By William A. Collins

House is costly,
So is rent;
Next step down
Is to a tent.

Our country has plenty of housing. It’s just in the wrong place. There are lots of houses in Detroit, East St. Louis and rural spots where jobs have left. Cheap. But who wants to settle there?

Conversely, housing costs a fortune and is in short supply where the economy is strong. With today’s steady downward pressure on wages, many folks can no longer afford to buy anywhere. Many can’t even afford to rent. Worse, any personal trauma can often trigger homelessness.

Our government, unfortunately, has other priorities. In Washington a “housing crisis” doesn’t mean a shortage of affordable places to live. Heaven forbid. Instead it means a shortage of mortgage business for Wall Street and a shortage of sales for homebuilders. Or it may just mean a weaker economy, which would embarrass whatever administration is in office.

Congress has responded to corporate and personal housing woes with a foolish homebuyer’s tax credit. As many predicted, this became a bonanza for folks who were planning to buy a home anyway, and for banks who needed a spurt in profitable lending. It also enticed some people into home ownership who won’t be able to sustain it. Plus it was expensive to taxpayers.

And it avoided the main problem. Fueled by steady productivity advances and job exports, our nation simply doesn’t offer as much decent employment as it used to. Income is sparser overall. Many Americans are struggling to hang onto their houses and apartments. A lost job, divorce, or illness can push them over the edge into the street. It happens every day.

The last time our nation was this short of affordable housing we went out and built some. A lot. Right after World War II. Europe did it too. Over time, people started earning more money and conservatives gained political control. Government housing was sold off or torn down.
Today we only build tiny amounts of it, and the budget for replacement units and for Section 8 housing certificates commonly gets siphoned off instead to Kabul.

That’s OK for many folks, who don’t want any new buildings for the poor in their neighborhood and aren’t keen on having such residents scattered around invisibly through Section 8.

Thus even as our familiar social structure decays and as hardship mounts from the disjointed economy, Congress gets political support from average folks back home not to do anything about housing. The citizens who bother to vote (especially seniors) already have a place to live, thank you.

OtherWords columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn.

Looking for the tools you need to buy and preserve a home? The fifth annual East Portland Homeownership Fair on Saturday, April 24, from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. at Ron Russell Middle School, 3955 S.E. 112th Ave., just south of Powell Boulevard, will be full of information designed for new homebuyers and those who wish to buy.

The free event, sponsored by the non-profit Rose Community Development Corp., will bring you face to face with realtors, lenders, home-buying counselors and other businesses.

Home-buying and home-ownership workshops will cover a wide range of topics, ranging from “Steps to Homeownership” to “Improving Your Credit Score” and “foreclosure prevention”

The highlight of the day will be a free raffle for a $4,000 Homebuyer’s Assistance Grant. The prize will be available only to those attend the workshops presented that day.

Translators for those who speak Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese and Mandarin will be available. In addition, there will be children’s activities, door prizes and a free lunch.

A Portland Development Commission home repair loan program helped Bernice Hornbuckle make necessary repairs to her home in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area.

Jon Gail

In 1974 Minnie Bell Hornbuckle purchased her first and only home in northeast Portland with down payment money she earned from picking string beans.

“We have had a lot family parties and canned a lot of beans and berries in this house,” stated her daughter Bernice Hornbuckle.
Minnie Bell passed on in 1992, leaving the home to her daughter, Bernice. Today that same property is still in the family, now serving as home for Bernice, her sister, daughter and nephew.

Over the years Hornbuckle has managed to keep the place in good shape, but this time the cost of the needed repairs were too much for their modest income.

“My roof was down to its last straw,” she stated. Despite knowing the repairs were needed, she worried about taking on a new loan payment and worried whether she would even qualify for a loan.

Fortunately, Hornbuckle was familiar with the Home Repair Loan program offered then by the Portland Development Commission and now administered by the Portland Housing Bureau. She knew her property is eligible because it is located in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area.

Hornbuckle became familiar with the program many years earlier when her mother had used a similar home repair program to turn her unfinished basement into an extra bedroom and complete other renovations on the home.

Late last fall Hornbuckle called Kari Hernandez who is a loan specialist with the housing bureau. They discussed the program and Hernandez helped her get her paperwork together to apply.

“Fortunately, her income qualified her for deferred loan payments. This was great news because it meant she would not have to worry about making payments until she decides to sell or refinance the home,” clarified Hernandez.

