got a 30% increase in our portion of the budget. We simply would not have been successful in making our case during the last budget cycle if advocates like you had not been coming to city council. We finally secured funding for the resource access center."

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NICK FISH: SAID HE WOULD CONTINUE WORKING ON THE ISSUE

"These are significant achievements but I believe we can and must do more. We adopted a 30 percent set-aside for affordable housing, but the money is not always being spent where it is most needed," he said.

Fish also added that "protecting the fundamental constitutional rights of our citizens" was important to him with a new ordinance regulating sidewalks. "Let me make clear, our goal is to make sure that our sidewalks are accessible to all, and that the rights, including the constitutional rights of our citizens, are protected," he said. "Please count me a continuing ally in the struggle to make sure that everybody has a place to call home."

 

Comments (4) RSS

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1
YOU KILLED OLD RETARDED PEOPLE WITH YOUR CONDO MATT DAVIS.

Sorry. I was going through withdrawals.
Posted by kiala on September 14, 2009 at 5:49 PM · Report
2
good on y'all. keep it up!
Posted by Stoopr on September 14, 2009 at 6:35 PM · Report
3
My condo overlooking the north park blocks used to be low income housing too. I didn't know that when I bought it and feel pretty shitty when I think of people being displaced just so I can have a nice view of the park from my living room and a short bike ride to work or the store. But hey, it was cheap, has indoor parking, and "vintage charm" so I just bury the guilt and try not to think about it too much. For what it's worth: I'm sorry, poor people of Portland, for being so selfish.
Posted by Kristina on September 14, 2009 at 8:07 PM · Report
4
Soapbox is looking like a comer. Nolen was also responsible for organizing last year's may day event, where a flag for each of Portland's homeless was planted in the park blocks.
Posted by rabblevox on September 17, 2009 at 4:49 PM · Report

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