Due to the phenomenon of “induced demand,” so-called affordable housing programs do not make the housing market more affordable for the same reason widening freeways does not alleviate traffic. Any solution has to come from the private sector. Program affordable housing based on income levels also locks people into housing, causing them to stay longer than would be optimal for their own life mobility. There is a place for government housing but mainly for the elderly and the disabled and sensible controls to prevent unfair evictions or limit predatory investors.
Housing affordability is really a problem of market manipulation at the federal level and by Wall Street. It is not a matter of limited supply: when Multnomah county lost population, housing went up. The best the state can do is put a bandage on these powerful forces using monetary policy to overvalue housing compared to other wealth. Promoting home ownership over renting is good policy because it helps families build generational wealth, promotes community investment, and creates personal independence, but those at the top want to create a renter society. The deliberate collapse of the S&L's that built America's middle class was not an accident.
I channeled Jim Jones in this article because he was on the San Francisco Housing Authority's board and would bring members of his cult to meetings praising policies that made San Francisco housing less affordable. I lived for 20 years in San Francisco and was the bookkeeper for a 157-unit, 17-building property management company and saw firsthand the unfairness rent control can create - both for landlords and tenants. Oregon's pre-emption of Portland's desire to pass a rent ordinance is good policy.
The Urban Institute found Portland’s “inclusionary zoning” backfires, and I will introduce legislation pre-empting such policies. State redevelopment of SRO’s has merely replaced natural affordable housing with program affordable housing while eroding the tax base. Formerly, there were 88 residence hotels in the Pearl district offering nightly rooms for $25 after a day of collecting cans. Metro's huge housing bond has accomplished nothing - at what point do we say taxing housing to convert existing housing to housing run by overpaid nonprofit EDs doesn't work.
The way to meet community housing needs is through window guidance at banks for community development needs. This is how America promoted widespread home ownership and home building after the second world war. We need to bring back the S&L’s, direct public investments into local community banks with lending policies making funds easily available for community housing needs rather than in distant corporate bonds, and revisit our zoning so housing such as new SRO’s can be constructed at affordable price points. If easy credit and permitting is made available to developers, they will build affordable housing.
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