14:04:25 All right.

Official makes a quorum.

We did it.

14:04:28

Hello, everybody, welcome to --

>> Recording in progress.

14:04:31

>> Welcome to the September

14:04:34 20232023RSC

14:04:37 meeting.

It's good to

14:04:40 see you all.

We're

14:04:44 going to go

14:04:47 ahead and start our phone call.

Say

14:04:50 your name and please state your

14:04:54 pronouns, name, and

14:04:57 your accessibility needs.

So just repeat

14:05:00 your name each time we

14:05:03 speak, whether on camera or not.

If all of

14:05:06 your access needs are met, you can say, all of

14:05:10 my access needs are met at this time.

If something

14:05:13 else pops up that you will need, just go ahead and say that at

14:05:16 this point.

So let's get

14:05:20 this ball rolling.

14:05:26

>> LAURA: I am here, my

14:05:30 name is Laura Golino de Lovato,

14:05:33 my pronouns are she-her, and I have all of

14:05:36 my accessibility needs met.

Thank you.

14:05:40

>> Thank you.

Christian Bryant.

14:05:54

Matthew Maline.

>> MATTHEW: I'm here, Matthew Maline,

14:05:58 he-him, and all of my accessibility needs have been met

14:06:01 and I will be on video shortly.

I'm running

14:06:04 around doing some other stuff at the moment, but I'll be

14:06:07 right back.

>> Awesome,

14:06:10 Matt, glad you're here.

Vivien Lyon.

14:06:14

>> VIVIEN: Present.

My pronouns are

14:06:18 they-them, all my accessibility needs are met.

14:06:21

Thank you.

>> Thank you,

14:06:25 Vivien.

Regina Amodeo.

>>

14:06:29 Hi, Regina Amodeo, she-her pronounce, and my accessibility

14:06:32 needs are met.

>>

14:06:35 Awesome.

Thank you,

14:06:40 Regina.

>> KRISTINA: Thank you, I'm here,

14:06:45 my name is Kristina Goodman, my pronouns are she-her,

14:06:48 and all of my accessibility needs

14:06:51 are met.

>> Thank

14:06:54 you, Kristina.

14:07:01

>> PIPPA: Pippa Arend here, and my needs are

14:07:04 met.

Thank you.

>> Moriah McSharry McGrath.

14:07:23 I see you're typing.

14:07:25

Okay.

Having problems.

14:07:29 Glad you're here.

Amber Cook.

14:07:33

>> AMBER: Yes, hi, my name is

14:07:37 Amber Cook, pronouns

14:07:41 she-her, and my accessibility needs are met.

The

14:07:44 display on my laptop went out,

14:07:47 so I'm nearing on to a screen and that's why

14:07:50 I appear to be not looking at people.

14:07:53

It's one of those things, if you're looking way it looks like

14:07:56 you're not paying attention, so I wanted people to

14:07:59 know that I'm looking at the screen but the camera

14:08:03 is off.

Thank you.

>> Thank you,

14:08:07 Amber.

Team work makes

14:08:10 the dream work.

And

14:08:13 Stephanie Phillips Bridges -- won't be here for this meeting,

14:08:16 but we have a quorum.

Let's do

14:08:20 a little blurb about the chat feature, and then we can dive

14:08:24 right in.

The chat

14:08:27 feature should only be by staff

14:08:30 and RSC commissioners, not the

14:08:34 public.

PHB staff will be with

14:08:38 the chat moderator for comments and discussions

14:08:41 in the chat and [indiscernible] 15 minutes,

14:08:44 normally, we have a chat moderator

14:08:47 from the executive

14:08:50 committee.

We --

14:08:53 right now is only Laura and in the past, we

14:08:57 haven't exactly needed the chat moderator, so I think

14:09:00 I'll watch it today and see if that works and if

14:09:03 not, we can go ahead and designate

14:09:07 somebody.

Staff will only repeat comments left in the chat

14:09:10 by commissioners during the accessibility

14:09:14 check-in, and the accommodation that

14:09:17 they need.

Staff will

14:09:20 attempt to read these chat messages

14:09:23 as real time as possible by using the hands

14:09:26 meeting.

Side conversations should not be given, particularly

14:09:29 during the public testimony.

Chat

14:09:32 used on topic items at the

14:09:36 appropriate time.

And without further ado,

14:09:39 we can jump right in to staff

14:09:43 updates.

I want to thank everyone up

14:09:46 top here for being so flexible with the schedule, the

14:09:49 agenda.

As we all know, we

14:09:52 [indiscernible] was going to be here originally to present

14:09:57 on the HEART Standard

14:10:01 and get some feedback, and we adjusted that,

14:10:04 so thank you, particularly Laura, who is going to

14:10:07 moderate today, for your flexibility.

14:10:11

I'd like to make some room for a

14:10:14 special guest that we have who showed up today, he

14:10:18 is the new interim director of the

14:10:21 public Housing Bureau, Michael [indiscernible], and I'll give him

14:10:24 the floor.

>> MICHAEL: Hey,

14:10:28 everybody, glad to be

14:10:31 here, in the audience, thanks for being a

14:10:34 part of the RSC.

As Justin

14:10:38 said, literally, just showed up

14:10:41 today, day one.

14:10:44

I currently filling the

14:10:47 interim role for the Housing Bureau

14:10:51 halftime and halftime

14:10:54 director role at the

14:10:58 Washington County services, so I'll split

14:11:01 between the two and then

14:11:04 the bureau director.

14:11:07

[Indiscernible].

Yeah.

14:11:10 It's a pleasure to be here, and excited to

14:11:13 -- thanks, Laura.

Good

14:11:16 to see you.

14:11:19

Laura, in the beginning role,

14:11:23 coming off of your --

14:11:27

>> LAURA: Huh?

>> MICHAEL: Coming

14:11:30 off of as well?

>> LAURA: Kind of,

14:11:33 yeah.

>> MICHAEL: Good to see you all.

Thanks for

14:11:37 being here.

>> JUSTIN:

14:11:39 Awesome.

Thank you so much, Michael.

Perfect.

14:11:43 We'll get going here.

First item of

14:11:47 our staff updates -- providing public

14:11:50 testimony engagement.

And

14:11:53 so many of the individuals I

14:11:56 spoke with during my [indiscernible] months

14:12:00 ago at this point had confusion

14:12:03 around the role of public testimony,

14:12:06 to provide feedback, particularly during listening

14:12:09 sessions, resources, a role as our commission.

