Homelessness: Affordable housing solutions

Rob Justus of HomeFirst Development and Deb Houston, of PHC Northwest take a tour of a new affordable housing complex at SE 171st and Division. The units have rents as low as $325 per month.

(Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)

On Wednesday, at a hearing where the Portland City Council decided to extend the "housing emergency" for another year, Portland Housing Bureau Director Kurt Creager gave testimony about what he and his bureau see as one of the causes of homelessness: short-term rentals, like Airbnb, taking formerly affordable homes off the market.

"One third of homes that are short-term rentals were previously available as affordable housing stock on the open rental market," Creager said Thursday over the phone.

He estimated the cost of replacing those units to be $380 million.

On the day of a major sweep of the homeless camps along the Springwater Trail, Creager said there is a "clear connection between economic displacement and homelessness."

"There's a housing ecosystem," he said. "Basically people compete for housing and there's a filtering effect."

He believes that when the affordable homes disappear, it's the people at the bottom who suffer.

"Of the affordable housing stock," Creager said, "less than two percent of the units are available."

"That's why people are so desperate when they get one of these no cause evictions," he said. "It creates panic for people who are vulnerable."

Creager said the study his bureau is working on, where he got the numbers about the impact of these short-term rentals, will be out in the winter.

A final vote from the City Council on whether to extend the state of emergency is expected next week.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker