Multifamily Marketwatch: Can Portland Fix Its Housing Crisis? Apartment Owners & Advocates Speak Out
The video features a discussion about Portland’s housing crisis centered around “Dear Portland,” an exhibition created by Michael Larson’s nonprofit Humans for Housing that uses personal video portraits to humanize homelessness data and combat compassion fatigue among residents. Megan Howard of Tandem Properties, a second-generation Portland housing provider, argues that landlords are misunderstood and should be seen as part of the solution, noting that rising property taxes, insurance, and utility costs drive rent increases while Portland’s loss of major employers prevents wage growth from keeping pace. Both guests emphasize that housing alone is insufficient—chronically homeless individuals need wraparound services like case management and behavioral health support, but government funding cuts are forcing service providers to lay off staff and close shelters. The discussion highlights a troubling dynamic in Multnomah County where for every three people stably rehoused, four enter homelessness, a ratio expected to worsen as federal and local funding shrinks. The exhibit and conversation represent a broader call for collaboration among housing providers, nonprofits, and government to address what both guests frame as an interconnected economic and social crisis rather than blaming any single group.
Transcript#
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[00:00:44] Aaron Kirk Douglas: Welcome back to Multifamily Market Watch. I’m Aaron Kirk Douglas and with me today is Michael Larson, executive director and founder of Humans for Housing, and Megan Howard of Tandem Properties, a local housing provider. Welcome and thank you for joining me today.
Michael Larson: Thank you. Great to be here.
Megan Howard: Glad to be here.
Aaron Kirk Douglas: My first question for the two of you, and I’ll let Michael answer this if you would. What is Dear Portland, and what will people see when they walk into the exhibit that you have set up there?
Michael Larson: Yeah. So, Dear Portland really is an exhibition inviting the general public in Portland to have a conversation about housing and homelessness. So, there’s seven different parts of this exhibition. You’ll start off kind of with an intro video and then you’ll walk through a section about the housing crisis in Portland and the data and the statistics of our underbuilding that’s been continuing to happen and how that’s led to just a continued increase in unaffordability within the city. And then the next section is the stories of people deeply impacted by housing insecurity. A lot of folks who have experienced homelessness. And then as you make your way sort of towards the end of the exhibition, there’s calls to action of how people can get involved and what they can do to help be a part of the solution.
[00:02:06] Aaron Kirk Douglas: What is it about this exhibit that you feel is different from other exhibits that you may have seen or that you’ve heard of being done elsewhere?
Michael Larson: Yeah, I mean our team took a lot of deep care to really uplift people’s stories and we do that through these things called video portraits. So, as you walk in, in kind of the story room of the exhibition, you’ll see these six different TVs that are on these stands and they each have a different individual where you can put on headphones and you can press a button and you can for about 5 minutes you get to hear their direct story. And so there’s some unique video sort of elements like that within the exhibit. But really it’s an exhibit that’s really launching people into action of we all need to be a part of having these conversations. This is the city that we all love and enjoy and have struggles with, and so how can we all play a role in being a part of the solution?
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[00:03:20] Aaron Kirk Douglas: And Megan, the first time you went through this exhibit, what part of it hit you the hardest and why?
Megan Howard: Well, I’ve never been to an exhibit on homelessness up until this moment. The exhibit’s called Dear Portland. And it really humanized for the first time the data that we’ve heard and kind of been inundated with for a long time. And those portraits that Michael was talking about, that’s what kind of brought it to life for me. And so the engagement opportunities through the exhibit are just, they kind of tee you up for action. And so you start by actually saying what home means to you. So it gets you in this mindset of okay, I have a home. Why do I enjoy it? And then you work your way through and you hear these six individual stories of, you know, some of them are still experiencing homelessness. Some are in shelter. Some have been able to secure housing. And so it was hearing those really intimate human stories that most people don’t get the privilege to hear because in order for people to share those stories with that level of detail, it takes a lot of trust and a lot of relationship building which Michael and his team was able to secure. And to hear them, it was, I mean it’s heartbreaking and it just shows that there’s a lot of different reasons that people enter homelessness and I think those aren’t necessarily discussed. And so it just is a, it was a really humanizing experience my first time.