Once approved, Connie Buckley, a construction coordinator for the agency, helped Hornbuckle finalize her repair list, obtain bids, and compare them to make sure she was being charged a fair price.
“Working with Bernice was a joy and it was also very rewarding to know that we were helping her fix up their family’s home,” stated Buckley.

By mid-December, Hernandez and Hornbuckle were meeting at her home and were signing the final paperwork. She got a home repair loan of $8,841 to replace her roof, gutters and repair her chimney.

A few months later with her home repairs now complete, Hornbuckle states, “It was a really good experience.” She is relieved to know that the work she needed to get done is now complete and that her family’s home is ready for their next family affair.

Jon Gail is a marketing and outreach coordinator for the Portland Housing Bureau and the Home Repair Program. To learn more about the program he can be reached at 503-823-3292.

Paul and Valery Mannthey and their children moved into their new home last year in southeast Portland thanks to the help they received from ROSE Community Development, a non-profit housing resource and a $4,000 grant they won by attending a homeownership workshop during a community home ownership fair.

The housing market has changed enormously. But the desire for homes and the need for housing hasn’t.

For new homeowners Paul and Valery Mannthey the bottom line was having a game plan. Last year, the couple attended a public homeownership workshop sponsored by Rose Community Development to learn all they could about the home buying process and won a free raffle for a $4,000 homebuyers’ assistance grant.

Today, the Mannthey’s are enjoying their new home, a short distance away from the Springwater Corridor in southeast Portland. The interior of their home is spacious and well suited to their family size.

Paul proudly points out the improvements they made to the home after they moved in, including some repainting and replacing appliances and light fixtures to match their personal taste. Valery is soft-spoken but smiles widely as we talk about what they like in their house. When asked to take a photo of them in their favorite room, Paul responds “All of them, because they all are”.

This is Paul and Valery’s first home. They had previously been renting, but knowing that they wanted to expand their family and try to save a little bit of money, homeownership was the answer.

Paul said when he attended the East Portland Homeownership Fair in 2009. “I had so much information. Pamphlets, brochures, business cards, just a ton of stuff.”

He knew that there was a grant drawing for $4,000 but looking around at the large room filled with hundreds of people, he couldn’t imagine what the odds were that he would be one of the grant finalists. “When my name was called, I was shocked,” he recalled.

Local residents are invited to explore discrimination and segregation in Portland’s past and present with a historic bus tour celebrating the Fair Housing Act and the Fair Housing Council of Oregon.

The April 23 tour, entitled Fasten Your Seat Belts-It’s Been a Bumpy Ride, will explore lost ethnic communities, forgotten hate crimes, Klan rallies, and groups of Oregonians who were rounded up and exiled based on their ethnic origins.

Following the bus expedition, a luncheon program will feature Kevin Boyle, author of Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age. The book, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction, is heralded as a poignant biography, a tour-de-force of historical detective work, a gripping courtroom drama, and a powerful reflection on race relations in America.

Boyle captures the tensions of a period that witnessed the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan and the flowering of the Harlem Renaissance, the crystallization of racial segregation, both north and south, and the rise of the modern civil rights movement. Also on the luncheon agenda is an update on discrimination in Oregon today and a performance by the dynamic Sermonettes Gospel Singers.

The two events will be held at the Ambridge Event Center in northeast Portland, from 8:30 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. The cost of the morning bus tour is $30, $25 for students and seniors. The luncheon cost is $30, $25 for students and seniors. The cost for attending both events is $50, $40 for students and seniors. Advance-registration is required by April 14 by visiting the Fair Housing Council of Oregon’s website.

For the past 20 years the Fair Housing Council of Oregon has worked to protect renters and home buyers from illegal housing discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, disability, source of income, marital status, sexual orientation and age.

Thanks to Proud Ground and the Minority Homebuyer Assistance Collaborative, Tracie Cole (second from left) has realized the dream of homeownership. “I feel such joy,” Tracie exclaims, “I can’t believe this is really mine.” Tracie is joined at the Pardee Commons ribbon cutting in southeast Portland by (from left) John Mohlis of the Portland Development Commission; Tom Walsh and Serena Cruz Walsh of Cityhouse Builders; Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish; and Greg Brown of Albina Bank.

Two new homebuyers achieved the dream of homeownership through Proud Ground, a non-profit organization creating affordable homeownership opportunities for low- and moderate-income first-time homebuyers, and the Minority Homebuyer Assistance Collaborative.

