Vancouver eyes affordable housing remedies
Courtyard Village Apartments evictions spur council to discuss ways to protect low-income, vulnerable tenants
Each Illegal , each immigrant takes up space and that space is taken from Legal Americans and their children.
By Scott Hewitt, Columbian social issues & neighborhoods reporter
Published: February 22, 2015, 6:29 PM
Alarming Numbers
A new report from the Washington Department of Commerce has underlined just how tough the affordable housing picture is throughout the state and in Clark County. Among its findings:
• Thirty-six percent of Washington households are cost burdened (spending more than 30 percent of income on housing) and 15.2 percent are severely cost burdened (spending more than 50 percent on housing). In real terms, that's 936,260 households cost burdened and 390,000 households severely cost burdened.
• Washington state has a deficit of 327,136 "affordable and available" housing units.
• Since 2000, incomes in Washington state have declined by 2.4 percent while median rents have increased 7.8 percent.
• Low-income households are projected to be the fastest-growing population demographic in Washington state in the next five years.
• Puget Sound and Vancouver have the highest rents in the state (upwards of $900).
• The apartment vacancy rate in Clark County is between 1 and 2 percent. Market watchers usually consider 5 percent a healthy balance.
• In Clark County there are just under 32,000 low-income renter households.
• At current rates of state population growth and housing construction, it will take 30 years to provide enough affordable housing for all.
Source: Washington State Housing Needs Assessment 2015, Department of Commerce.
The Vancouver City Council will hold a one-hour workshop to start exploring affordable housing issues and remedies — what can be done to build more and to protect vulnerable tenants from displacement — beginning at 4 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at Vancouver City Hall, 415 W. 6th Street.
Looking at what other jurisdictions have done will be key to getting something done here, councilor Alishia Topper said.
"In my opinion, we are so far behind on this issue," she said. "To do nothing would be really unforgivable."
The issue leapt to the fore in December, when so-called "no cause" notices to vacate in 20 days started going out to dozens of households at Courtyard Village Apartments, a complex of buildings at 2600 T Street in the Rose Village neighborhood of central Vancouver. New owner Metropolitan Land Group of Beaverton and its local subsidiary, MF Parc Central, are renovating the 151-unit complex and plan to raise the rents.
These are called "no-cause" terminations because, by law, no reason is required. Twenty days' notice is perfectly legal throughout most of Washington state.
"There is zero morality in this," said resident Kelly Britt, 56, a disabled U.S. Army veteran who's facing, with his wife and two daughters, a deadline of the end of this month. The rent on the Britts' current unit is rising from $750 to $1,100 a month; the family's housing voucher is worth $889 a month.
"If I found an $1,100 apartment today, I couldn't take it, because I can't afford it," Britt said. He halfway expects to wind up in a homeless shelter, he said.
Market watchers and community leaders have called the Courtyard Village Apartments situation the tip of an iceberg. Renters at other developments have reported that, while they haven't received notices to vacate, they have been notified that rents are rising; some have said that leaves them no real choice but to double up with family and friends.
Now, city policymakers will begin a search for solutions that would protect the lowest-income, least able tenants from sudden displacement as well as encourage the construction of more affordable housing in Vancouver.
"Our housing market is broken right now," Andy Silver, the executive director of the nonprofit Council for the Homeless, told a public forum earlier this month. What jobs pay, what landlords charge and what incentives there are for developers to build new affordable housing "do not match up," he said.
"The problem is projected to grow worse over the next few years," regional labor economist Scott Bailey noted in a recent report. "There simply isn't enough affordable housing, whether provided by the private sector or through some kind of housing subsidy.
"How will local communities respond to this issue?"
Silver is urging everyone to show up at City Hall on Monday. The workshop won't be an open public dialog, he said, but a packed council chamber will make a strong point.
Meanwhile, Silver and other activists from Clark County — including Topper — lobbied legislators in Olympia on Feb. 17, which was coined Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day. Hundreds turned out from across the state — but they know the hurdles ahead are high because of other pressing priorities, Topper said.
