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Commissioner Erik Sten to Step Down in April The Portland housing community felt a major tremor last Wednesday when City Commissioner Erik Sten announced that he will step down this April, with nearly three years left in his term. Erik has been a great friend to CDN and the affordable housing community. With his departure, we lose an unwavering champion for housing and issues related to homelessness. “Erik's primary legacy will be his focus on ending homelessness and providing more affordable housing,” said Steve Rudman, executive director of the Housing Authority of Portland. “Due to his persistence and considerable political skills, affordable housing is now viewed by many civic leaders as an important element of Portland's basic infrastructure.” As City Commissioner, Erik brought a passion for affordable housing that drew national recognition. As a housing leader, he passed the Preservation Ordinance, secured over $30 million for housing in general funds and bond financing since 2003, and established a 30% urban renewal set aside for affordable housing. A list of his accomplishments could go for many more lines. More important than the specific policies and ordinances he passed, Erik set the tone on Council that made housing a priority. He has both the sophisticated understanding of housing development such that he could manage the complexities of affordable housing, and the willingness to fight for what he believes is right. “What separates Erik from many politicians is his constancy,” said Martha McLennan, executive director of Northwest Housing Alternatives. “Many people in elected office move issue to issue as the political winds dictate. But Erik has a core interest in housing and homelessness that did not waiver for his entire duration on City Council.” We will miss Erik for reasons beyond his housing work. He spearheaded Portland’s public financing of local elections and his attempt to buy PGE after the ENRON mess was both valiant and far thinking. Many of the key issues that Erik has been working on for the past several years remain significant challenges for the City: Implementing the urban renewal set aside so that the goals for renters with low incomes and homeownership opportunities for people of color are met, completing the City’s plan to address homelessness, increasing affordable housing options to keep families in the City and kids enrolled in school, and instituting the recommendations of the Owners' Group to reform Portland’s housing delivery system to provide long term sustainability for affordable housing projects. “As the housing community, we will need to keep these crucial issues on the front burner at City Hall,” said Sam Chase, executive director of Community Development Network. “There is a lot of unfinished business around meeting Portland’s housing needs. Being active and engaged in the upcoming election and with the new City Council will be as important as ever.” The old cliché says you never know what you got til its gone. For the housing community, this will certainly be the case with Erik’s departure. On behalf of CDN and our member organizations, thank you Erik for your outstanding public service. May we be lucky enough to have a leader like you in the near future. Four Workshops for Metro's New Nature in Neighborhoods Capital Grants Program Four upcoming workshops on Metro’s new Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants program offer participants the opportunity to learn about the goals of the grant program, project eligibility, application procedures and tips on how to put together a successful project. The criteria for the program will be discussed and participants will have time to ask questions about specific project ideas. The Metro Council's 2006 Natural Areas bond measure established $15 million of funding for the capital grant program to inspire innovative partnerships that enhance ecological functions and increase the presence of nature where people live, work and play. This includes efforts that acquire land for public ownership or projects that result in a fixed capital asset on public land. The workshops are scheduled for: 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 12 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 13 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Feb 21 To RSVP for one of these workshops please contact Mary Rose Navarro, Natural Areas Grants Coordinator, at 503-797-1781, or send Mary an email. You Are Invited to the Regional Equity Atlas Solutions Workshops in January Coalition for a Livable Future (CLF) invites YOU to attend an upcoming Regional Equity Atlas Solutions Workshop. These