By Living Room Realty, March 29, 2024
As a Realtor who has been in Portland for 22 years, I care deeply about my community. I often find myself trying to balance two concepts. Creating a housing environment where home buyers and sellers can build equity and improve their financial lives. But I also want housing to be affordable and my community to be vibrant. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of attending An affordable housing Symposium in Tigard presented by Community Partnerships for Affordable Housing. The event featured former Home Forward Executive Director Steve Rudman, Deputy Director of the Housing Development Center Andrea Sanchez and Lorelei Juntunen President of ECONorthwest.
One notable theme of the evening was that cities could look at housing as infrastructure the same way roads or utilities are viewed. If a top goal of a city was to make sure that it’s residents had enough affordable housing, our streets would be safer and more appealing, tourism and pedestrian traffic would increase, and the local economy would flourish.
Another point of the event was that federal funding for housing has drastically decreased as a percentage of the budget since the 1970’s. Given the polarization in our politics, it will likely be a grassroots community effort to increase our housing inventory. As a community if we made that a goal, I believe that the anticipated decrease in housing prices due to increased supply would be offset in by safer neighborhoods and more vibrant business community. Available housing leads to stronger communities.