Transportation and education funding needs are getting the most attention so far this year, she said. On Feb. 17, advocates responded by stressing that those issues "don't work in isolation. Kids can't be successful in school, people can't travel to work and earn a good income, without stable housing.
"Housing is the heart of our economy," she said.
Nearby examples
Oregon law requires landlords to give 30 days' written notice to any month-to-month tenant who's being required to vacate with no cause. If the tenant has been there for more than a year, the legal requirement is twice that: 60 days' notice if you're being displaced with no cause.
"Thirty days is just not enough time to look for housing, to fill out applications, to get approved, to pack up and move," said Justin Buri, the executive director of the Community Alliance of Tenants, an Oregon advocacy group. "Thirty days is nothing. The difference between 30 and 60 days is everything. The time to go looking is everything.
"
Seattle has various ordinances aimed at protecting tenants from sudden displacement. Its Just Cause Eviction Ordinance requires that landlords give "good cause" in writing for ending a month-to-month tenancy — and it specifies the only 18 reasons that are allowed.
Another Seattle ordinance says any landlord who wants to displace renters in order to substantially redevelop, rehabilitate or alter a property must get a Tenant Relocation Assistance license. In addition to payments of $3,255 in relocation assistance to low-income tenants who qualify, the ordinance also requires a specific schedule of multiple advance notices to all tenants. The whole process can take 90 days or longer before anybody has to leave.
And, yet another Seattle ordinance requires landlords who intend to hike the rent 10 percent or more must give tenants 60 days' written notice.
On the construction side, possibilities may include new taxes for a new local housing trust fund, zoning laws that require affordable housing with every market-rate development, fee waivers for nonprofit and public projects, and lowered income and rent limits on some apartment units.
Both Seattle and Portland also have various provisions to soften the blow for tenants when apartments are converted to condominiums — including advance notice, relocation assistance and giving current tenants the right of first refusal to buy their converted units.
Statewide possibilities
The Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance is pushing three proposals in the legislature this year. The two proposals that made it out of committee before Friday's cut-off were:
• Fair Screening Tenant Act (HB 1257), which ensures that a landlord cannot charge a rental applicant for a new screening report if that tenant has supplied a current one.
• Truth in Evictions Reporting Act (SB 5376), which ensures that evictions are reported only when a tenant was proven guilty.
The third proposal, Source of Income Discrimination Protections, did not make it out of committee. It would have would prevented landlords from categorically denying housing to renters using lawful housing subsidies or income supports, like government housing vouchers, to pay the rent.
The Alliance, and local housing advocates like Silver, have also called for $100 million for the state Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants and loans to low-income housing projec
By Scott Hewitt, Columbian social issues & neighborhoods reporter
Published: February 22, 2015, 6:29 PM
Alarming Numbers
A new report from the Washington Department of Commerce has underlined just how tough the affordable housing picture is throughout the state and in Clark County. Among its findings:
• Thirty-six percent of Washington households are cost burdened (spending more than 30 percent of income on housing) and 15.2 percent are severely cost burdened (spending more than 50 percent on housing). In real terms, that's 936,260 households cost burdened and 390,000 households severely cost burdened.
• Washington state has a deficit of 327,136 "affordable and available" housing units.
• Since 2000, incomes in Washington state have declined by 2.4 percent while median rents have increased 7.8 percent.
• Low-income households are projected to be the fastest-growing population demographic in Washington state in the next five years.
• Puget Sound and Vancouver have the highest rents in the state (upwards of $900).
• The apartment vacancy rate in Clark County is between 1 and 2 percent. Market watchers usually consider 5 percent a healthy balance.
• In Clark County there are just under 32,000 low-income renter households.
• At current rates of state population growth and housing construction, it will take 30 years to provide enough affordable housing for all.
Source: Washington State Housing Needs Assessment 2015, Department of Commerce.
The Vancouver City Council will hold a one-hour workshop to start exploring affordable housing issues and remedies — what can be done to build more and to protect vulnerable tenants from displacement — beginning at 4 p.m. Monday in the council chambers at Vancouver City Hall, 415 W. 6th Street.
