Should Portland require the City Administrator to assess and align existing plans in the development of a unified housing strategy for the City?

WHEREAS, the 2023 State of Housing in Portland Report shows that housing affordability remains a challenge for many Portlanders, as rents and home sales prices have continued to climb, outpacing incomes, and the median income for homeowners, $120,596, is more than double that of renters which is $57,849 per year; and WHEREAS, through Ordinances 187371, 187973, 188627, 189387, 190342, and 190756, the City Council has declared and extended a housing emergency; and WHEREAS, the 2045 Housing Needs Analysis indicates the Portland will need to develop between 80,000 and 120,000 units for the next 20 years to meet current needs and projected population growth; WHEREAS, the City of Portland has been engaging in much-needed permit improvement work in earnest since 2021, resulting in the creation of a new organizational structure for the City’s permitting functions in July 2024 and ongoing work to improve technology systems and business processes, increase the use of data, reduce code barriers, and improve the customer experience; and WHEREAS, half of all Portland renters are rent burdened, paying over 30% of household income on housing costs, and 25% are severely rent burdened, paying more than 50% of household income on housing costs, and these burdens are disproportionately experienced by Black, Native American, Pacific Islander, Latine, senior, single mother, and foreign-born households which have significantly lower median incomes and higher rates of poverty in Portland; and WHEREAS, a 2020 U.S. Government Office of Accountability study estimated that a 100-dollar regional median rent increase led to a 9% increase in homelessness, and in Portland, the fewest multifamily units are under construction since 2011 with only 896 housing unit permits issued in 2024, leading to rent growth pressure; and WHEREAS, the homelessness crisis is accelerating with data released in April 2025 showing 14,864 individuals experiencing homelessness in February of 2025 and 6,796 of those individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness according to the Multnomah County “by name list”; and WHEREAS, the City of Portland has spent years hearing from and working with community on understanding housing needs and housing solutions and has created many plans, programs, and strategies to address homelessness, housing, and related topics that influence housing development, access, and stability; and WHEREAS, these plans, programs, and strategies informed by community include but are not limited to the Housing Production Strategy (2024), Homelessness Response Action Plan (2024), Housing Needs Analysis (2023), Anti-Displacement Action Plan (2021), Metro Bond Implementation Plan (2018), Portland Bond Implementation Plan (2015), N/NE Neighborhood Housing Strategy (2015), 2035 Comprehensive Plan (2016), Portland Inclusionary Housing program, Climate Investment Plan, Affordable Housing Tax Increment Financing Set Aside Policy, Fair Housing Plan, and the Age- and Disability-Inclusive Neighborhoods Action Plan; and WHEREAS, the City has entered into numerous cross-jurisdictional agreements with Multnomah County, Metro, TriMet, the State of Oregon and others, including but not limited to the Multnomah County Intergovernmental Agreement, Homelessness Response System and Homelessness Response Action Plan, Metro Housing Bond, Home Forward Intergovernmental Agreement, Portland Consortium; and WHEREAS, the City of Portland has various existing federal, state, and local funding streams for housing development, including but not limited to Community Development Block Grants, Portland Clean Energy Fund, Construction Excise Tax, Short Term Rentals Tax, construction Bonds, and Tax Increment Financing; and WHEREAS, Tax Increment Financing (TIF) Districts support neighborhood-level investments in middle, mixed-income, and affordable units with 5,600 regulated affordable units built since the year 2000, and accounts for 47% of the affordable units created in the last 25 years, and with community-developed action plans for the six recently adopted districts in the Central City and East Portland anticipated for Council adoption in 2026 will guide the first generation of investments in these parts of the City that will come online in 2030; and WHEREAS, Portland has successfully invested $469 million from two local affordable housing construction bonds passed by voters in 2016 and 2018 and with those resources now fully allocated, the City of Portland must identify new resources to meet our affordable housing needs; and WHEREAS, while there are many different adopted housing and homelessness plans and various IGAs and neighborhood specific action plans, there is not a place where all these policy priorities, workplans, investment priorities, and operational areas are outlined together into a single comprehensive strategy; and WHEREAS, the development and adoption of a unified housing strategy would enable the City to stay focused on its unique roles and responsibilities, and collaborate with jurisdictional partners to create a system that effectively moves people out of homelessness and into permanent, stable housing while also ensuring a continuum of housing options for Portlanders of all income levels. NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the City Administrator is required to assess and align existing City of Portland plans and strategies on housing production and preservation, homelessness and sheltering, permitting and development, land use and zoning, anti-displacement, wages and workforce development, climate, homelessness prevention, and other innovative housing strategies, including but not limited to social housing, into a comprehensive, unified housing strategy; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy reflects the City’s core values and community engagement work, leading with a racial equity lens; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy be designed as an implementation tool with clearly defined tasks and metrics for each element; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy prioritizes the needs of people experiencing homelessness with the production of housing that can specifically meet those needs; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy also aligns the housing needs for people in various ages, stages, and wages; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy identifies places where different plans have opposing directives and list potential policy choices to present to community and council, and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy be informed by existing cross-jurisdictional plans and agreements with Multnomah County, Metro, and the State to eventually create a regional system to address housing and homelessness; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this unified housing strategy identifies existing and needed funding streams for implementation; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that as the unified housing strategy is developed it will be shared with Homelessness and Housing Committee for periodic review and input from committee members; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a full draft of this unified housing strategy be submitted to the Homelessness and Housing Committee no later than December 1, 2025.