[00:04:42] Aaron Kirk Douglas: So that was able to break through to you. It sounds like even though we have all heard so much about homelessness for so many years in Portland, so many statistics, so many numbers, so many tax levies that were funding trying to do something about it and we just hear that the problem keeps getting worse. Why do you think people are getting numb to this whole situation?
Megan Howard: Totally. I think a lot of people in the city talk about this concept of compassion fatigue where it’s you might hear a story one time and but then when this thing continues to get worse and worse and worse over time while we’re investing so much resources and energy and focus on these issues and they’re just not getting better, people become hopeless. And so they, part of it I think is almost a defense mechanism of to actually care about each of the, right now there’s over 17,000 individuals that are experiencing homelessness in Multnomah County and to actually care for each one of those individuals takes an incredible toll emotionally and so I think sometimes we try and protect ourselves. But as things continue to get worse, we can’t lose that humanity. And it’s the stories that I think remind us that these are people. These aren’t just numbers. These aren’t just statistics. And while the compassion fatigue is understandable, we can’t let it leave us in being numb with these issues that we have to move forward with in terms of making better.
[00:06:28] Aaron Kirk Douglas: Megan, what does it mean to you to know that this exhibit doesn’t demonize housing providers?
Megan Howard: Yeah. I mean, I was really pleased to see that they kind of zoomed out a little bit and looked at what you’ll see, I’ll just give it away, is it’s government policies and some decision-making that is resulting in this kind of crisis. And I think at least for Portland and maybe the state of Oregon, housing providers, which is my nicer word for landlord, is kind of a dirty word. People immediately have a stigma or their own experience with maybe a bad landlord and not realizing that there are humans behind each of the buildings that people live in. And sometimes those humans are not local. Tandem Property Management is my family company. I’m a second generation lifelong Portlander. All of our properties are within the Portland metro area. And I visit them. I know the people that work there. I know people that live at each of them. And so it’s hard when people paint all landlords with the same angle without really understanding that we’re people, too. And we also have costs and responsibilities for our residents, for our employees who work at these properties. And it can be hard to sometimes like take a step towards advocacy and say, “Hey, what we’re doing is also hard work, too.” And it requires both. It requires both the housing providers, the nonprofits, and you know, government to be able to all get together to tackle this head-on because I think we’re seeing government’s trying. They’re raising funds. They have money. It’s just not doing enough yet. So for me, it was really great to be able to see not just one area of it’s this person’s fault, but rather a larger call of this is what us as a community needs to do to be able to truly make a difference here.
[00:08:22] Aaron Kirk Douglas: How do you explain to people in a way they can understand it the reason for rising rents in the broader economy?
Megan Howard: Yeah. So no one wants their rents increased. And I guess all I would say is that we are humans that have bills just like you, just like the renters. And so our bills are just a little bit bigger. We have property taxes. We have insurance that’s going up significantly. Utilities are going up. And we have, you know, an obligation, a responsibility to, you know, pay good wages to the people that work for us and a good benefit package. And so what I’m seeing right now is that wages in the Portland metro area are not keeping up with rental rates, which is why you’re seeing this pressure. So as long as we have a loss of job opportunities, and we’re losing a lot right now in Portland, it’s widely reported that we continue to lose major employers. And without those employers, you don’t have the wage growth or the job opportunities that can allow people to live comfortably and have savings so that if they do have a major life event, it doesn’t result in an eviction. And a lot of the stories that Michael was talking about, it was that simple. It was one job loss and that was it. They couldn’t, they didn’t have the savings to be able to pay rent or they didn’t have the resources to be able to go and get, you know, a rent voucher. And for me, the housing crisis isn’t just about, you know, housing. It’s really about the economic opportunities and the lack thereof that we’re facing right now. And there’s just a lot of different things that we can focus on, I think, to support this issue.
[00:10:01] Aaron Kirk Douglas: So, when you talk about rental housing providers being demonized, what does that look like for you as a housing provider, what do you hear and how do you feel?
