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Zac Ziegler: I'm Zac Ziegler, and you're listening to Oregon rainmakers from KLCC. In this episode, I talk with the leaders of two local nonprofits about affordable housing and why the market comes up short in this area.
Oregon, like much of the US, is in a housing crisis. For many, that means spending more than they're comfortable with, or making concessions on location, size or amenities of their home. But for others, it can mean Searching for help from various sources, lest they end up living out of a car or on the street. That situation can create issues around employment, substance abuse, health, personal safety and more. While many homes are being built around the state, the new inventory is rarely built with an inexpensive price point or rent amount in mind. That has left the problem to the non profit sector Homes For Good is the housing authority for the Eugene Springfield area. Its work is to create spaces that low to middle earners can afford. The organization's latest project is the second time it is partnering with Sponsors Incorporated, a nonprofit that aims to help those who recently left incarceration to establish stability in their lives. I spoke with the organization's executive directors, homes for goods, Jacob Fox and sponsors, Annie Herz, about their work and why the housing market isn't filling the large gap their organizations seek to fill. Annie starts by telling us how her organization entered housing and a quick apology for my voice in this episode, I was getting over a cold when we recorded.
Annie Herz: So we are a re-entry program, so we initially really focused on that experience of people reentering the community, and provided transitional housing, which is a 60 to 120 day experience of housing along with a wide variety of supports. And what my predecessor, Paul Solomon discovered about, you know, about 15 years ago, it was really clear that our community already had a very small inventory of available housing, and so a lot of competition for what was out there. And then you add on to that the barrier of having a conviction history it made. It made at that time finding long term housing nearly impossible for our participants, and so sponsors got into the business of developing our own long term housing inventory, and that to date is made up of about 119 units. Because it is so challenging for the population that we work with to find housing, we decided to take care of that by developing our own housing inventory.
Ziegler: So what is it that makes it difficult to get that housing for people who were recently incarcerated. Is it that, you know, you're not exactly coming out to a super high paying job usually, is it that we're in such a housing crunch, landlords can be particularly selective and say, felony conviction? No, you don't, I'm not going to rent to you. What? Any of that, all of it,
Herz: All of those things are true. The biggest barrier is being accepted into a housing facility, because when one has a felony conviction as part of their history, that in itself, can be a barrier. There are so many barriers that folks face when they come out. Certainly, employment is, I would say housing and employment are the two things that that first come to people's minds when they think about the barriers for folks with conviction histories. But there's a long list of other things that are challenging people often come out with behavioral health needs, medical challenges, challenges around drug and alcohol addiction, self esteem issues, the perception of them in the community, so all kinds of barriers. But the thing that does make it most difficult to find housing is related to the conviction history itself, and how that relates to to housing applications.
Ziegler: Jacob, let's turn to you now. You obviously have to pull in grant dollars for something like this. Why is it that this is a gap in housing? Why isn't it, you know, the the developer who's maybe building the high rise or, you know, building a new set of track homes on some vacant land in town. Why aren't they building homes that folks who are struggling can afford?
Jacob Fox: Well, most of those private developers and owners just don't have the experience necessary to comply with all the kind of federal and state requirements that come with the. Funding sources, I would say too, that this gap funding we receive is what makes these projects possible, and the private sector is not developing housing for lower middle income people in our community, and that's why sponsors and homes for good have to step up.
Ziegler: And why do you think it is that they aren't developing that kind of thing? Is there just not a good margin in it, maybe? Or is there just not a chance to make money off of these lower cost houses, even as the cost of rent keeps skyrocketing?
Fox: It's just not financially feasible for the private sector to build housing for lower middle income people. So when I say lower middle income people, I'm thinking about maybe a couple that maybe they have a kid, maybe they both are clerks at Dari Mart. So what they can afford is maybe 1100 or $1,200 a month for a two bedroom. Well, we all know that that's not the reality in our market. And the reason is there's just not, there's not kind of competitive interest rates occurring, so the private sector has to charge a lot more for a two bedroom than 11 or $1,200 a month.
Ziegler: So Annie, turning back over to you here, what does stable housing mean for someone who is just maybe coming out of a correctional facility, or coming out of some instance where they've already had a little hardship trying to get back on their feet, and now this is just one more thing on top of it.