The collaborative is a coalition of local nonprofit organizations dedicated to promoting minority homeownership through culturally specific homebuyer education and counseling services that are offered in both in English and Spanish. The group –comprised of the African American Alliance for Homeownership, Hacienda Community Development Corporation, and Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives — also makes small grants available to help households on their way to homeownership.

Tracie Cole is a perfect example of the difference the collaborative can make.
Tracie fell in love with her brand new, Earth Advantage town home in the Lents neighborhood from day one. Though the home was offered through Proud Ground for just $124,499, the monthly payments were still just a bit too high for Tracie’s budget.

But the minority collaborative’s $5,000 down-payment grant was just the right amount to bring Tracie’s monthly payments down to a level that made owning her first home possible.

“There’s not a better feeling than becoming a homeowner,” Tracie explains as she describes the impact homeownership has on her and her three children. “I feel such joy; I can’t believe this is really mine. Hopefully now my kids will want to become homeowners.”

Tracie and another Proud Ground homeowner helped by the nonprofits recently joined six other households at Pardee Commons, a 10-unit Earth Advantage Platinum Home development in Lents that uniquely combines duplex-style townhomes and detached units with shared green space and green features.

Since 1999, Proud Ground has helped 120 families buy their first home. For more information, contact Proud Ground at 503-493-0293, extension 10 or visit proudground.org. For information about the Minority Homebuyer Assistance Collaborative, contact the African American Alliance for Homeownership at 503-595-3517 or visit aaah.org/MHAC. For information about Hacienda Community Development Corp., call 503-595-2111 or visit haciendacdc.org; For information on Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, call 503-288-2923 or visit ; pcrihome.org.

Michael Leighton
news@portlandobserver.com

The Portland Water Bureau announced earlier this week that it will begin authorizing water shut-offs on delinquent multi-family account owners.

For many years, the bureau maintained a policy that exempted multi-family accounts from shut-off due to the impact on unknowing tenants.

Unfortunately, a number of landlords have capitalized on this policy by charging their tenants for water and keeping the proceeds for themselves rather than paying their water bills, officials said. As a result, the Water Bureau will be taking action to make certain this trend does not continue.

The bureau will institute a notification system to ensure that tenants and landlords are made aware of any pending shut off, giving both parties a chance to take action.

“Everyone who uses Portland’s water infrastructure is responsible to pay their fair share, and this initiative will help ensure that multi-family landlords are no exception,” said Water Bureau Administrator David Shaff.

An architectural drawing shows the mixed-use housing planned for a vacant lot on the corner of Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Rosa Parks Way. For-sale townhomes are scheduled for construction this year with three story condominiums coming in the fall of 2012.

Lee Perlman
503-288-0033

In the depths of a sour economy, with its chill on land development, a long-stalled project on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Rosa Parks Way has finally moved forward.

The Portland Development Commission recently approved a contract with Tom Walsh Jr. and Serena Cruz Walsh for what is now called the King/Park project. It is a two-stage, multi-use project for a long-vacant parcel of land.

In the first phase, Walsh will develop 16 for-sale townhouses on the west end of the lot, facing Garfield Avenue, for first-time home buyers in cooperation with the non-profit Proud Ground.

Buyers will be able to purchase the homes at well below market rate. As part of the sales agreement they must, if and when they sell, provide Proud Ground the right to buy the homes back at an agreed-upon rate. This will provide the homeowner with a return on their investment, but keep the homes permanently affordable. Construction is planned for this year.

The second phase will consist of three buildings, each three stories tall, containing a total of eight condominium units and a total of 7,000 square feet of commercial space facing MLK. Construction for this phase should begin by September 2012.

PDC is contributing $3.5 million toward the $7 million project, and is donating the land subject to certain terms. To achieve the benefits of the development, including the low cost to the home buyers, “We need to not only offer the land at no cost but add a subsidy,” said John Warner, a PDC staff member.

In 2005, PDC offered the property to Tom Walsh Sr. for a similar project called Piedmont Place, but he was unable to bring the project to fruition. (Phase II of that proposal called for buildings four stories tall with a total of 51 units facing MLK.)
Walsh Jr. thanked the Piedmont Neighborhood Association, who had participated in the planning of the project and given input to it, for their “patience.”

“It’s exciting to see this project move forward in these tough economic times,” PDC Commissioner Steven Straus said. “Martin Luther King is a very important street. Aesthetics of the highest sort should be maintained for this project.”