workshops are designed to help CLF start developing solutions to the inequities that are highlighted in the Regional Equity Atlas. The Regional Equity Atlas focuses on access to resources by some of our region’s most vulnerable populations - poor people and people of color. Intended to inspire community discussion and action, the Atlas can help make equity a concrete component of our metropolitan region’s approach to managing growth and development. These 'Solutions Workshops' will focus on identifying and prioritizing potential strategies that will be used to develop a Regional Equity Action Plan. Will you come and help us create a Regional Equity Action Plan? We will do a brief refresher to remind you of the key themes, but we won't have time to go over the Atlas findings in detail. If you haven't attended one of our Regional Equity Atlas Introductory Sessions, it is recommended that you familiarize yourself with the Atlas by going to http://www.equityatlas.org and/or we can provide you with a copy of the Atlas if you RSVP and commit to participating in a workshop. These 2-hour workshops are a relatively ambitious attempt to generate rich and robust discussion around innovative solutions. Please come prepared with your ideas so that we can make the most efficient use of our time together. If you know of others who are familiar with the Atlas, immersed in these issues, and/or have good ideas to contribute to our discussion please forward this invitation to them! The workshop will take place at 5 different locations on 5 different dates ~ choose the one that works best for you: 1. January 15th at The Beaverton Resource Center (12500 SW Allen Blvd), 6:30-8:30pm 2. January 16th at SEIU Local49 (3536 SE 26th Ave.), 2:00-4:00pm 3. January 23rd at Sellwood Community Center (1436 SE Spokane St), 2:00-4:00pm 4. January 29th at Ft. Vancouver Library (1007 E. Mill Plain Blvd.), 6:30-8:30pm 5. February 1st at Gresham Library (385 N.W. Miller Avenue), 2:00-4:00pm Please RSVP to attend a Solutions Workshop by contacting Emily Hicks via email or 503-294-2889. CLF encourages you to share this invite with other community members who are interested in advancing equity in the region. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. CDLC & FHCO Receive HUD Funding to Train CDC’s on Fair Housing Best Practices The Community Development Law Center and Fair Housing Council of Oregon have received funding from HUD to assist CDCs and other community based housing developers more effectively address Fair Housing issues that arise in the development, ownership and management of affordable housing. Our objective is to work with affordable housing providers to gather information about confusing issues, carry out legal research in these areas, and produce a ”best practices” manual as a resource to the industry. Some of the areas we think may be confusing include affirmative marketing, screening procedures, confidentiality restrictions, requiring residents to participate in programs/services, the reasonable accommodation process, rules dealing with children on site and carrying out evictions. We plan on contacting individual CDCs and look forward to working with the CDN and AOCDO property and asset management workgroups to frame this project in a way that meets the needs of affordable housing industry. We’d love to hear your questions, concerns, perspectives and specific issues you’d like researched. Please feel free to contact Leon Laptook at the Community Development Law Center (503-471-1180; or via email) or Diane Hess at the Fair Housing Council of Oregon (503-412-6000; or via email) New Web Tool ORHOUSE Hones in on Oregon Housing News ORHOUSE is a new search tool that allows users to search more than 40 Oregon based housing sites to find out what other Oregon non profits and public agencies are saying and doing about housing and community development related issues. Create by the retired Oregon HUD Director Tom Cusack, ORHOUSE isn't intended to replace a more generalized internet search but for those times when you want to find out what's going on in Oregon this could prove to be a valuable new tool. Tom indicates that ORHOUSE is the first and only statewide search tool of its kind in the country. You will find ORHOUSE by going to the top right pane of Tom's Oregon Housing Blog at www.oregonhousing.blogspot.com. CDN and a number of CDN members are charter affiliates of ORHOUSE (Click here for a complete list of current affiliates and websites searched). If you would like to find out what you need to do to be added as a non profit or public agency ORHOUSE affiliate, including adding your website as one of the sites searched, contact Tom at via email.
