Oregon Metro News posted an excellent series of Q+As with leaders in housing and homelessness on Oct. 25, 2016.
Israel Bayer of Street Roots, Marisa Zapata of Portland State University, Michael Buonocore and Molly Rogers of Home Forward, Martha McLennan of Northwest Housing Alternatives, Cynthia Parker, BRIDGE Housing and Meyer's Michael Parkhurst shared their insights on the fight for affordability.
Here's how Michael responded to one question:
Why is Meyer interested in the issue of affordable housing? How can it help?
There was a first five-year housing initiative and we just renewed it a few years ago. Our trustees were hearing a lot from partners in the field that housing was a really important issue and a place the Trust could make a difference. Not just grantmaking, but advancing policy and issue conversations around housing, helping advise public funders and learn from the field and disseminate best practices. Funding research is another thing we can do.
This issue of widespread concern about the expensive nature of affordable housing development bubbled up as an important issue where Meyer can weigh in as an analyst. So we put together this group of experts and spent a lot of time digging into the issues. We wanted to try to evaluate the underlying implication that it was more expensive than it needed to be and somehow there is a way to do this less expensively.
You'll find the full Oregon Metro News piece here.