Looking at what other jurisdictions have done will be key to getting something done here, councilor Alishia Topper said.
"In my opinion, we are so far behind on this issue," she said. "To do nothing would be really unforgivable."
The issue leapt to the fore in December, when so-called "no cause" notices to vacate in 20 days started going out to dozens of households at Courtyard Village Apartments, a complex of buildings at 2600 T Street in the Rose Village neighborhood of central Vancouver. New owner Metropolitan Land Group of Beaverton and its local subsidiary, MF Parc Central, are renovating the 151-unit complex and plan to raise the rents.
These are called "no-cause" terminations because, by law, no reason is required. Twenty days' notice is perfectly legal throughout most of Washington state.
"There is zero morality in this," said resident Kelly Britt, 56, a disabled U.S. Army veteran who's facing, with his wife and two daughters, a deadline of the end of this month. The rent on the Britts' current unit is rising from $750 to $1,100 a month; the family's housing voucher is worth $889 a month.
"If I found an $1,100 apartment today, I couldn't take it, because I can't afford it," Britt said. He halfway expects to wind up in a homeless shelter, he said.
Market watchers and community leaders have called the Courtyard Village Apartments situation the tip of an iceberg. Renters at other developments have reported that, while they haven't received notices to vacate, they have been notified that rents are rising; some have said that leaves them no real choice but to double up with family and friends.
Now, city policymakers will begin a search for solutions that would protect the lowest-income, least able tenants from sudden displacement as well as encourage the construction of more affordable housing in Vancouver.
"Our housing market is broken right now," Andy Silver, the executive director of the nonprofit Council for the Homeless, told a public forum earlier this month. What jobs pay, what landlords charge and what incentives there are for developers to build new affordable housing "do not match up," he said.
"The problem is projected to grow worse over the next few years," regional labor economist Scott Bailey noted in a recent report. "There simply isn't enough affordable housing, whether provided by the private sector or through some kind of housing subsidy.
"How will local communities respond to this issue?"
Silver is urging everyone to show up at City Hall on Monday. The workshop won't be an open public dialog, he said, but a packed council chamber will make a strong point.
Meanwhile, Silver and other activists from Clark County — including Topper — lobbied legislators in Olympia on Feb. 17, which was coined Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day. Hundreds turned out from across the state — but they know the hurdles ahead are high because of other pressing priorities, Topper said.
Transportation and education funding needs are getting the most attention so far this year, she said. On Feb. 17, advocates responded by stressing that those issues "don't work in isolation. Kids can't be successful in school, people can't travel to work and earn a good income, without stable housing.
"Housing is the heart of our economy," she said.
Nearby examples
Oregon law requires landlords to give 30 days' written notice to any month-to-month tenant who's being required to vacate with no cause. If the tenant has been there for more than a year, the legal requirement is twice that: 60 days' notice if you're being displaced with no cause.
"Thirty days is just not enough time to look for housing, to fill out applications, to get approved, to pack up and move," said Justin Buri, the executive director of the Community Alliance of Tenants, an Oregon advocacy group. "Thirty days is nothing. The difference between 30 and 60 days is everything. The time to go looking is everything.
Seattle has various ordinances aimed at protecting tenants from sudden displacement. Its Just Cause Eviction Ordinance requires that landlords give "good cause" in writing for ending a month-to-month tenancy — and it specifies the only 18 reasons that are allowed.
Another Seattle ordinance says any landlord who wants to displace renters in order to substantially redevelop, rehabilitate or alter a property must get a Tenant Relocation Assistance license. In addition to payments of $3,255 in relocation assistance to low-income tenants who qualify, the ordinance also requires a specific schedule of multiple advance notices to all tenants. The whole process can take 90 days or longer before anybody has to leave.
And, yet another Seattle ordinance requires landlords who intend to hike the rent 10 percent or more must give tenants 60 days' written notice.
On the construction side, possibilities may include new taxes for a new local housing trust fund, zoning laws that require affordable housing with every market-rate development, fee waivers for nonprofit and public projects, and lowered income and rent limits on some apartment units.