PDC Commission Chair Scott Andrews, added, “This is a great project.”

Jake Thomas
jthomas@portlandobserver.com

When Josephina Casillas received a phone call last fall, she thought she had found a way to prevent losing her home to foreclosure.

Her husband, Marco Casillas had lost his job as a mechanic, throwing his family, like thousands of other Oregonians, into turmoil. The couple, who have three children and a poodle-cocker spaniel mix, fell behind on their mortgage, and worried that they’d lose their house.

Last fall, Josephina Casillas said she received a phone call from someone speaking in Spanish, her first language, offering to modify their mortgage so they could stay in their house. There was only one catch, she said, they needed to pay $2,700 up front. Feeling desperate, Casillas said she paid the money.

They thought everything was fine, until they received a notice late last month that they were being evicted and had three days to clear out, according to Casillas, who said they haven’t been able to recover the money.

In Oregon, unemployment has stayed at a stubbornly high level, causing an increase in foreclosures. According to a recent report by the Mortgage Banker’s Association, nearly 1 in 10 of Oregon’s 628,000 mortgages was either behind or in foreclosure. As the ranks of desperate people swell, so have those of people hoping to make a quick buck.

During the 2008 legislative session, Oregon lawmakers passed the Mortgage Rescue Fraud Protection Act, which aimed to crackdown on companies trying to squeeze cash out of people behind on their home payments. However, despite the law, these companies are still eyeing struggling homeowners.

According to a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Oregon is seeing a proliferation of scams that prey of people behind on their mortgages. Some counties have even started sending out fliers to delinquent borrowers warning them to watch out.

The Oregon Attorney General’s office didn’t respond to a request for the number of complaints it received by press time.

“Oregon is virgin territory for these scam artists,” said Richard Castro, communications and public affairs specialist for NeighborWorks America, a network of community development organizations.

Companies that seek to make a profit off of people behind on their mortgages have been contacting victims directly by checking local foreclosure listings. They’ve also begun putting up fliers in residential areas and placing ads on the radio and in newspapers.

“Our major concern is that they’re guaranteeing that there’s a solution for these folks,” said Fernando Velez, a consumer information specialist with the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services.

Velez said that many companies will approach homeowners citing unrealistic success rates- sometimes at 80 percent. They will then often request somewhere between $1,500 and $4,000 up front in exchange for a promise that they will keep the victim in their homes, said Velez. But when the dust settles, the homeowner loses their home and the fees paid to the company.

Some companies offer to negotiate with the lender, but others are more complex. Recently the Attorney General of California advised struggling homeowners to avoid “forensic audit loans,” which promises to review loans looking for malfeasance that would release them from their mortgages.

Other mortgage scammers will put homeowners in debt to the company that seizes their home.

Last month, the Oregon Consumer and Business Services office issued a cease-and-desist and assessed $250,000 in fines against Anthony Schwartz, whom the OCBS alleges was using a complex set of legal documents to lend money to struggling homeowners who handed over their deeds in exchange for the money. When the homeowners were unable to pay back the loan, according to the OCBS, Schwartz seized their home, making a tidy profit.

Castro said his organization is stepping up an advertising campaign to warn homeowners. He also said that it’s possible to get the money back by talking to a certified mortgage relief counselor.

After the Casillas received their eviction notice, they panicked. They shacked up temporarily in a hotel that they struggled to pay for.

The family owned another house that they rented out to another family that had a new-born living with them. With nowhere else to turn, they reluctantly evicted them.

The company they said they paid the $2,700 to, Mobile Mortgage, didn’t return a request for comment. The Vancouver, Wash.-based company has a “B+” rating with the Better Business Bureau, and no complaints on its file.

Marco Casillas, got his job back and things seem to have stabilized for the family. But Josephina remains resentful.

“It’s not about the money that she wants back,” said Jessica Casillas, Josephina’s daughter translating for her. “I mean everyone needs money, obviously; it’s just sad that they’re doing this to people. Luckily we found somewhere to go. Other people aren’t as lucky.”

Mortgage Trouble Options

If you’re behind on your mortgage, the best way to avoid getting conned is information.

Consumer advocates recommend trying to work something out with your bank. Under Oregon law, if you’re facing foreclosure you are entitled to a meeting with your lender to discuss your options.

If you do decide to use a third party, check them out first. See if they’re licensed with the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services; and make sure that they are accredited with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Also check Better Business Bureau to see if there are any complaints lodged against them.

