Where should affordable housing go?

A family member of mine who works at a non-profit affordable housing consultancy in Portland was understandably irritated at The Oregonian’s Sunday feature story, “Subsidizing Segregation: Taxpayer money meant to create affordable and desirable housing for the poor and people of color instead pushes them into the metro area’s worst neighborhoods.”

Patton Park Apartments. Photo: Reach CDC

I agree that the article has a pejorative tone, and deemphasizes any success stories or positive sides of the issue. Hundreds of housing professionals work tirelessly to provide decent places to live for our region’s less well-off. Far beyond tilting up four walls and a roof, our region’s housing agencies have created remarkable communities with state-of-the-art design and amenities. I’ve seen the quality first-hand during tours of North/Northeast Portland’s Patton Park and Shaver Green Apartments.


Where my family member and I may disagree is the central theme of the article – that the concentration of affordable housing in high-poverty neighborhoods is a problem. To be sure, my relative brings up two salient points – (1) that poor neighborhoods benefit from the construction of high-quality affordable housing and associated amenities like sidewalks, open space and ground floor retail; and (2) that land prices in the most expensive neighborhoods can make affordable housing projects very difficult to pencil.

I think where I differ – and where I agree with the newspaper article – is that our public housing providers should strive to build affordable housing in every neighborhood, not just the ones where land is cheap and poor people already live. Should we really build public housing in Lake Oswego? Yes! As long as it’s near transit and employment.

For me, it comes down to having equal access to jobs, transportation and community amenities. In the Portland region, we have the tragic irony of comfortable, middle class, white people living in walkable neighborhoods close to downtown, with sidewalks, parks, grocery stores and frequent transit. Meanwhile, struggling, poor minorities live along distant boulevards with no sidewalks, scant amenities, and few nearby opportunities for employment.

Yes, let’s build some good communities out in these depressed suburbs. But shouldn’t poor people also be offered the opportunity to live in places where they can walk safely down a sidewalk with their kids to a park, go to a nearby grocery store that isn’t a gas station mini-mart, or commute to a quality job by transit in less than 90 minutes?

Fortunately, the City of Portland has been proactive on this front. Thirty percent of funds in each non-industrial urban renewal area must be spent on affordable housing. While this target has been tough to meet in some places, we now have a sizable portfolio of affordable housing buildings in the tony Pearl District, in gentrifying inner North Portland, in the high-rise urban experiment of the South Waterfront, and scattered throughout numerous well-to-do inner neighborhoods. All of these places are close to jobs, have excellent active transportation infrastructure, and boast great amenities. The Oregonian article failed to mention these deliberate, impressive efforts undertaken by our public housing providers.

Portland needs to keep up the good work building affordable housing in a range of places, and other jurisdictions need to step up to the plate. To do otherwise is to perpetuate economic segregation. Will it be hard? Yes. Popular? Not among some. Expensive? Land prices may be high in places, but we're providing a social service, not siting a warehouse. Will the end result have us all holding hands in a utopia of socio-economic and racial integration? Clearly not.

But I don't think it's a stretch to ask for decent, affordable housing in as many neighborhoods as possible. That means in both Rockwood and Raleigh Hills. Where do you think affordable housing should be built?