Both Seattle and Portland also have various provisions to soften the blow for tenants when apartments are converted to condominiums — including advance notice, relocation assistance and giving current tenants the right of first refusal to buy their converted units.
Statewide possibilities
The Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance is pushing three proposals in the legislature this year. The two proposals that made it out of committee before Friday's cut-off were:
• Fair Screening Tenant Act (HB 1257), which ensures that a landlord cannot charge a rental applicant for a new screening report if that tenant has supplied a current one.
• Truth in Evictions Reporting Act (SB 5376), which ensures that evictions are reported only when a tenant was proven guilty.
The third proposal, Source of Income Discrimination Protections, did not make it out of committee. It would have would prevented landlords from categorically denying housing to renters using lawful housing subsidies or income supports, like government housing vouchers, to pay the rent.
The Alliance, and local housing advocates like Silver, have also called for $100 million for the state Housing Trust Fund, which provides grants and loans to low-income housing projec
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ludivine v Take all their French Passports from them ( burn them in front of them ), put them on a ship and send them back. I love France and it is getting ruined. I want ed to go for the summer this year, but now I do not. I lived 8 years there. It all started when France was in North Africa and now , they all think they are French ( I do not think so and never will ) They are black Africans , Algerians and the others. Yes they look only for the free hand outs and yes they send money back to africa and yes they steal and rob you .
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Peter 4 minutes ago
1
1
We need world population control. Italy for Italians and France for the French. Africa needs population control and African countries need to take care of its own people. Same with Mexico; the Mex government wants an open border. so that they can dump the poor, uneducated, and sick Mexicans into our USA, so that we legal, taxpayers have to pay for illegals. And as soon as the illegals get here, they begin having anchor babies who they think will anchor the illegals into our USA. And that's when they put a guilt trip onto the US citizens, as if we are responsible for all of their screw ups and baby making.
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Allready 2 hours ago
0
18
Send them back! I am so sick of This bull stuff! Man up 500000+ people running form 20000?
It be one thing if these people moved to a new country and tried to make them self's better and were loyal to that country that saved there butts but they don't ! Add there cowards do you really want people that could not stand up and fight moving to your country that will do all there old way that made there county crud and than bash your ways and religion? Hell no seed them packing !
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Cheryl 2 hours ago
0
17
These people are not migrants. Migrant, according to Merriam-Webster is " a person who moves regularly in order to find work especially in harvesting crops" I don't think these people are even thinking of finding work and probably are hoping to never have to return from whence they came. They are immigrants "a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence" or they are refugees " a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution ". They need to go back to their home country rather than becoming a drain on Italy. I'm all for helping people in need but it gets to the point that they need to grow a backbone and learn to deal with the situation in their home countries.
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Gary 33 minutes ago
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7
What the headlines should read: Another boatload of diseased African skinnies beached on the Greek coast. Threat of the spread of Ebola has risen by 5oo% due to terroristic actions of the Libyan government and non-existent coastal controls against human trafficking. There are no plans to return this boatload of useless human filth since no country in the world wants to allow them back onto their soil. Meanwhile the bankrupted government of Greece is looking for ways to dispose of this human refuse since they have no way to feed or care for this group of walking dead. Obama is doing his level best to not be informed of this situation since it would call into question his desire to support Islamic extremists and his racist drive to throw American money at Africa even though there is zero support for any form of US aid to these sub-humans. Secret efforts are being made to sink any future boats while at sea and remove the threat to Europe and the Mediterranean nations.
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Reply
Tom Vee 1 hour ago
0
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Stop rescuing them, and ship back any that get through. It's the only way to save any of those European countries. How long is it going to take to realize that these people do nothing more than bring their twisted beliefs to your lands and then you have to deal with them. Aren't all of the shootings and their attempts to destroy free speech enough proof. The more you let in, the bigger the problem you are going to face down the road. Sorry to sound harsh and insensitive, but the facts speak for themselves. Europe and any other place that takes in these people got to be nuts. What's the big fear now? Why everyone is worried about all of those poor souls they took in, who have gone to get terrorist training and are going to be coming back to what used to be your home sweet home. Bleeding hearts are going to be bleeding for real.
