Portland’s low-income housing program fails to help intended population, audit finds
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A City of Portland program designed to increase housing availability for people with low incomes is falling short of its goals according to a city audit report.
The report focused on the Inclusionary Housing program, first launched by the Portland Housing Bureau in 2017.
The report published Wednesday found that the city often failed to ensure property owners were in compliance with the program requirements. What’s more, the audit found the city didn’t provide enough education and resources to property owners to fulfill their duties of properly vetting tenant requirements.
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The audit said the program mostly helped create housing for those earning 60% or 80% or less of the Median Family Income. However, the program didn’t reach its goal of increasing housing “for individuals and families facing the greatest disparities” economically — specifically those making much lower than 60% MFI.
In addition, the city’s goals for creating housing for those most in need were not well-defined, not realistic and not well-tracked. As the audit explained, “Bureau managers said that by requiring the private market to build 60% and 80% MFI housing, the Program frees up money it can use to finance housing for lower-income households. However, the Bureau does not track how Inclusionary Housing has increased those opportunities. The goal is also not clear because the greatest disparities is not defined and could be interpreted to refer to different types of disparities including economic or racial.”
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Out of 566 housing units created, the majority of them — 435 — were studio or one-bedroom units. The auditors said those kinds of units “are already affordable outside of the Program for some families” so it has a limited effect.
The audit gave recommendations that include ensuring the Inclusionary Housing program benefits the intended population, improving its goals, doing more to ensure property owners understand and follow through on their responsibilities and increasing monitoring to identify when non-compliance occurs and correct it.
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