Megan Howard: Well, and I think, you know, demonized can be a strong word. I guess I want to say maybe we’re just misunderstood. Yeah, I mean the people that work for us care deeply about the residents and they show up to some really hard, hard stuff and right now the work has changed. We are no longer just asset managers that are leasing apartments and fixing, you know, broken toilets. We are now service providers. You know, there are people that are on vouchers that live with us that are going through really traumatic life events and they are living with us because they’ve been given a rental voucher. But they don’t have the services to support them. And so what they get is a roof over their head and they’re not living on the street, which is a win. But they’re experiencing addiction, psychosis, violence, and our teams are on the front lines having to respond to these people at the worst moments in their lives. And so for me, it’s not an appropriate designation to villainize housing providers because we are part of the solution and we are playing a role in helping support when we don’t have enough support for those nonprofits right now. And you’re hearing in the news they continue to lose funding and without that funding shelters will close. When those shelters close people then will go onto the streets who will then, you know, the numbers will increase our homeless numbers and those people might get vouchers and if they get vouchers they’ll end up with us and it’s this vicious cycle. And so I think I just want to challenge everyone to understand their definition of what a housing provider is or a landlord is and try to think of it as maybe we’re also part of the solution and doing a job that maybe we’re just a little bit nervous to talk about because we’re not the most loved people.
Aaron Kirk Douglas: Right.
Megan Howard: Right.
[00:12:02] Aaron Kirk Douglas: So Michael, what other supports do you think have to be part of the solution beyond housing itself?
Michael Larson: Yeah, I think a big conversation right now is what does proper adequate wraparound services actually look like for especially with folks with high needs. In Portland, we have a chronically homeless population of thousands of people that have been homeless for over multiple months at a time, sometimes even years, and they’ve developed different co-occurring disorders like behavioral health issues or maybe an addiction or drug use. And there’s a number of things that people are wrestling with that they need proper supports. And so housing alone isn’t going to be adequate for that person. It might stabilize them for a little bit, but if they don’t have those adequate wraparound services of a case manager that’s checking in with them on either daily or weekly basis or making sure that they have the medication that they need or whatever those needs are, then housing isn’t going to work for those folks. So we can’t just have the units that are available and affordable for folks, but we also need those wraparound services to really fill in those gaps. Which is, yeah, there are big gaps in terms of those services right now.
[00:13:25] Aaron Kirk Douglas: So, how do the shrinking government budgets that we’ve been seeing, except for the hundred thousand, 100 million or so that they found recently, that might help a little, how do you see the government changing to impact what we’re seeing on the ground in Portland? What else do you think they could do? Or is that it? Just budget more money.
Michael Larson: So yeah, I’ll start. Take a shot. Yeah, if you want to go ahead too, Megan. I think most immediately the sad reality is that for every three people that were able to get back stably housed into housing, about four people enter homelessness in Multnomah County. And so it’s a, it’s not a stagnant population. There’s an inflow and there’s an outflow. And the funding that we’ve had up until this point has been sort of that three to four ratio. Four people entering, three people leaving. And as we lose some of that funding and those are funding service providers, those are funding shelter beds. These are really important necessary services that people need to stabilize and then move along that continuum to get back stably housed. And so we’re going to lose a chunk of that, and there are service providers that are already having to lay off staff and shelters that are getting ready to close. So, I think there’s going to be an immediate impact of there’s going to be more people that enter into homelessness and there’s going to be less supports to get them back stably housed or it’s going to take longer or we just don’t, we’re not going to be able to provide their needs. And so that is something that it’s looking pretty dire as we look to the next few years. And the outlook doesn’t look great. But the reality is that even though we will still have some local sources of funding available, it just won’t be to the capacity that we need.
[00:15:28] Aaron Kirk Douglas: What has caused each of you to become an advocate for the homeless?