Herz: Yeah, I think for most people, it's easy to imagine that without stable housing upon that return, it's really, really difficult to focus on any of the other goals that people might have a long list of really common goals, just around stabilizing, taking care of medical needs, behavioral health needs, and just the basics of food, clothing and shelter, honestly and so housing, whether it's whether we're talking about the transitional housing that people start with, or long term housing like the Coleman is going to provide, it really is that foundational stabilizing factor that allows folks who are re entering the community to stabilize and pursue the other goals that are on their list.
Ziegler: And without something like this, I mean, how common is it for you to see people that you otherwise would help, but maybe you don't have the room, end up in a situation where they're unhoused?
Herz: Well, our target population are folks who are releasing to homelessness. So everybody we work with would otherwise be homeless if they weren't coming to sponsors right out of incarceration, and would have, as we talked about earlier, a really hard time finding a longer term place to land. And so when we don't have the resources for people to move from transitional to long term housing, people are often ending up on the street again and without housing options.
Ziegler: This one can go to either of you. What's the biggest hurdle, other than money in getting roofs over people's heads.
Fox: I think, like for thinking about The Coleman, the folks that live there need wrap around supportive services, and that's one of the beauties of the partnership we have with sponsors. They're an incredible services provider. And that's not just like case management. That's like helping people get employment and, you know, sort of a wide variety of other supports
Ziegler: Once you get them in the door, making sure they they can stay in the door, making sure they can do all the things that helps them become a productive member of society, basically.
Herz: Yeah, and I would just like to add to that, that when anybody is in that particularly vulnerable state of not having the basic structures around them for stability, any one thing can knock somebody off their path to stability and recovery really quickly. So even if somebody does have housing, but they get sick and can't go to work and end up losing their job, it, it, you know, has a huge impact on their ability to sustain that stability. So I think what's important about what Jacob is talking about, is we provide these supports that if and when that starts to happen, we often have ways of supporting people in staying on their path.
Ziegler: So for years when we were talking about affordable housing, something that always came up was the idea of nimbyism. People saying, not in my backyard. Have you run into this either with this project or other ones that you've worked on lately? People saying, Do you really have to build that right next to my house?
Fox: Yeah, we certainly have dealt with that in the past. We haven't dealt with this issue on the Coleman, but I would say that Annie referenced the Oaks at 14. So we developed that in like 2017 in partnership with sponsors, and we had a number of meetings with neighbors. The first meeting was super intense. There were probably like 70 neighbors there, and being a neighbor is really important to us, and sponsors were really good neighbor. But the reality is, there's a lot of bias and misinformation that people have about folks that are returning to our community after completing their prison sentence, so we have to hit those things head on and be direct with folks. And what we experienced was that as we met with the neighbors, more and educated the neighbors more, many folks that were opposed to the Oaks at 14th really came around and supported the project. I would say not all neighbors did.
Herz: I think this is a great opportunity to bring up the Colemans, the couple who this building is named for. And the connection here is so dr Edwin Coleman and Charmaine Coleman are the people who the Coleman is named after they were community leaders, civil rights icons, and supported they were part of the first group of supporters of sponsors since back in the 70s, and worked really hard to support the work and support the individuals who we support in having a successful transition back to the community. And the reason they're coming to mind is because there was a particular meeting that I was not there for. But I have heard stories about community meetings about the development of the Oaks at 14th in which the resistance to the to the building was being expressed, and Charmaine Coleman, in her diminutive stature, at you know, in her 80s, stood up and said, I'm not going to do this justice. But something to the effect of, how dare you all be so resistant to our community members who have served their time coming back to their own community and went on to express her experience as a black woman moving to Eugene in the 70s and sharing a bit of The disrespect and resistance to her presence in our community, and my understanding is that by the end of her statements, the room was totally silent, and she really created a shift in the experience of those community members in the room in terms of understanding The experience of those who are returning to the community, I really want to highlight the name and where it comes from and the ways in which Ed and Charmaine Coleman have really helped lead to this moment.
Ziegler: Well, thank you both for chatting with me today. Thanks,
Herz: Zac, thank you very much.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