14:12:14

Here it is.

So I will

14:12:17 -- the leadership and interim manager on this

14:12:20 topic and to clarify, our role as a body, really

14:12:23 is to listen to any feedback and to use this

14:12:26 feedback to make recommendations

14:12:30 to City Council and

14:12:34 PHB leadership to influence policy and programming.

14:12:37

Unfortunately, it's not our role to provide individual

14:12:40 resources or feedback to those who come

14:12:44 to public testimony.

I commend you all for the

14:12:47 desire.

I understand and share the want for

14:12:50 that.

We get into issues around --

14:12:53

there are some equity issues, providing resources too,

14:12:57 but not the resources themselves approved for

14:13:00 one person by others and in terms of access

14:13:04 issues to make meetings and

14:13:09 to take that feedback and try to influence the

14:13:12 policy and programming.

And so we should

14:13:16 only be asking clarifying questions and we don't

14:13:19 -- our understanding the individual's experience that

14:13:23 could impact how we make recommendations or

14:13:26 influence our discussions.

We should

14:13:29 not be asking questions for purposes of providing

14:13:33 resources.

That's just to

14:13:36 clarify.

Me and my

14:13:40 colleague, Mickey [phonetic], have set up

14:13:43 public testimony web pages that are being worked on right now, should

14:13:46 be live in the next week or

14:13:49 so.

We have one web page

14:13:53 that's specifically for what public testimony is and tips and

14:13:57 tricks on how to provide testimony and it will

14:14:00 give a breakdown of the testimony

14:14:03 script.

We developed those in an

14:14:07 effort to kind of help curb expectations of the

14:14:10 public when they come to present

14:14:13 testimony.

Just wanted to clarify that at the top there,

14:14:16 make sure to address it because there was

14:14:19 some confusion in questions.

Any comments or conversation

14:14:24 around this topic?

14:14:32

Lovely.

Okay.

14:14:36 Next is the HSC

14:14:39 executive committee recommendations.

We still have

14:14:43 [indiscernible].

I have pinged, obviously, several

14:14:47 times, and currently in

14:14:51 communication with the office regarding our

14:14:54 reappointments, because there are some commissioners

14:14:57 whose terms are expiring

14:15:01 this month and in December

14:15:04 and so we have been in contact with them regarding this and we're

14:15:08 hoping to kind of loop

14:15:11 into the executive committee at the same time.

So I will

14:15:14 keep pushing for any updates

14:15:17 and get that to you as soon as

14:15:20 possible.

Any questions,

14:15:23 comments, or concerns?

Thoughts?

14:15:30 Thanks.

Okay.

Moving right along

14:15:34 here.

We're going to ask

14:15:37 to review the

14:15:41 FAIR policy review.

As we know in

14:15:45 our last policy

14:15:48 subcommittee we had two that we're going to talk about today.

14:15:52

One was the FAIR policy, and

14:15:55 the other was the undefined subcommittee with

14:16:03 the intent of addressing one of the work plans that we had

14:16:06 yet to get to this

14:16:09 year.

So with the -- reported

14:16:13 out previously, unfortunately that

14:16:16 Commissioner -- we need at least three

14:16:19 individuals to volunteer

14:16:25 to fully staff it and we

14:16:28 only received two that were interested so that was dissolved

14:16:32 before it was started.

But there was a subcommittee, we

14:16:35 had to work with our first meeting and one

14:16:38 staff member at an appropriate level, however,

14:16:41 the absence of an executive

14:16:44 leadership team after our previous

14:16:48 concern director, Molly Rogers, put in

14:16:51 her office, and policy training manager

14:16:54 for --

and manager of the

14:16:58 services offices, it was

14:17:01 determined that

14:17:04 the staff had other issues to that

14:17:07 committee and reassess or readdress

14:17:11 the issues and winter, spring of

14:17:14 2024, and so I have

14:17:17 two leadership kind of outlining exactly what happened in

14:17:20 the subcommittees and then the recommendation that we continue

14:17:23 the FAIR ordinance review next

14:17:27 year when we have an executive leadership

14:17:30 team.

I wanted to make sure you

14:17:33 all understand the importance of being reactive to

14:17:36 committee feedback, particularly that it's feedback --

14:17:40 I wanted to let you all

14:17:43 know that I will make

14:17:46 sure it's possible it's

14:17:50 revisited in the future when we

14:17:53 have, you know, support and leadership to

14:17:56 help support tackle this issue and support --

14:17:59 which would be the staffing for, you know,

14:18:03 continuous staffing of committees.

So a brief

14:18:07 overview of those two things regarding

14:18:10 subcommittees and make some space for questions,

14:18:14 comments, concerns regarding that.

14:18:26

>> LAURA: Justin, thank you for that.

14:18:30 Can you go over about the

14:18:33 FAIR policy review subcommittee

14:18:37 and why it was delayed?

>> JUSTIN: Absolutely.

You

14:18:40 know, the -- you know, I wasn't

14:18:43 here at the time, but my understanding was

14:18:46 the passage --

of the ordinance,

14:18:50 it was difficult and contentious

14:18:53 and [indiscernible] as we're going into a time of

14:18:57 considering to review those, the absence, I think, of the

14:19:00 leadership team and the Housing Bureau

14:19:03 is a very unique

14:19:06 thing,

14:19:10 compounded by the lack of rental services

14:19:14 office, [indiscernible] who is still on leave until next

14:19:17 month.

So as I was speaking with them regarding

14:19:20 this, you know, it was -- we had a meeting the

14:19:24 day that Molly announced her departure

14:19:27 from the bureau, and with all these things up

14:19:32 in the air and it was agreed upon it was not the best

14:19:34 time for us to open this can of worms right

14:19:38 now, then, the bureau in such

14:19:41 a transition, that would prevent us from being able to

14:19:44 provide you all with what you would need to have a

14:19:48 robust conversation, the deliberative process and get

14:19:53 results.

We wanted to have --

14:19:56

[indiscernible], when reviewing the

14:20:00 subcommittee, making recommendations and it

14:20:03 wouldn't be possible without the support of our

14:20:07 excellent leadership team.

So unfortunately that decision was

14:20:11 made, but again, recommendations that

14:20:15 you do have manager revisiting this in the

14:20:18 future.

But it is a bummer in that

14:20:21 --

and I believe that I am thankful that everyone who signed

14:20:26 up for the subcommittee and had the range

14:20:29 to discussion -- it will be a robust

14:20:33 discussion, and I was also looking forward to this chance to

14:20:36 interact with policy in such a way.