Megan Howard: In listening to the stories that Michael was talking about, it kind of occurred to me that there are so many different ways that one enters homelessness and how quickly that can happen. And I think I said it before, I was born and raised in this community. My family, businesses here. Without a stable functioning resident, a stable community, we all fail. So, it’s our responsibility, not just as housing providers or nonprofit leaders, but as humans, as individuals who care about the success of the city to kind of maybe step into the discomfort a little bit and have some conversations that are a little bit tricky and try to get creative and maybe find some unlikely allies and figure out, okay, how can we approach this differently? How can we think bigger? How can we use the funds that we’ve, we have funds, but are we using them the best way? Are we being good financial stewards of those funds? Are we building either enough or when we’re building them, are they being built financially responsible? And so I think for me it’s I want to start asking more questions. I want to start sharing my story a little bit and trying to maybe humanize the landlord or the housing provider and hopefully just educate and become better educated myself and then see how I can be a better resource to the elected officials who are also just working their butts off to try to make it right.
[00:17:06] Aaron Kirk Douglas: What have each of you learned about elected leaders and how they see this problem and how they either understand it or misunderstand it?
Michael Larson: Yeah, I mean I think elected leaders in Portland have an incredible amount of passion to solve the issue of homelessness in the city. There’s no lack of passion, but the how of how we get there sometimes isn’t always the most coordinated. And the hard reality is that elected officials want to do the best they can, usually in the next year and maybe even the next few months. But it’s harder for elected officials to really hold a longer term horizon to invest in things that might be kind of longer term solutions that over time will get us out of the crisis that we’re in. But with the way that our political system is built, there aren’t enough incentives to incentivize that long-term thinking, which oftentimes I think has us invest in a lot of really short-term solutions that are really fragmented. And then also when we have kind of competing interests of the city of Portland that is working to create more livability downtown and has the mayor shelter plan to try and essentially clean up the streets. And there’s a lot of mixed reviews on that, but it certainly has helped reduce the visibility of homelessness downtown, but at the same time, the county is really trying to get people stably housed and have a more focus on the housing continuum, but those aims and some of their goals are just different. And so when that’s the reality and then you also have the metro government, there’s just a lot of competing interests. And that’s just on the government side. And then you have all the nonprofit providers and then the housing providers. And so oftentimes there’s just a lot of different competing priorities and it makes it really hard to invest in sometimes the longer term.
Aaron Kirk Douglas: Seems like they’re not always talking to each other very well.
Megan Howard: Well, and I was going to say I completely agree with you that they care otherwise they wouldn’t be in this position. I think there’s just what I’ve learned is they haven’t developed a property before. They haven’t managed a property where these types of issues are taking place. And so when policies are made without that education and without all stakeholders at the table, I think we can get down a rabbit hole of well this policy sounds really good in theory, but we haven’t actually invited others to the table that are going to be kind of facing this once it’s executed and what’s it going to be like for them. And I think you’re seeing that when there’s been massive amount of money withheld from the Portland market because it is really hard to operate properties here. And I my hope is that what we can learn is let’s all come to the table and maybe get together before policies are passed and decisions are made so that we understand what the net effect of these policies is going to be. And I’m hoping for a more collaborative approach because I do believe the passion is there not just with electeds but with housing providers and with nonprofits. But what are these, what’s the net effect going to be? And can we all come together at the beginning part of the process instead of fighting bad policies? We make a good policy at the onset and then watch it follow through.
[00:20:25] Aaron Kirk Douglas: Megan, what is one thing that you think housing providers could do to help move this forward?
Megan Howard: I think there’s a lot. But I guess I just see this as an opportunity to be brave and to start speaking up a little bit on our own experiences and to start meeting with those elected officials. And I’m new into advocacy, but have had really positive experiences so far. People are taking meetings, they’re asking good questions. And so I think what’s really important is that education piece that’s missing. And so if good policies are going to be made, then there needs to be the other side showing up at the table and sharing what our experiences are. And so my hope is that there’s more advocacy. There’s more partnership with elected officials. And if that feels too
[00:21:15] Scary. Volunteer or donate with one of the nonprofits that’s losing funding right now. I mean, Transition Projects, which is one of the largest shelter providers in the metro area, is at risk of losing funding that would close four shelters. That’s a big opportunity to at least introduce yourself to an organization, volunteer, donate, work your way then into advocacy. But I think as long as someone is stepping into the discomfort and trying something new, you’re on the right track.
[00:21:43] Host: Michael and Megan, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you spending some of your time with us.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you for the opportunity.
Host: Thank you so much for joining us on Multifamily Market Watch, and we’ll see you next time.
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