May 15, 2013

On Monday, the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recognized the City’s efforts to preserve affordable homes in our community. “Getting It Done” describes the Portland Housing Bureau’s campaign to preserve the affordability of 11 key buildings with expiring federal rent subsidies by the end of 2013.

“Three years ago,” the story reports, “housing prices in downtown Portland were soaring, effectively shrinking the supply of affordable housing, forcing those who couldn’t pay out of the area. With assistance from HUD, the Oregon Department of Housing & Community Services, the Portland Housing Bureau launched its “11x13” initiative, promising to stem the tide and preserve the inventory of affordable, privately-owned and publicly-assisted housing in downtown. Looks like that promise was kept.”

Partnering with other government agencies and our exceptional non-profit partners, we focused our energy on the 11 buildings at risk of converting to market rates. Together, we helped non-profit partners acquire these buildings, renovate them, and renew their contracts with HUD to keep the rent subsidies in place for 20 more years.

In April, we were proud to announce that thanks to the hard work of many partners, we successfully met our goal, preserving the affordability of more than 700 apartments across the 11 buildings and ensuring that more than $160 million of federal rent subsidy remains in our community over the next two decades.