So

14:20:40 I hope for now,

14:20:43 not forever.

14:20:46

>> LAURA: Thank you, Justin.

>> AMBER: Yeah, I

14:20:49 just want to say, kind of

14:20:53 -- you're firmly in a publicly

14:20:56 -- you know, I understand

14:20:59 when there are staff shortages

14:21:02 and, you know,

14:21:06 concerns, it's still frustrating

14:21:09 to have the experience of coming on to the

14:21:13 Rental Services Commission, you know, to fund,

14:21:16 you know, not all meetings cut in half, half the number of

14:21:20 meetings, but then you can't get responses from,

14:21:23 you know, the office to set up

14:21:26 the new executive committee.

You know, we come up with ideas

14:21:29 and are given approval, you know, to

14:21:34 set up subcommittees and then they're canceled at the last

14:21:37 minute.

So just -- you know, just in the scope of,

14:21:40 you know, this is like the 11th -- the 11th

14:21:43 year of like a housing crisis in Portland, but

14:21:47 also, you know, absolutely

14:21:50 skyrocketing problems that just get worse every

14:21:54 month.

It would really be -- you know, it's

14:21:57 important to actually see more

14:22:00 rather than less so I'm just saying that publicly, you know,

14:22:03 I'd like to see more responsiveness from,

14:22:07 you know, from the housing

14:22:11 politicians and office and I'd like to see the meetings go back to,

14:22:14 you know, once a month

14:22:17 and the subcommittees

14:22:21 -- not to take too much time,

14:22:24 I just need to say something.

>> JUSTIN: I appreciate

14:22:27 that,

14:22:30 Amber.

Thank you.

>> [Indiscernible].

14:22:33

>> Thank you.

>> MICHAEL: So Amber, thank you for

14:22:36 that.

What I can tell you is, as

14:22:40 Justin said, this ss

14:22:44 sort of an unusual circumstance that I hope the bureau

14:22:48 moves out of quickly.

14:22:52

There's a next round

14:22:55 from the director later this

14:22:59 month, as the question becomes more clear, whether my

14:23:02 time will be shorter or longer, I'll

14:23:05 approach the whole based on that.

So it looks like I'm going to be

14:23:09 interim for a while.

I'll do my best

14:23:13 to sort of get things up and

14:23:16 running again a little bit of a

14:23:19 holding pattern, unusual

14:23:22 circumstance.

It is an odd situation to have

14:23:26 an interim director and the

14:23:30 two executive positions under

14:23:33 -- to try to keep everything going that

14:23:37 needs to keep

14:23:40 going.

But we'll get there and we figure it out, and I feel like

14:23:43 there's a light at the end of the

14:23:46 tunnel and the commitment you've made is really important to

14:23:50 this community and I want to make sure

14:23:53 we honor that as can really make the best use

14:23:56 of your time and service as possible.

So just know I have a

14:23:59 big commitment to that too, even, the

14:24:02 way we really appreciate you being invested

14:24:06 with us in this.

>> AMBER: I appreciate that, and I wanted to add one

14:24:09 more thing.

Even if, you know, as systems get

14:24:12 settled in place, it would be very helpful,

14:24:16 if, let's say, we're given a long,

14:24:20 lengthy agenda item that involves hours of reading if we could get

14:24:23 a turnaround the same day

14:24:26 saying that agenda item has been canceled, just because, you know,

14:24:31 what happened, you know, put a lot of time in this,

14:24:34 but it is frustrating to spend hours of time

14:24:38 preparing for something that didn't happen and we just

14:24:42 found out hours after

14:24:45 -- so that was a request to please get that information

14:24:48 to us as soon as possible.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:24:51 Amber, and I apologize for that.

I got the

14:24:55 email last week from

14:24:58 PDX that it was being canceled, on

14:25:01 vacation, so I updated

14:25:05 as soon as possible, but understand

14:25:08 [indiscernible], and so I would be more cognizant of

14:25:12 that.

I don't want to waste anyone's time, as much power as

14:25:15 I had into that.

If you could

14:25:19 comment, Michael.

All right.

>> LAURA: Yeah, just to

14:25:22 follow up on the -- the

14:25:26 FAIR Policy Review Subcommittee,

14:25:29 how many commissioners signed

14:25:32 up for that?

14:25:39

>> JUSTIN: Seven.

>> LAURA: So I just wanted

14:25:42 to make ask you, Justin, to help me

14:25:45 remind people that we are going to

14:25:49 get to that item and Michael will be calling

14:25:53 on you to help us, you know, with

14:25:56 -- assuming that everything goes

14:25:59 well and we can get to this soon.

So for

14:26:02 the folks that signed up, let's start thinking about

14:26:06 how we might approach that topic.

14:26:10

So maybe we can get ahead

14:26:13 of the game when we finally get there.

So thank

14:26:16 you.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Laura, and part of my attention,

14:26:20 particularly with the executive committee, my role

14:26:23 is to make some space in that committee and

14:26:26 in our next meeting for discussion around

14:26:29 what data points we would need to make

14:26:32 sure this discussion moves forward at a

14:26:36 productive pace.

And so, you know, please be

14:26:39 thinking about that.

And then ideally, we'd be

14:26:42 able to go into this first or second meeting of the

14:26:45 subcommittee with the data points we need and we

14:26:50 can, you know, make that work plan as quickly as possible to get

14:26:53 the ball rolling.

So thank you for that, Laura, and I will

14:26:57 be working on that and I will be following up

14:27:00 with specifically those individuals who indicated their interest

14:27:04 in joining this subcommittee.

14:27:08

Any other thoughts, questions, or concerns?

14:27:20 Perfect.

Last staff

14:27:24 update, I have, providing a

14:27:27 Winter Listening Session.

This

14:27:30 was discussed in our last meeting and I saw some interest on that in

14:27:33 hosting another one.

14:27:36

Ideally,

14:27:40 host another one before our first meeting in 2024

14:27:43 in order to use that community

14:27:46 feedback to really shape our

14:27:50 going forward work plan, to give that feedback to us

14:27:54 into that first meeting and basically the work will be for that

14:27:59 year on the public --

14:28:04 [indiscernible].

And so I

14:28:07 have given the go ahead to host

14:28:10 1 before I

14:28:15 take the lead on scheduling and

14:28:18 planning this, to have a vote of the full body

14:28:22 so I wanted to make some space for any comments or

14:28:25 concerns about the item of the listening session and then I'll

14:28:29 take on a vote.