Preliminary Analysis of HUD Provisions of 08 Omnibus Appropriations Bill By Douglas Rice and Barbara Sard for CBPP Here is a preliminary assessment of the HUD provisions of H.R. 2764, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (or “omnibus”), which includes funding for programs administered by HUD and every other federal agency outside of Defense. The bill was approved by Congress on December 19 and signed into law by the President on December 26. The HUD portion of the omnibus bill is similar in most respects to the bill agreed to by the Transportation-HUD conference committee on November 13 and passed by the House on November 14. The President had threatened to veto the original T-HUD bill, in large part because it included $3 billion more for HUD programs than the President’s budget had requested.[1] Because the President’s threat was supported by Republican members of Congress in sufficient numbers to prevent a two-thirds majority from overriding a veto, the appropriations committees were forced to revise the T-HUD funding levels (as well as parts of ten other appropriations bills, most of which had received similar veto threats). Overall, the omnibus bill trims about $1 billion of HUD funding from the November Transportation-HUD conference report. As a result, total funding for HUD programs in 2008 under the omnibus will be $273 million below the 2007 level, adjusted for inflation, yet still exceed the President’s proposed budget by $2.1 billion.[2] The omnibus bill thus represents a significant improvement over the President’s budget for HUD programs. Most of the HUD program “savings” in the new bill are taken from the Section 8 voucher program, though they are achieved in a manner that should have no adverse impact in the next year. Additional funding reductions were made in the two largest housing block grant programs, HOME and the Community Development Block Grant program, and in the HOPE VI program, in comparison to the original conference bill. A chart at the end of this memo provides funding details for the major HUD programs. Click here to read the full article.
USDA Issues New Rules and Regulations for Section 502 Loan Program USDA Rural Development has established a new way to calculate the payment assistance (subsidy) for homebuyers receiving mortgages through the Section 502 direct loan program. A December 27, 2007 Federal Register notice announces the change, which will take effect on April 1, 2008. For detailed information, click here. Fed Housing Subsidies Disproportionately Benefit Upper Income Homeowners A research brief released in December by the Urban Institute finds that more than three-quarters of the $199.5 billion in 2006 federal housing subsidies targeted homeowners, while less than one-quarter benefited renters. Tax breaks, primarily in the form of the mortgage interest deduction, constituted nearly all of the $157.5 billion in subsidies going to homeowners, while 87% of the $42.0 billion in renter subsidies took the form of direct outlays. Because tax subsidies typically favor affluent households, this distribution of federal funds resulted in the wealthiest 20% of American households receiving 81.5% of all federal housing subsidies in 2006. Click here to read the brief, which is based on data from the federal budget. Feds Accepting Applications for Assets for Independence Program The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Community Services (OCS), will accept applications for grants to establish and administer Assets for Independence (AFI) projects. Grantees provide an array of supports and services to enable individuals and families with low incomes to become economically self-sufficient for the long-term. A primary feature of each AFI project is that project participants are given access to special matched savings accounts called Individual Development Accounts (IDA), in which participants save earned income for the purchase of a home, for business capitalization, or to attend higher education or training. Grantees also ensure that participants have access to financial literacy education and coaching including training on money management and consumer issues. Application due dates are January 15 and March 25 in 2008, 2009, and 2010. For application, click here. TACS Presents Workshop on Cross-Cultural Effectiveness Jan 31 Cross-Cultural Effectiveness is a baseline skill for nonprofit staff and is central to high quality service delivery. Increasing cross cultural capacity is a life long process of learning about differences and gaining new skills for navigating both the visible and invisible terrain of cultural differences. This workshop will review the individual and organizational skills needed to implement best practices in diversity, cross cultural effectiveness and cultural competency, including: · Basics of cultural awareness and working across cultural differences · Strategies for valuing diversity in your organization and your working relationships · How culture impacts service delivery approaches There are many effective approaches for providing services across cultural differences, and leading your organization towards cultural competency. Participants will complete a diversity self assessment and review six approaches to cross-cultural effectiveness. Each person will pick one or a combination that is most relevant to their organization, constituency, personal style and/or work environment. Participants will also work individually and in groups to explore questions, review model strategies they have selected to increase their effectiveness, and identify an individual action plan for advancing cross-cultural effectiveness in their workplace. Date