Portland mayor aims to increase low-income housing
Courtesy / Avesta Housing
Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling has proposed a measure to double the percentage of low-income housing to be included in large residential projects, and to lower income eligibility requirements.
The Bangor Daily News reported the city currently has an ordinance requiring new developments with at least 10 housing units to set aside 10% for low-income tenants; or developers can pay a fee of $100,000 per unit to the city’s Housing Trust.
BDN reported that Strimling’s amendment would make it so that the units in question are affordable at 80% of the area median income if they are rentals and 100% of the area median income if they’re for sale. Currently, those percentages are 100% and 120%, respectively.
According to the BDN, the change would lower the affordability threshold of a unit for sale for a family of four from approximately $273,000 to $225,000 and would decrease the rent on a rental unit for the same family by more than $400 a month, from $2,053 to $1,643.
Finding affordable housing, whether it’s for purchase or rent, is a challenge in Portland's hot market, where a new-housing boom has tightened up residential availability nearly to the vanishing point.
"There's a huge affordable housing problem in the greater Portland area," Dana Totman, CEO and president of the non-profit Avesta Housing, told Mainebiz in February.
Avesta considers housing to be affordable when people pay no more than 30% of their income on housing, Totman said. Avesta focuses on people who earn $49,200 a year, or 80% of Portland's area median income. Half of Portland's population earns less than that, Totman said: Among renters, the median income is $33,081. By Avesta's 30%-of-income standard, they could afford to pay $827 per month.
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