Does anyone have any

14:28:32 questions or thoughts around that Winter Listening

14:28:36 Session?

Amber.

>> AMBER: I

14:28:39 would love to know

14:28:42 how the listening sessions are

14:28:45 advertised or promoted,

14:28:48 how and where.

>> JUSTIN:

14:28:51 Yeah.

For this past one, we

14:28:56 reached out, we used kind of

14:28:59 an email blast of various stakeholders.

14:29:02

PHB has an outreach to

14:29:05 basic communications that have created some detailed list

14:29:08 of community partners,

14:29:11 organizations, who would

14:29:18 benefit towards

14:29:23 specific graphics, so we sent those out to the

14:29:26 co-workers and contract partners as well in an effort to share

14:29:29 this more broadly and share with the commission, to

14:29:33 share with their networks.

14:29:37

Going forward, I was working more with the

14:29:40 team to make sure a farther reach

14:29:45 and, you know, at least

14:29:49 [indiscernible] within various languages

14:29:52 to get the word out more.

Whether

14:29:55 there's any other outreach strategies that you want to try in

14:29:58 your work and you want to see us

14:30:01 engage in, please feel

14:30:04 free to let me know.

>> AMBER: And just to

14:30:07 clarify, that's a

14:30:10 great answer, [freezing]

on

14:30:14 that list, is it by government agencies or does it

14:30:18 include, you know, housing advocacy groups or,

14:30:21 you know, groups that work

14:30:24 with [indiscernible] or, you know what I'm

14:30:27 saying, just -- try to like be

14:30:30 helpful in terms of making sure that the outreach

14:30:33 we do is reaching, you know,

14:30:36 let's say the communities that maybe don't

14:30:40 often hear from us.

14:30:44

>> JUSTIN: Absolutely, Amber, all

14:30:47 of the above.

It's a lot of community partners, a lot of

14:30:51 CEOs.

I don't have the exact list right now but

14:30:54 I can see about providing that to you all, who

14:30:59 would -- as soon as possible first

14:31:02 to see who we're already reaching out to and take

14:31:05 it from there.

>> AMBER: That would be great.

That would help the

14:31:09 outreach that we do personally so

14:31:12 we're not doubling efforts but reaching out.

Thank

14:31:15 you, Justin.

>> JUSTIN:

14:31:18 Of course.

Laura.

>> LAURA: Yeah, I think we

14:31:22 posted it on our social media

14:31:25 as well to just sort of

14:31:29 loop our constituents in.

So, you know, that's another way

14:31:32 we could do it.

Regarding the Winter

14:31:36 Listening Session,

14:31:39 I think that given

14:31:43 that what we took away from

14:31:46 the Summer Listening Session

14:31:49 was an action item that we tried

14:31:52 to get to was addressing the FAIR ordinance or

14:31:55 revisit the FAIR ordinance after hearing from so many

14:31:58 of the attendees that that was what was

14:32:02 on their minds, and now then delayed, I think that

14:32:06 if we do a Winter Listening Session

14:32:09 that we have to be really, really clear about

14:32:13 expectations and set those

14:32:16 expectations well and clearly and also

14:32:19 with a reasonable time frame

14:32:22 and maybe -- because what I'm afraid of is that

14:32:26 we have a winter Listening Session

14:32:30 and then we're already behind if another topic comes

14:32:33 up.

So we could eitherISTENING SESSION and then we're already behind if another

14:32:42 topic comes up.

So we could either not do winter LISTENING SESSION and try to

14:32:46 revisit or we are very specific in

14:32:50 what we ask the community

14:33:00 so instead of having a broad Winter Listening

14:33:03 Session, we can have the public tell us about this

14:33:06 significant issue that we want their perspectives on.

14:33:10

Again, just an idea.

I don't want to feel like

14:33:13 we have these listening sessions and then let

14:33:16 the attendees get after

14:33:20 that is nothing.

And

14:33:23 so we're doing -- nothing.

So just a thought

14:33:26 there, that I wanted to throw out.

>> JUSTIN: Thank you for

14:33:29 that, Laura.

Yeah, we -- you know, I never

14:33:33 want to make space

14:33:36 for public input and not be reactive.

14:33:39

That's the point of -- as a body, and when we

14:33:42 look back at the possible Winter Listening

14:33:46 Session, I was, I know,

14:33:49 I was initially envisioning that the cause of the

14:33:52 subcommittee being a subcommittee, and this

14:33:56 Listening Session impacting our actual

14:34:00 work plan of itself just for some clarity

14:34:03 around the elimination of the

14:34:06 work plan, but I -- I appreciate

14:34:10 the ideas of a more

14:34:13 significant topic and I am

14:34:15 with you.

Kristina, go ahead.

>> KRISTINA: Thank you.

14:34:19 I really like the idea of the Winter Listening Session even

14:34:22 though I know that can be tricky because folks have a lot going on

14:34:25 during that time.

But I do think hearing

14:34:28 voices before we enter into the work plan

14:34:32 topics is really important to like inform

14:34:35 how we do that.

I think the

14:34:38 one thing that's on my mind from the last

14:34:42 Listening Session is it felt like -- it's not the first time it's

14:34:45 happened, it just was a really large

14:34:48 amount of it happening, was that so many folks

14:34:52 seemed like they were showing up and wanting to

14:34:55 provide testimony but for one reason or

14:34:58 another there seemed to be some barriers that

14:35:02 existed from folks actually being able to do that and I'm

14:35:05 not sure what those barriers were,

14:35:08 but it might be nice to just like

14:35:11 pause and figure out a way to

14:35:15 make it more accessible for folks

14:35:19 so we can actually hear testimony that wants to be

14:35:22 shared.

>> JUSTIN: That's a very good idea.

14:35:27

Thank you, Kristina.

And then

14:35:32 Amber made the point that we should consider how we can

14:35:35 follow up on both the main two issues

14:35:39 renters and landlords brought up

14:35:42 in the summer.

After we do the

14:35:46 Winter Listening Session, the FAIR

14:35:49 housing and rents

14:35:52 being so far above local

14:35:56 wages.

I wanted to mention

14:35:59 Amber's comments.

14:36:06

Moriah.