For more information, check the following websites: The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, the Oregon Attorney General, and Neighborhood Works. You can also get free advice from a Housing and Urban Development-certified counselor at counselor.

By Jake Thomas
jthomas@portlandobserver.com

As the housing market continues to melt down, policy makers are still scrambling to find some sort of solution.

But Max Rameau and his Miami-based organization Take Back the Land has a bold and unorthodox strategy to the problem: find families in need of housing and move them into foreclosed homes. Rameau stresses that he only serves carefully-screened families, and has helped around 60 people to date. Even the sheriff of Miami-Dade County has let Rameau continue his activities in an area that has been rocked by the housing collapse.

His efforts have earned him plenty of press in places ranging from the New York Times to the Good Morning America. Rameau was even featured in Michael Moore’s latest documentary, “Capitalism: a Love Story.”

In recent months, he’s been traveling the country to meet with like-minded people to create the social justice-oriented U.S. Human Rights Network.

Rameau is visiting Oregon this week. The Portland Observer spoke with him by phone. His remarks have been edited for brevity.

What about when the economy gets better? Are you worried that there will be less support for this sort of movement?

“I’m not worried about it. We want people to have housing. The sad thing is we turn people away. We can’t help all the people who want help,” says Rameau.

“I think when the housing market turns around I think we’re going to have several problems,” he says.

“Even when the market turns around we will have all these homes that are effectively useless because they’ve been sitting vacant for so long,” he continues. Rameau argues that if the job market remains soggy there will be no one to buy homes. As a consequence, he anticipates that the U.S. will accumulate a large stock of blighted and run-down homes that will be costly to fix up.

Will this movement try to influence the actions of government and public policy?

“Really, our objective here is to elevate housing to the level of a human right, and that’s going to require the kind of action we do, and engagement on the public policy side, and is going to require a Herculean effort from many sectors of society.”

The sheriff in Miami has turned a blind eye to your activities because the situation is so bad there. Are you worried that that once the economy improves he’ll say, “Enough of this. This Max Rameau guy is going down”?

“I think that is going to happen. I don’t think it’s going to happen because the economy gets better. I think it’s going to happen because so many people are doing this. Again, in Miami squatting is absolutely rampant although we’re the only organization moving people in,” says Rameau.

He recalls one instance where he had a family all ready to move into a vacant property, but someone had beaten them to it.

“When the squatting by necessity connects with making policy changes, I think that’s the point where police are going to crack down,” he adds.

What do you mean by that, when it connects to “policy changes”?

“I’m of the opinion that the government spends too much of its times catering to the needs of big businesses,” he explains. “I think as soon as some of these banks call local officials and say, ‘look they’re taking over the houses that we think are ours, and we want them back,’ the government is going to jump. And they’re going to play the role of executing the will of these big financial institutions.”

On your website you have an article titled “Gentrification is dead.” Why is gentrification dead?

“Gentrification is a particular economic cycle, and it has very particular characteristics according to several theories,” says Rameau.

“In order for gentrification to be in place there needs to be several factors or several things going on,” he explains. He says that developers need to be able to buy low, kick out the existing residents, and then sell high. This sort of scenario was common in the early 2000s, but not so much now, adds Rameau.

“You can’t buy low today. Even in some areas where you can buy low, it’s pretty clear that whatever price you buy today, it’s going to be worth less tomorrow,” he says.

Do you want to replace our current system with something else?

“We want to replace the system with one where housing is a human right, not just a platitude or something on a bumper sticker, but something in really practical terms, and there’s policies that support housing as a human right and laws that support the idea that housing is a human right,” says Rameau.

“We just finished giving billions of dollars so that they [the banks] could maintain millions of vacant homes even though banks do not need homes to survive and human beings do need homes to survive. We’d like to live in a society that values human beings over corporations. Right now we’re having a battle between who’s more important, corporations or human beings. Clearly those who are in power now value corporations over human beings, and that needs to be changed.”

Some places haven’t been hit as hard by the housing collapse. Are you worried that’s gong to form an impediment to creating a truly national movement?

“No, I don’t think this is going to work in places where the crisis is not severe. We’re not trying to force this on communities that don’t want it and don’t need it.”
However, he adds that in plenty of places people are not getting the support they need from the government or the market.

Max Rameau speaks Friday Nov. 13 (tonight) at Portland State University’s Smith Memorial Center from 6-8 p.m. He’ll be holding three more events at Portland Community College next week.