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Mayor Keith Wilson on Monday afternoon implored the Portland City Council to direct much of $21 million in unspent funds from the Portland Housing Bureau to the general fund to “preserve public programs and at-risk city staff positions.”
Wilson’s request comes after the council last week indicated an appetite for spending much of the $21 million on rent assistance and the creation of affordable housing.
The Housing Bureau found the money unspent in its coffers late last year. How it piled up remains a matter of great contention between the council and administration—especially after former bureau director Helmi Hisserich said the saga contributed to her departure.
A plan for how to spend the money was floated last week by District 1 Councilors Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy and Loretta Smith. (The package they presented was a compromise version that incorporated ideas from Councilor Eric Zimmerman.)
That package, if passed by the council, will dedicate $8.5 million to rental assistance, $1.2 million to tenant eviction defense, and $1.4 million to “affordable housing portfolio stabilization tactics.” Another chunk of the money would provide gap funding for ongoing affordable housing development efforts.
Wilson appears to not be in support of the councilors’ plan. In the letter, he wrote that he feared the council would sloppily allocate money to programs that offer rent assistance without providing “safeguards, transparency, and controls on who you intend to serve, and how you will safeguard the integrity and responsible use of these funds.”
“I recognize that financial support from the federal government and Multnomah County is declining, but that does not mean we can responsibly shoulder that loss with city funds,” Wilson wrote. “I agree that the City of Portland must do more to reduce the risk of homelessness. However, we cannot effectively do this if we act impulsively and without long-term funding mechanisms.”
Instead, Wilson implored the council to send nearly all of the found money to the city’s general fund, which is facing a current-fiscal year deficit of $13.6 million and a deficit of at least $53 million in the next fiscal year that begins July 1.
“Any unspent Portland Housing Bureau balance is a one-time funding source. Given current budget realities, we will not be able to sustain spending on ongoing landlord subsidies without painful staffing and programmatic cuts. Pending legal and technical analysis, please consider returning eligible unspent funds to the City’s General Fund to preserve public programs and at-risk City staff positions,” Wilson wrote. “If, after budget negotiations, you believe those funds should still be spent outside of core services, we will be in a better position to direct funds toward landlord subsidies or other similar efforts.”
But it’s not clear if those funds could legally be put towards the general fund, and Wilson added that his request is incumbent upon “pending legal and technical analysis.”
Wilson also implored the council to spend $4 million of the $21 million on moving people from his network of city shelters to housing. “To my understanding, we all share the same belief that our shelter system is only as effective as our ability to move those we serve into permanent housing,” he wrote. (Data shows that few people moved into housing from the city’s network of shelter beds and pod villages in recent years.)
Smith told WW in a phone call that she was “sick of Mayor Wilson’s whining”, especially because, she says, she incorporated some of Wilson’s requests into the councilors’ proposal last week.
“I’m frustrated by Mayor Wilson’s whining,” Smith said. “When he doesn’t get everything he wants, he goes out into the public and whines about it.”