January 31, 2008 Time 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm Cost $85 Location Ecotrust Conference Center 721 NW 9th Avenue Portland, Oregon Shelter Force Examines Pro’s and Con’s of CDC Getting to Scale in ‘Balancing Act’ Old definitions may be obsolete as CDCs weigh whether to grow and how to build their impact in today's social and economic environment. By Dee Walsh and Robert Zdenek for Shelterforce Is bigger always better? Among community development practitioners, it often appears to be the case these days. Many nonprofit housing corporations founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with large staffs and numerous programs, eventually lost their major funding sources and either contracted or went out of business. In the past decade, some community development organizations and their supporters have again begun to consider increasing their size as a means to achieve greater impact. But in an era of shrinking resources, the question of whether size matters demands close scrutiny in a field where “going to scale” has become a commonplace goal and is generally taken for granted as beneficial. In the CDC world, “going to scale” typically means increasing the number of affordable housing units the organization produces and generating economic growth for more people in a larger geographic area. The goal is to house more people, achieve greater programmatic and administrative efficiencies, and to become more financially self-sufficient. The assumption is that by getting larger, organizations will be better able to accomplish these objectives. In fact, there is no foolproof, cookie-cutter approach to building an effective, large-scale CDC (the term we are using throughout to refer to all nonprofit housing corporations). The number of large CDCs that have collapsed in the past decade—Eastside Community Investment in Indianapolis; Asian Neighborhood Design in San Francisco; National Temple CDC in Philadelphia; People’s Housing in Chicago; Whittier CDC in Minneapolis—is indicative of the challenges in building and running them successfully. For full article, click here. When Supportive Housing Isn't The rationale behind supportive housing for people with mental disabilities is that pairing individualized services with permanent housing will help them live more independently. But one San Francisco advocate sees more neglect than support. By Martha Bridegam for Shelterforce It’s a scene reminiscent of a madhouse in another century: a tenant suffering pain from untreated physical illness, malnourished, mentally frozen by anxiety, sits in a room heaped with third-hand possessions and garbage. A property manager stands in the doorway, grimacing at the smell, demanding a cleanup, and threatening penalties. The tenant feels like a prisoner. The manager acts like a warden. This scene plays out regularly in supportive-housing projects for recently homeless people in present-day San Francisco. The tenants are not prisoners, but instead are threatened with eviction, which almost guarantees a return to homelessness. They are not physically threatened, but instead suffer from neglect, which managers often attribute to the tenants’ failure to use available services. Supportive housing for homeless people is meant to prevent just these kinds of crises. Properly run supportive housing provides individualized services to help disabled people live independently. Possible services include case management, medical and psychiatric care, housekeeping, home health assistance, medication and appointment reminders, addiction treatment, meal programs, and life coaching. The idea is to stabilize tenants, both for their own sake and to save public dollars by avoiding the more expensive institutions such as jails, hospitals, and homeless shelters. Many supportive-housing programs I know well don’t make these services accessible enough to people with serious mental disabilities. In the 15-odd years I’ve been an advocate for very poor people in San Francisco, I have been through several eviction-threat scenes with clients, and have heard of many, many more from colleagues and clients, and clients’ friends and neighbors. It seems accepted as normal that some mentally disabled supportive-housing tenants are neglected and allowed to fail. To read the full article, click here. To learn more about what Portland is doing in regards to PSH, click here. Eugene Weekly Profiles State of Homelessness in Eugene Excellent article from Eugene Weekly by Alan Pittman, “MEAN STREETS: Struggling to make the homeless a priority in a city's heart, wallet”, about the state of homelessness in Eugene and the challenges facing city council. With service providers in Lane County counting contacts with more than 7,600 unduplicated homeless people annually, homelessness is a big challenge in for city council. However, on Nov.28th when Eugene city council and city staff started to look at priorities for upcoming tax measures, homelessness wasn’t on the agenda. The current city council has acknowledged the problem and held a first Homeless Connect event last year and appointed a Blue Ribbon Committee to Finance Homelessness and Housing Programs to look at the issues. But while Blue Ribbon Committee members agree that something needs to be done, the solutions are more complicated: shelters versus permanent housing; the role of an expanded urban growth boundary; how to pay for any new programs and how to prioritize the needs of the homeless against other priorities coming from conservatives who are pushing for more money being spent on roads and policing. For full article, click here.
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