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LTC 4 minutes ago
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1
They was probably on their way to the US to help kill us.
How is the world looking to everyone now that you chose to chase God out of it?
It will never get better until you tell the lawmakers to bring God back.
Quit the sinful ways put the moral laws back in place and trust in God.
Then this world can have some normalcy back in it.
Dowman 3 hours ago
2
6
Italy’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest level since the foundation of the modern state in 1861, prompting fresh alarm in a society that has been steadily ageing for decades.
The number of births per 1,000 people has fallen to just 8.4, down from 38.3 when Italy’s territories and kingdoms were unified a century and a half ago.
In Britain and the United States, the figures are 12 and 13 respectively.
Last year 509,000 babies were born in Italy, 5,000 fewer than in 2013.
The mortality rate also declined last year, stretching life expectancy for Italian women to 85 years, while the average man will live to 80.
Beatrice Lorenzin, the minister of health, said: “We are at the threshold where people who die are not being replaced by newborns. That means we are a dying country.
"This situation has enormous implications for every sector: the economy, society, health, pensions, just to give a few examples."
Italy’s five million immigrants, out of an overall population of 60 million, are also having fewer children, having previously registered high birth rates.
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DavidB 9 hours ago
0
56
Migrants ?
Do they have legal right to be going there?
No
Then they aren't migrants, they are criminals.
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ludivine v 10 hours ago
5
175
I live in France and we are being invaded by Africans, Arabs and anything else that goes. France's unemployment is already at 5 million. We have no room for anyone else let alone migrants who arrive with nothing but all want hand outs. Without sounding too harsh if Europe does nothing now we will end up being just another third world continent. And I won't even get into the Islam/Muslim problem. Not one European leader is willing to do anything about this.... And if no one does it will be the end of our civilization as we have known it.
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WakeUpAmerica 6 hours ago
3
47
I'm sorry, but too many of these ILLEGAL ALIENS AKA MIGRANTS are DYING in the waters of the Mediterranean! SEND THEM ALL BACK, to the last man, woman and child! Their future in the EU is limited to being slaves and leeches upon society, much like the ILLEGAL ALIENS in the USA! They don't want to assimilate or even make an effort beyond a subsistence existence, their children on the other hand will get an education and language they can use to succeed in a generation!
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Armed migrant smugglers threatened Italian Coast Guard
(Photo: Francesco Malavolta, AP)
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Armed smugglers threatened an Italian Coast Guard motorboat in the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday as its officers attempted to rescue migrants from Libya, reports said.
The Italian Coast Guard had just taken the migrants aboard when three of four smugglers jumped onto the migrants' empty boat and took off, the Associated Press reported.
Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi said the confrontation with four men in a speedboat and brandishing Kalashnikov rifles took place 50 miles off the coast of Libya.
The BBC said the Italians were part of a major rescue operation aimed at saving migrants having difficulty in stormy weather on the Mediterranean Sea.
Nearly 2,200 migrants were rescued in several operations Sunday and taken to Italian ports, the Coast Guard said. Hundreds were also rescued Saturday, the AP reported.
Matteo Renzi, Italy's premier, has pressed the United Nations to intervene to stem the violence in Libya. Italy evacuated its personnel from Tripoli on Sunday and advised other Italian citizens to leave Libya, where many work in oil and construction.
Last week gunmen from an al-Qaeda inspired militia took over broadcast stations in the city of Sirte, the AP reported, citing a security official in Libya.
Officials in Italy worry that terrorists may slip into the country aboard boats crowded with refugees.
The U.N. says nearly 3,500 people died in similar crossings to Europe in 2014 and more than 200,000 were rescued.
Many were plucked from the sea as a result of an Italian operation known as Mare Nostrum, which was launched in October 2013 in response to a tragedy in which 366 migrants died, BBC reported. That operation has ende