Portland is in a state of emergency. Throughout the city, landlords are issuing evictions – even clearing out entire buildings. Tenants who aren’t evicted remain in danger of being priced out, as wages can’t keep pace with rising rents. Thousands have been forced from their homes and neighborhoods. More are displaced every week, while the rest of us live in fear that we will be next.

A decisive response from City Council is urgently needed, both to keep renters in their homes today and to put Portland on a more equitable path for the future. That means regulating evictions and rent increases now, and including a package of essential anti-displacement measures in Portland’s new Comprehensive Plan, which will guide our city’s development over the next 20 years.

Unlike a tsunami or an earthquake, the current state of emergency is human-made. No-cause evictions, unchecked rent hikes, and Portland’s lack of affordable housing are not natural phenomena; they are the result of our collective willingness to allow access to a basic human necessity, housing, to be decided by an under-regulated, profit-driven market. The result is off-the-charts profits for landlords and an acute crisis of displacement for renters.

Who are the families at the heart of this crisis? At the Community Alliance of Tenants (CAT), we hear their stories every day. There’s the family of five that has been camping and living in hotels since being evicted without cause in June. They are trying to stay in the same neighborhood so their kids won’t have to change schools on top of becoming homeless.

We’ve also heard from Juan, whose family of six was one of 30 families evicted from a single building in North Portland. Unable to find a new home before the landlord’s 30-day deadline, Juan and his wife were forced to throw their furniture and other belongings into the dumpster. The entire family now rents a single room from a relative.

STREET ROOTS EDITORIAL: Bold actions needed on housing emergency

This crisis disproportionately affects people of color, who are less likely to own homes, and less likely to have accumulated wealth to help them absorb rent hikes or land on their feet after evictions. One result: Multnomah County’s 2015 point-in-time count indicated a dramatic 48 percent increase in homelessness for African Americans.

City Council must take immediate action

The good news: because this housing disaster is the result of our political decisions, we can fix it by making different decisions. For starters, we must decide to regulate the housing market to prioritize renter stability. Last week, CAT declared a “Renter State of Emergency,” calling on City Council to take two immediate actions:

1. Enact a year-long moratorium on no-cause evictions (in which renters are kicked out despite following all the rules of their leases), allowing time to develop a permanent solution; and

2. Require landlords to provide tenants with 12 months’ notice when they raise rents by 5 percent or more.

Massive rent hikes and no-cause evictions hurt families and scar our communities. No family should be forced from its home without just cause and reasonable notice. City Council must act now.

Anti-displacement measures needed in Comprehensive Plan

Even as we enact these urgent, stopgap measures to keep renters in their homes, we need to fundamentally change the course that Portland is on. We are currently hurtling toward a future in which only the wealthy and privileged can live in our city – while people of color and low-income families are pushed out. Again, other choices can and must be made. This starts with Portland’s new Comprehensive Plan, which will guide development and investment for the next 20 years, including what can be built, where, and under what conditions.

Recognizing this historic opportunity to chart a new course for our city, a coalition of 30 organizations is advocating for the Comprehensive Plan to include bold measures to prevent displacement, remedy the injustices of past displacement, and expand access to affordable housing in all of our neighborhoods.

The Community Alliance of Tenants is proud to be a member of this coalition, known as Anti-Displacement PDX. Together, we worked with the Portland Planning and Sustainability Commission and staff at the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability to include over two dozen anti-displacement policies in the draft Comprehensive Plan, which was advanced to City Council over the summer. These policies include:

Enacting measures to protect renters from displacement;

Land-banking to remove property from the market and set it aside for affordable housing;

Making investments that redress past harms suffered by displaced communities;

Analyzing the impact of plans and investments (such as major transit lines) on housing affordability, and preventing and mitigating any anticipated displacement.

We call on the mayor and City Council to keep each and every anti-displacement measure in the final Plan. A new Comprehensive Plan is adopted only once every 20 years, making this a once-in-a-generation chance to chart a different course. Public hearings will be held in November and December, and the Council is expected to approve the final Plan in early 2016.

Portland is facing a human-made displacement disaster – a state of emergency – which is creating an increasingly exclusive, segregated city. But because we have made this disaster, we can also choose to unmake it. Please join Anti-Displacement PDX and the Community Alliance of Tenants on Facebook to receive calls-to-action and notices about how you can help us protect renters, end displacement, and build a more just and equitable Portland.

Justin Buri is the executive director of Community Alliance of Tenants, and Katrina Holland is the deputy director.