Unfortunately, no single policy tool will solve the problem of housing affordability. And no single city in our region should have to bear the burden of addressing this issue alone.  “

Housing advocates such as CAT executive director Justin Buri mourn the compromises they had to make to get these bills passed. “It is disappointing that tenants are not prioritized in the way other constituencies are,” he says. Still, the year’s organizing efforts had big wins, too: changing the conversation about tenants and winning new allies in the environment and labor movements.”

“If Portland is trying to be this model of sustainable, livable, walkable, 20-minute cities, and it’s not racially diverse and it’s not class diverse, we’ve got big problems about what that means for anywhere else,” says Lisa Bates, a professor of urban planning at Portland State University. “Is it only viable to use public resources to create a favorable environment if you get rid of all the undesirable people?”

“ Saturday, she got a notice that her rent was going up 62 percent, forcing the 87-year-old on a fixed income to move.“