>> MORIAH: I appreciate hearing

14:36:10 everybody's comments and I wasn't able to be at the Listening Session

14:36:13 in real time, but I read the materials afterwards, and

14:36:17 I just have a real dis-ease

14:36:21 with this experience I've had over and over again on this

14:36:24 commission of people sharing really important,

14:36:27 really painful things in their lives and this

14:36:30 commission having pretty limited capacity to

14:36:34 respond to that.

And I really feel like in many

14:36:37 instances, even if we do

14:36:41 ultimately influence the policy thing in the short

14:36:44 time, we're exacerbating harm that

14:36:47 people are experiencing.

And so I think the suggestion

14:36:50 of being really focused about the purpose of Listening Session

14:36:53 is helpful with addressing that.

14:36:57

But I'm also wondering if

14:37:00 we should reconceptualize

14:37:05 the direction the information is flowing in.

I think people don't know what

14:37:08 the rental services office is

14:37:11 and what can landlords get from there, what could renters

14:37:14 get from there, and maybe this commission could

14:37:17 or should be doing more

14:37:20 to communicate outward about either

14:37:24 us or the bureau and think of these sessions as

14:37:27 more of a space for

14:37:30 exchange.

14:37:33

>> JUSTIN: Thank you,

14:37:36 Moriah.

14:37:40

Amber?

>> AMBER: Yeah, I want to say that I

14:37:44 -- I appreciate what you just

14:37:47 said, Moriah, and echo about

14:37:50 that.

I do -- I was reminded, and I don't remember

14:37:53 if, you know, what conversation this was,

14:37:57 Justin, but I do remember a discussion of

14:38:01 sending out something to all the people who

14:38:04 registered for the Listening Session and asking

14:38:07 if there were barriers or

14:38:10 issues or, you know, effectively

14:38:14 -- some question

14:38:17 to try to help to discover why we had so many

14:38:20 people sign up and so many not give testimony,

14:38:24 even though they appeared to be online.

14:38:27

I felt like we

14:38:31 could do a little work to learn from that experience before we do

14:38:35 a second.

>> JUSTIN: Relating to that request, I

14:38:38 did reach out to everyone

14:38:41 who signed up during last session to provide

14:38:44 testimony who didn't -- weren't able to attend,

14:38:47 just to ask that question, and I didn't

14:38:50 get any responses.

14:38:54

And so I think doing

14:38:57 that, going forward, that --

14:39:01 work for me and --

14:39:05 [indiscernible] it has been a few months since the last

14:39:09 Listening Session, so I'm not entirely sure about

14:39:12 the protocol setting up a way for them to

14:39:15 see them and whether they -- it was a while

14:39:19 ago, but I can commit to going forward, you

14:39:22 know, that you have to -- provide the testimony to

14:39:26 see why they did not

14:39:29 -- weren't able to attend.

14:39:35

Laura.

>> LAURA: Yeah, I just wanted to ask

14:39:40 Moriah to talk a little bit more about the

14:39:43 exchange concept.

Were you talking

14:39:46 about an exchange between those who give public

14:39:49 testimony and us, like a conversation, or us as

14:39:53 a roundtable saying, oh, that's a

14:39:56 good point that this person made, let's

14:39:59 talk about that?

14:40:02

>> MORIAH: I didn't have any clear idea, but maybe

14:40:05 the former, talking about it,

14:40:09 that we want to understand better renters'

14:40:12 experiences but help people in Portland understand what the city government

14:40:15 -- how it's structured and

14:40:18 what it's supposed to be doing and enabling them to

14:40:22 access services but also advocate to their elected

14:40:25 officials if they do or don't like what is going on in

14:40:28 the Housing Bureau, et

14:40:31 cetera, et cetera.

14:40:37

>> JUSTIN: And

14:40:40 Vivien?

>> VIVIEN:

14:40:44 Hi, I'm just wondering if we

14:40:47 can come up with a paradigm for checking

14:40:50 in with everyone who signed up to provide

14:40:55 public testimony at one of the listening

14:40:58 sessions, rather than calling on people

14:41:01 and waiting for some amount of time to see if they're

14:41:05 able to respond, because that

14:41:08 took up a lot of the time in

14:41:11 the previous Listening Session.

14:41:14

With so many people signing up and then

14:41:18 not being able to testify or not -- for one

14:41:21 reason or -- who knows why, not actually

14:41:25 providing the testimony.

So I'm not sure,

14:41:29 technically, if that's

14:41:32 feasible, but at the beginning of this session,

14:41:36 somehow asking folks to indicate whether they are

14:41:39 going to be providing the testimony they

14:41:42 signed up to provide.

So that we

14:41:46 can economize on time.

14:41:49

>> JUSTIN: Thank you for that.

People sign up and we have them

14:41:52 indicate, but I absolutely hear

14:41:55 you that most of the

14:41:58 Listening Session was [indiscernible], and I'm very aware of

14:42:02 that, so I appreciate that

14:42:05 perspective from -- about that

14:42:08 process, because that would be helpful.

14:42:12

And Amber, suggested in the

14:42:15 chat, what about an empowerment

14:42:18 sheet that not only gives

14:42:27 encourages -- what's PA, Amber?

>> AMBER:

14:42:30 Something small we could do would be to

14:42:33 have something that's onscreen, you know, like

14:42:37 we have the agenda on screen but

14:42:40 during testimony, we have something on screen, just in

14:42:44 my head, an empowerment sheet, that would not

14:42:47 only give us information but encourage people,

14:42:50 like Moriah was saying, encouraging people to stand

14:42:53 up for their housing needs and saying how you can do

14:42:57 that.

I'm not saying you can coach everybody,

14:43:00 but, you know, the benefit of whatever we know

14:43:03 that's the best way to reach or the best way

14:43:06 to get your, you know,

14:43:10 the thing in front of the policy-makers.

>> JUSTIN:

14:43:13 Absolutely.

I know the last one, my email

14:43:16 wasn't available at some point, and

14:43:19 [indiscernible] prominent and, yes,

14:43:24 empowerment message to encourage people to provide feedback.

So thank you for

14:43:29 that, Amber.

14:43:32

Well, just to say, in

14:43:35 close, to -- with this, with this

14:43:39 issue.

I'm going to go down for the vote, at this

14:43:43 point, we're voting on just the

14:43:46 Winter Listening Session with the ability to add more

14:43:49 parameters on how exactly it's hosted,

14:43:54 incorporating some of the ideas here today

14:43:58 into the actual listening process itself, could impact when this

14:44:01 occurs.

