The idea behind Measure 102 is a good one: Oregon should allow cities to pursue public-private partnerships for desperately needed affordable housing. Unfortunately, the Legislature wrote a flawed constitutional amendment to accomplish that end. Oregonians should reject it so that lawmakers can come back with a better version next year.

Oregon’s communities need more affordable housing. The proof is in the increasing number of homeless residents and in the many young and working-class families and individuals who can’t find a first home to buy or an apartment to rent within their price range. Public-private collaboration could do much to expand the stock of homes available to them.

For example, Portland wants to leverage local property taxes to increase the affordable housing supply. In 2016, Portland voters approved a $258 million affordable housing bond measure, and Portland Metro residents this year will vote on a $653 million bond measure.

Eugene and Lane County don’t have an affordable housing ballot measure in the works, but if Portland succeeds with theirs, it’s not hard to imagine other governments asking voters to step up.

The problem is that Oregon’s Constitution forbids local government from spending taxpayer supported bond dollars on private projects. If that weren’t the case, localities could stretch bond dollars further by partnering with developers. Those developers, in turn, could leverage local grants with state and federal ones. If the Portland Metro measure passes in November, officials estimate they could help 7,500 people under the current rules and 12,000 if Measure 102 carves out an exception.

The constitutional clause at the heart of the problem is Article XI, Section 9, which reads in part, “No county, city, town or other municipal corporation, by vote of its citizens, or otherwise, shall become a stockholder in any joint company, corporation or association, whatever, or raise money for, or loan its credit to, or in aid of, any such company, corporation or association.”

The authors of the Constitution recognized the risks of entangling local government with private industry. If taxpayers are footing the bill, taxpayers should retain ownership of the final product or receive a substantial public good, not just pad private sector profits with public subsidies. The constitutional clause also is a barrier to corruption that prevents public officials from diverting tax dollars to their cronies in the private sector.

Those were very real dangers in 1857, and they remain dangers today. If Oregon is to create an exception for affordable housing, it must provide adequate safeguards to ensure it is not abused. Measure 102 failed to include those safeguards.

Measure 102 would require audits, but the government managing the money would be responsible for them. The public needs more than a self-audit or oversight from a committee hand-selected by the governing body and potentially composed of conflicted affordable housing developers who benefit from the spending. Independent audits should be mandatory. Indeed, simply inserting the word ‘independent’ into the measure could have fixed this problem.

The measure also does not define what counts as affordable housing. Proponents view that as a plus because communities could use whatever definition serves their particular needs. Flexibility is one thing, but without any framework, a community could get very creative in what it tries to slip past voters. Affordable to whom? Even a million-dollar condo is affordable to someone. Would a locality subsidize that? It could under Measure 102.

There also is no requirement that the private partnerships build all or even mostly affordable housing. A developer putting up 100 market rate apartments or condos could still get a public subsidy for a handful of affordable units included on the ground floor.

Had lawmakers taken more care, they might have caught these problems before rushing a constitutional amendment to voters.

Supporters of the measure note that any bond measure would have to be approved by voters, so voters could reject a local affordable housing definition or auditing scheme if they don’t think it sufficient. That’s true, but why even give localities the option of putting forward a bad proposal? Localities don’t need an opportunity to slip things past people in the fine print of a bond measure.

Lawmakers wrote Measure 102 quickly at the behest of Portland officials who are in a mad scramble to address housing affordability and the homeless crisis. In their haste, lawmakers didn’t adequately check their work.

Measure 102 would change the constitution. That means flaws would be difficult to fix after the fact. Voters should send it back to lawmakers for an update, even if that means Portland might have to wait a year or two more for the constitutional carve out that its leaders want. Vote no on Measure 102.