Mitch Green

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ACTION ALERT: Support an Inner Eastside for All! We need your written testimony to support a resolution that would speed up the re-legalization of building apartments in Portland's high opportunity and amenity-rich Inner Neighborhoods! portlandneighborswelcome.org/ie4a-resolut...

It just means that there are both restrictions on use and preexisting plans for their use. So, Council could take those funds in a new direction but it would conditioned on legal appropriateness and whether we want to undo some plans underway.

Portland City Council Work Session-Unbudgeted Housing Funds 3/05/26 YouTube video by eGov PDX

Also, here's the link to the discussion itself from today

Addendum: There is $4.8MM in uncommitted TIF resources available to support housing production from the River District TIF. I think the Parcel 6 project at Broadway Corrider is a prime candidate for that money. More to come on that.

Anyway, it was a rich discussion and necessary reset. I want to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of the staff at the Portland Housing Bureau, who pour their souls into this work. We are richer as a city for them.

Throughout, I suggested that we should approach gap financing as a lender with a stake rather than a grant maker. We can support capital stacks with low-cost revolving loan capital, which keeps some skin in the game for the city and plants a seed for future yield.

I think it's important to act now to inject this capital into the market so we can make hay while the sun shines.

We are in a housing crisis, but we also have opportunities to engage in cost-efficient market acquisition and conversion to some kind of "social housing." Today I discussed this in the context of facilitating conversion of apt buildings to limited equity coops, but it's an open set of possibilities.

For Tier 2: There's roughly $30.4MM available to consider appropriating differently that currently planned in the housing bureau. While these funds are not committed, they are held in contingency as out-year resources for affordable housing production. We should pull that work forward imo.

E.g., rental assistance is critical for keeping people housed or rapidly rehousing them. It's a demand-side lifeline. But, we can also do supply-side interventions like buying down the balance sheet costs of affordable providers to lower rents or expand capacity. We should do both.

Under Tier 1: I suggested that we divide this between four buckets: 1) rental assistance ($9MM), 2) eviction defense ($1.9MM), 3) rent buydowns ($8.8MM, 4) additional flexible programming ($1MM).

This approach blends both demand and supply side interventions for renter stabilization

We offered that we should think of approaching our decision-making process in a two-tiered approach:

Tier 1: Immediate action / spending of renter services funds.
Tier 2: Consideration of the remaining balance for strategic investments appropriate for one-time use of funds.

We wanted the proposal framework to refocus the conversation on distinguishing between fund types subject to a range of council discretion. Of the $106MM, only $20.7M is subject to full council discretion without taking away from previously planned uses. The remaining funds have limited discretion.

Now that I have some desk time, I'm going to expand this into a brief thread to lay out the basics of the proposal that we discussed today for spending this unbudgeted housing money.

For those of you following on with the unbudgeted housing funds work session, we have been talking in reference to a one-pager* that mine and @councilormorillo.bsky.social offices developed ahead of this session. Here's that link.

* it's two sided

That’s a huge problem, yes

Routle - TriMet
03/04/2026
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www.routle.city/trimet

Futuristic world meme template

Oregon if we can elect a caucus willing to tax where the money is.

No, they should channel their anger into getting challengers lined up to primary incumbents who refuse to fight like our futures aren’t on the line.

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Not sure if the transit centers are numbered like that. I only know it by name

A transit center stop with views of the high roof enclosure

While I wish frequency and connections were better, I do like this transit center. Can you tell which one it is?

I put that in the alt text. Thanks for putting here.

Fair question. I guess it’s more precise to say we need mass movements, with strikes, boycotts and direct action as organizing objectives. We’ve been able to pour people into the streets and then little more for decades. Being part of orgs that focus on these in unison is essential imo

Poster that says no war with Iran with bombs dropping and hands reaching up. Artist credit to @toosphexy

The trash that occupies the White House (and any legislator failing to act to stop him) is bombing children in Iran. This is intolerable. The time for mass mobilization is now. Join an org, get into the streets, contact your reps. No war on Iran.

Council President Dunphy did raise precisely this point.

Mayor, I hope you find some time to take a meeting with these labor leaders to hear them. It's important.

There is no basis of justification for teargassing indiscriminately thousands of people protesting peacefully. Full stop. I was there, I saw it: it was a violent reaction to seeing how disgusted the public is with the very existence of ICE.

At the regular Council meeting this morning, during public comment, Tyler Fellini of @jwjpdx.bsky.social noted that the Mayor suggested that the 1/31 teargassing of Portlanders by the feds at the ICE Out Labor Rally was justified by the actions of a few. It was completely unjustified.

Yes. Because all tacos are sandwiches.