Want to be aware of that, making

14:44:04 substantial changes to the actual --

14:44:07 actual procedure of the listening

14:44:10 session.

But

14:44:20 Amber, can we set

14:44:24 A

14:44:28 SM?

>> AMBER: Technology issues, set off a chunk

14:44:31 of time in the next meeting to talk about this

14:44:34 issue that Laura brought up because I think it's

14:44:38 important to many of the commissioners, just from what

14:44:41 I've seen, and does seem to be the -- we'll see like

14:44:44 the -- you know, I don't want to

14:44:47 set a date for the Portland Housing Bureau,

14:44:50 but what we're hearing from feedback is very different from what we

14:44:54 would like to see, so it would be great to have

14:44:57 discussion time to find a way to kind of meet

14:45:00 those two.

>> JUSTIN: Absolutely.

I think

14:45:03 that's a great idea.

And

14:45:07 let's do a vote.

14:45:10

Laura Golino de Lovato.

14:45:14

>> LAURA: Yes to a Winter Listening Session.

14:45:19

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Laura.

Allen Hines,

14:45:23 I see you're on the

14:45:26 call.

>> ALLEN: Yes.

14:45:29

>> JUSTIN: Matthew Maline.

>> MATTHEW: Yes.

14:45:33

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, Matthew.

Vivien Lyon?

14:45:36

>> VIVIEN: Yes.

>> JUSTIN: Thanks,

14:45:40 Vivien.

Regina Amodeo.

14:45:43

>> REGINA: Yes.

>> JUSTIN: Kristina

14:45:46 Goodman.

>> KRISTINA: Yes.

14:45:50

>> JUSTIN: Pippa Arend.

14:45:54

>> PIPPA: Yes.

>> JUSTIN:

14:45:57 Moriah McSharry McGrath.

>> MORIAH: Yes.

>> JUSTIN: And Amber

14:46:01 Cook.

>> AMBER: Yes.

14:46:04

>> JUSTIN: Awesome.

14:46:09

Okay.

Perfect.

14:46:12 Well, then, it's agreed with.

I will work with

14:46:16 the executive committee and

14:46:19 PHB leadership to make some time

14:46:23 to have discussions around what we'll be doing in that Listening Session and

14:46:26 see if we can get some other models to see what

14:46:29 works for other areas and I will come back into

14:46:32 our next meeting with some

14:46:35 suggestions or

14:46:39 suggestions or both around this, so I want to thank you for

14:46:42 the discussion around

14:46:45 that.

Awesome.

Well, I built in

14:46:48 a break here at 3:30, so until then, I want

14:46:51 to turn it over to

14:46:54 Laura Golino de Lovato to discuss our next

14:46:58 agenda item, which is finalizing

14:47:02 recommendations with the 14.6 rent increase

14:47:05 and long-term rent assistance.

14:47:09

>> LAURA: Great.

Thank you,

14:47:12 Justin.

So we've got, I think, lots of time

14:47:15 today to finalize

14:47:18 this.

And I believe that

14:47:23 our goal today is to

14:47:27 finalize the recommendation that we can

14:47:30 then get to

14:47:34 PHB leadership and City Council on

14:47:37 this topic.

And we

14:47:40 had a good discussion back in July

14:47:44 which seems like years ago

14:47:47 and thank you to

14:47:52 Ryan Davis for taking

14:47:55 notes and summarizing that, they

14:47:58 did get those out via email, so thank you for

14:48:02 that.

We talked about a lot of different things, but

14:48:05 we ended up, according to both my notes and

14:48:08 Ryan's notes, with

14:48:11 four recommendations

14:48:15 and let me

14:48:20 see, there was a recommendation to also have things typed

14:48:23 out, so I'm putting these in

14:48:26 the chat.

I don't know if -- I don't know how

14:48:31 helpful that is.

And if you

14:48:34 want, for accessibility, I can

14:48:37 read through them.

14:48:40

But these were where we landed on

14:48:43 proposals, recommendations, and the

14:48:46 final one being discussion on creating on agenda item for

14:48:49 the next full meeting to develop the recommendation to send to the City

14:48:52 Council.

So I think that is

14:48:56 our big takeaway action.

Is it okay with

14:48:59 everyone if I read through these for the accessibility

14:49:02 to meet the accessibility issue?

Is that

14:49:05 good?

Okay.

So

14:49:08 the first one was ask City Council to stay

14:49:11 connected with state legislators to

14:49:14 determine if the rent increase cap of

14:49:18 10% from SB611 could be

14:49:21 made even lower by the city.

So I think

14:49:24 we have a good conversation around

14:49:27 the parameters around that and

14:49:31 still felt in our last conversation it was worth it for

14:49:34 the City of Portland to push a little bit on that.

14:49:37

The second one was ask the city to set

14:49:40 aside somewhere in the range of $10

14:49:43 million for long-term rental

14:49:46 assistance, longer than an amount that would cover rent

14:49:50 assistance for longer than six months.

And then to work with

14:49:53 the county to advocate for faster

14:49:56 spending on the supportive housing services funds being allocated

14:50:00 to the long-term rent

14:50:04 assistance vouchers.

Seems like still a

14:50:07 timely topic.

Another

14:50:10 idea that was proposed was making a

14:50:13 recommendation that if the tenant

14:50:16 has to receive rent assistance twice in a 12

14:50:20 -month period, the property owner/landlord would be

14:50:23 required to meet with a mediator to discuss

14:50:27 whether the rents are set at a fair or

14:50:31 affordable rate.

We did have some group discussion

14:50:35 there, but because that was a proposed recommendation that we

14:50:38 didn't --

we didn't finalize that, I wanted to come back to

14:50:42 that.

And then we also had

14:50:45 -- I know that [indiscernible] is not here,

14:50:48 but I think that she

14:50:51 wanted to

14:50:59 -- I think dig in a little bit more on

14:51:02 the idea of average rent having outpaced

14:51:08 the ability of BIPOC folks

14:51:11 and native Portlanders

14:51:14 being able to pay -- let me

14:51:17 see here on the

14:51:20 next slide.

14:51:23

>> JUSTIN: I think that was provided in

14:51:27 the chat.

>> LAURA: I was just going to do

14:51:30 that.

>> JUSTIN: I got you.

14:51:33

>> LAURA: Thank you.

Thank you, Justin.

