Oregon’s spending on low-income housing has exploded in the past five years.
asserted
spending → explode → years
The state has given developers an unprecedented $1.4 billion, and the cost of developing each apartment has nearly doubled, to $540,000.
asserted
cost → give → 540,000
Dozens of projects are lined up for an additional $850 million in future state funding.
asserted
Dozens → line → funding
Federal tax credits, which the state oversees, will bring even more money to bear.
asserted
state → oversee → money
Yet one thing has remained constant: The public isn’t allowed to see the details of how all these dollars are being spent.
asserted
dollars → remain → details
Oregon is one of the only states in the country with a carve-out in its public records law that prevents disclosing the financial details of subsidized housing projects, thwarting researchers and journalists who have tried to examine their costs.
asserted
who → prevent → costs
The issue is especially pressing in the Pacific Northwest, where leaders have tied the lack of affordable housing to the region’s dire homelessness crisis.
asserted
leaders → press → crisis
Understanding and controlling the cost of construction could make it possible, with the same amount of money, to either build more rent-restricted apartments or to discount rents more steeply.
uncertain
it → understand → rents
Margaret Van Vliet, a former director of Oregon’s state housing agency, told ProPublica that lawmakers should revisit the exemption.
asserted
lawmakers → tell → exemption
Despite all the state’s spending on housing, Oregon’s homeless population continues to grow.
asserted
population → continue → housing
“For all the public money, we seem to be digging a deeper hole,” Van Vliet said.
asserted
Vliet → seem → hole
In other states, researchers and journalists have used developers’ financial records to investigate spiraling costs of subsidized housing.
asserted
researchers → use → housing
Los Angeles Times reporters in 2020 revealed that the cost of some low-income housing units in California had grown to more than $1 million each, driven in part by government rules that pushed construction prices higher.
asserted
that → reveal → prices
The Times found that 12,000 more low-income families could have received homes between 2011 and 2015 had costs been as low as they were elsewhere.
uncertain
they → find → 2011
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley showed earlier this year that California was spending $300 million a year just in development fees on subsidized housing, enough to have financed another 1,250 apartments each year.
asserted
California → show → apartments
In July, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that aims to slash those fees.
asserted
that → sign → fees
A study published last year and co-authored by Jason Ward, an economist who directs the nonpartisan Rand Corp.’s Housing Center, compared the costs of constructing subsidized housing among California, Texas and Colorado, finding that California’s highest-in-the-nation prices were driven by requirements to pay “substantially above-market wages and unusually large architectural and engineering fees.”
If California had Colorado’s production costs, the study found, it could have built four times as many rent-subsidized apartments.
uncertain
it → publish → apartments
Those types of analyses are impossible to perform in Oregon.
asserted
types → perform → Oregon
Ward said Oregon’s secrecy is difficult to defend.
asserted
secrecy → say → ?
He said cost information about subsidized housing is typically public.
asserted
information → say → housing
In his research, he said, he’s gotten such data from 17 states and been denied it only in New Jersey.
asserted
he → say → Jersey
“When you’re just looking at how public funds are used, there should be an incredibly strong bias towards transparency,” he said.
asserted
he → look → transparency
“And when you see costs going up and up and up and the outcomes aren’t good, there’s an almost unqualified public case that these things should be open to scrutiny by taxpayers, policymakers, the media, whomever.”
asserted
things → see → taxpayers
Oregon’s Legislature approved the exemption in 1997, when Oregon’s state housing agency had a staff and budget that were both one-fifth what they are today.
asserted
they → approve → staff
State housing officials warned about the consequences of revealing the finances behind low-income apartment projects.
asserted
officials → warn → projects
“Not that we’re concerned that there’d be something in there,” Lynn Schoessler, then the deputy director of Oregon Housing and Community Services, told lawmakers in a public hearing.
asserted
Schoessler → ’re → hearing
But Schoessler said there could be problems if the public were allowed to see detailed financial information that developers submit to the state while applying for funding.
uncertain
developers → say → funding
Disclosing the records might “give somebody an indication whether this corporation was ripe for takeover or a buyout or whatever,” Schoessler said in a hearing.
uncertain
Schoessler → disclose → hearing
“So we’re concerned on the corporate level.”
asserted
we → ’re → level
Lawmakers almost unanimously agreed to exempt the records from disclosure.
asserted
Lawmakers → agree → disclosure
Not all details about subsidized housing in Oregon were made secret.
asserted
details → make → Oregon
The Portland area’s regional government, which manages a local low-income-housing bond, publishes the costs of projects the bond has funded, showing some units have reached $900,000 apiece.
asserted
units → manage → 900,000
And fine-grained cost information may be obtained, on request, if the project is run by a public housing authority like Portland’s.
uncertain
project → obtain → Portland
But these account for just 20% of the subsidized housing units that Oregon is building.
asserted
Oregon → account → that
The bulk are sponsored by private developers and funded through the state housing finance agency, Oregon Housing and Community Services.
asserted
bulk → sponsor → agency
Although the state agency will divulge how much a developer said a project would cost when it applied for funding, it redacts the itemized expenses — things like the costs of construction materials, the contractor’s profits or the fees paid to lawyers, brokers, loan agents, developers and the state agency itself.
asserted
it → divulge → lawyers
A spokesperson said the agency knows the cost per unit, per square foot and per bedroom for each development it has subsidized.
asserted
it → say → development
But the state said that information, which would allow the public to see which projects were the most expensive, is not subject to disclosure.
asserted
projects → say → disclosure
Oregon has a sunshine committee that reviews public records exemptions and identifies ones that should be rolled back.
asserted
that → have → ones
Charlie Fisher, its co-chair, said the committee should examine the low-income housing carve-out.
asserted
committee → say → out
…and 24 more, not listed.
The Aporia