14:51:36 So she was saying if the average rent in Portland was around

14:51:39 $1700 a month for one bedroom, we

14:51:43 have outpaced

14:51:48 Black, Latino, and

14:51:51 native Portlanders from being here, we can't continue

14:51:54 to subsidize maximizing

14:51:58 landlord profits without some sort of check to ensure that city

14:52:01 funds are being put to good use.

And I think

14:52:04 that was with regard to people getting rent assistance twice

14:52:07 in a 12-month period.

I don't see her on

14:52:10 the call.

I don't want to speak for

14:52:14 her.

But I think that

14:52:21 -- I wanted to make sure I shared that with you

14:52:24 all.

This was our second-to-last

14:52:27 meeting -- correct me if I am wrong, Justin.

Our next meeting is in

14:52:31 November.

Is that correct?

14:52:35

>> JUSTIN: Correct.

>> LAURA: So I'd like us to leave

14:52:38 this meeting today with some very specific recommendations

14:52:42 for City Council that I believe PHB staff

14:52:46 will formulate into a letter

14:52:49 that will go to

14:52:52 City Council.

And working with what we

14:52:55 distilled down over many

14:52:59 meetings into these recommendations, I'd like to ask that

14:53:02 we go through these one at a

14:53:06 time and see where people are

14:53:09 with these recommendations and

14:53:12 if we can move forward to

14:53:16 say, basically, yes or no, we're going to move these recommendations

14:53:19 forward to the City Council.

14:53:22

Does that work for

14:53:25 folks?

And

14:53:28 if it doesn't, does

14:53:31 anybody want to recommend anything else?

And

14:53:35 I want to make space for sort of, you know, what

14:53:38 you might be thinking about between

14:53:41 -- the July meeting and today.

14:53:46

Any thoughts, comments?

14:53:54

Amber.

>> AMBER: You know, since

14:53:57 we have discussed this

14:54:00 repeatedly and over a long time,

14:54:04 we may need to look

14:54:08 at, you know -- we may need to look at

14:54:11 less of a unified

14:54:14 approach and more of a

14:54:20 a -- you know,

14:54:23 pinning down factors more

14:54:27 specifically, to say, like if we have -- it

14:54:30 would be an easy split for housing

14:54:33 advocates saying, rents are too high, they're

14:54:36 above wages, and landlords saying, I'm

14:54:39 just spitballing here, but our costs are too

14:54:43 high so we have to charge that much.

So in that sense we

14:54:46 may not come to a really nice, neat package

14:54:49 of recommendation.

We may need to split that

14:54:52 up some and break up, if costs are too

14:54:55 high for landlords to recommend, you know, the

14:54:59 specific factors going on while pressing, even if we don't have

14:55:03 a solution now, that solutions need to be

14:55:06 found so that when it's matched, we just --

14:55:09 so people can afford to actually live here.

And

14:55:12 I apologize, that's not

14:55:15 the sharpest --

14:55:22

>> LAURA: Amber, you cut off.

14:55:25

>> AMBER: The internet -- so I know this is not a

14:55:28 sharp suggestion, but what I'm saying is having to look

14:55:32 at a longer recommendation letter that breaks things

14:55:35 down in different points rather than, you know, coming up with that

14:55:40 great, one suggestion.

>> LAURA: Certainly, and

14:55:43 Vivien, I see your hand.

I

14:55:46 just want to respond to Amber.

I'm not

14:55:49 necessarily saying we should have one recommendation.

I think what we've

14:55:53 got, though, is one

14:55:56 opportunity to create

14:56:00 a set of recommendations and, you know,

14:56:04 regardless of how they're split, by making a

14:56:07 decision today so we can put some time into the other topics that

14:56:10 we want to talk about at the

14:56:13 November meeting, which includes getting a little bit

14:56:17 ahead of the work plan and

14:56:20 also looking at the Winter Listening Session

14:56:25 and what that's going to look like, even with the full three hours of our

14:56:29 meeting, there's much to talk

14:56:32 about.

So I mean, we can -- we can do that

14:56:35 in any way, and I don't think we even

14:56:38 have to be united in the

14:56:42 recommendation.

We've done what we've done in the past

14:56:45 with recommendations is very clearly

14:56:48 said.

These commissioners

14:56:53 supported these commissioners, these commissioners supported that

14:56:56 recommendation.

So I think there's

14:57:00 some flexibility.

Vivien.

>> VIVIEN: Thanks for

14:57:03 saying that, Laura.

I was -- I was going to

14:57:07 point that out, that the recommendations do not

14:57:10 have to be unanimous.

What

14:57:13 I would also like to suggest or

14:57:17 float the idea of is for the

14:57:20 -- whatever we send to

14:57:24 City Council, to

14:57:27 identify what we have

14:57:31 heard from public testimony as

14:57:34 being matters of the

14:57:38 greatest concern in terms of

14:57:42 ensuring that Portland has enough

14:57:48 sort of arrows in the

14:57:51 quiver to address stable housing for the

14:57:55 majority of Portlanders.

14:57:58

And the

14:58:01 recommendation that --

or the comment

14:58:05 that was put in the chat was, I believe, in response to

14:58:09 a proposal that I had

14:58:12 put forward with regard to

14:58:16 a tenant who has had

14:58:19 to access financial assistance two or

14:58:22 more times during the calendar year or a 12-month

14:58:25 period, that that should be an indicator to

14:58:28 the landlord and require

14:58:31 some systematic response

14:58:34 that their rent is not -- it's

14:58:38 -- it's not a feasible rent to be

14:58:41 charging for that dwelling unit.

Now,

14:58:44 that's just one proposal.

The problem that it's

14:58:48 attempting to address is extremely well and

14:58:52 succinctly stated in that comment, that

14:58:56 we run the risk of subsidizing,

14:58:59 landlords maximizing their profit

14:59:03 by offering varying levels of rent assistance.

Now, I work for

14:59:08 the PCC, clinic legal defense program, and that's

14:59:11 primarily what we do is help

14:59:14 to coordinate financial assistance and

14:59:17 handle the legal representation to make sure our clients

14:59:21 avoid facing eviction.

We couldn't do the work the way

14:59:24 that we're doing it without the

14:59:27 financial assistance being available at the same time.

So the recommendation is

14:59:31 not that we jettison

14:59:35 financial assistance.

It's

14:59:38 to make sure it doesn't have the effect of

14:59:41 continuing the problem.

I want that to be identified to the

14:59:45 extent that the -- all the commissioners agree, that's an issue

14:59:48 that needs to be addressed.

We have to keep that in the

14:59:51 forefront of our mind as we make any of these

14:59:54 recommendations, that that's a real risk

14:59:57 that has to be dealt with

15:00:01 and addressed.

And then how to address

15:00:04 that as a recommendation

15:00:07 would be

15:00:15 subsidiary to that issue.

>> LAURA: Thank you, Vivien.

I

15:00:19 think that, hearing what Amber said as well,

15:00:23 looking back to what was discussed, I sort of

15:00:26 feel like we've got

15:00:29 two things.

We've

15:00:33 got a proposal to

15:00:36 City Council to step up more when it comes

15:00:39 to engaging with the

15:00:42 state legislature around

15:00:48 the city being able to

15:00:52 make it -- some of its own rules

15:00:55 and then, of course, is an issue to

15:00:59 -- in addressing some state law, but I still think

15:01:02 that's, you know, still a viable recommendation.

15:01:05

And then the recommendation about how

15:01:11 rent assistance is both

15:01:14 a --

15:01:20 effective eviction

15:01:23 deterrent and

15:01:26 effective stable housing

15:01:29 tool but could be driving rate

15:01:32 increases, so what

15:01:36 is the systematic way of addressing housing.

And

15:01:39 I think we also did

15:01:42 hear at the Listening Session that there are

15:01:45 many property owners and

15:01:48 landlords who are having

15:01:52 challenges and I think this commission has to hear

15:01:56 them as well.

And think

15:01:59 about the issues that they do

15:02:02 have with cost.

And so

15:02:05 I guess what we're talking about is really

15:02:08 a system of reform.

15:02:11

But just some observations and I

15:02:14 see your hand up, Amber, after Pippa.

15:02:18

So Pippa, go ahead.

>> PIPPA:

15:02:22 Thanks, Laura.

First, I'm confused

15:02:25 if we're talking about these issues one by one because

15:02:28 I have some issues with some of them that if we're going to talk about them

15:02:31 one at a time, I'll save

15:02:35 it for that time.

But if we're just talking about

15:02:38 it, I want to respond specifically to Vivien

15:02:42 and that last point.

Which maybe I'll just

15:02:45 do and then we'll talk about these one at

15:02:49 a time.

I don't know.

15:02:51

>> LAURA: Yeah.

Yeah.

15:02:55 >> PIPPA: So I feel strongly against putting in what I think

15:02:58 was item number 4, apply for rent assistance

15:03:01 twice in one year that there's some automatic

15:03:05 repercussion to the landlord.

Having been a landlord,

15:03:08 still being a landlord,

15:03:11 sometimes the -- first of all, the -- I want to respond again

15:03:14 to the idea that all landlords are greedy.

15:03:17

We are not.

We are trying to make ends

15:03:20 meet.

But sometimes there's not a

15:03:24 correlation between someone's income and them as a

15:03:27 tenant and what I need to charge for rent.

15:03:31

So if they need to apply for rent assistance twice

15:03:34 in one year, that doesn't always mean I'm charging

15:03:37 too much.

And I just --

15:03:40 I think that's --

it's

15:03:46 -- I feel strongly

15:03:49 enough about this that I would resign

15:03:52 over this particular point.

I hear what you're trying to do,

15:03:55 Vivien.

Yes, it might be an

15:03:59 indicator.

Some landlords are probably

15:04:03 snaking the system.

Some tenants are

15:04:06 probably snaking the system.

I don't think that can be avoided.

15:04:09

I think we can use this committee to equal up power

15:04:14 dynamics, but I don't feel that's the way to do it.

I feel very

15:04:18 strongly about that.

In terms of number two, I just had a

15:04:21 question.

Number 2, as I understand it, was ask

15:04:24 our city to set aside $10 million

15:04:27 for rent assistance for those who need rent

15:04:30 assistance for longer than six months.

Any money set

15:04:33 aside, awesome.

My question is, are we

15:04:37 actually saying that we would --

15:04:41 say we're helping 100 people.

Do you want to help those 100

15:04:44 people for a year instead of six months or are we really

15:04:47 saying we don't want to have 200 people for six

15:04:50 months?

I would like some clarity on that

15:04:53 because if that is accepted,

15:04:57 then I'll be looking for clarity about what does

15:05:01 reduction mean.

Spend money faster,

15:05:04 always good.

And then

15:05:07 in terms of number one,

15:05:10 about asking City Council to

15:05:13 lower the rent increases if possible in the city or

15:05:16 maybe in the county, as a -- as

15:05:19 -- in a different way than the state, and what

15:05:22 I heard a lot of at this last Listening Session

15:05:26 was the opposite, just landlords

15:05:30 mostly all -- it was only landlords that were saying this,

15:05:33 saying, please, please, please, make these rules more

15:05:36 simple, please, please, please, make our city align more

15:05:39 with the state.

That's -- I'm just observing

15:05:43 that, whether I believe it or not, it's an observation that this

15:05:47 recommendation is literally what we did not

15:05:50 hear.

That's all.

15:05:55

>> LAURA: Thanks, Pippa.

15:06:01

Amber, and then Regina.

>> AMBER: You

15:06:05 know, I want to say, coming out of

15:06:08 -- with the discussion about

15:06:12 -- you know, like --

15:06:15 you know, how much rents need to be raised,

15:06:18 of course, there are legitimate reasons and then

15:06:21 there aren't and one of the ways we could get a better handle on

15:06:25 this comes back to the

15:06:28 rental registration that ended up being

15:06:31 kind of last on the list but everybody

15:06:34 agreed it was on important thing, and even though I might not be

15:06:38 100% clear on exactly what the rental registration

15:06:42 is, I think we have

15:06:45 proven over the last year there isn't

15:06:48 enough information out there in terms of like what landlords are

15:06:52 charging and what their expenses are for us to have or even for

15:06:56 the city to have or even the state to be

15:06:59 able to make the decisions about

15:07:03 where that money should be

15:07:07 going.

So if registration could work on

15:07:10 getting and accumulating that data,

15:07:13 that would help a priority

15:07:16 and a recommendation.

>> LAURA:

15:07:20 Thanks,

15:07:23 Amber.

Regina.

15:07:26

>> REGINA: I'd like to call in on what

15:07:29 Pippa and Vivien have

15:07:32 said in regards to

15:07:35 recommendations around if a resident has to request rental assistance

15:07:39 more than once in a

15:07:42 year, to evaluate or what the rent -- what

15:07:45 the rent is that's being charged by the

15:07:48 landlord, and I -- I --

15:07:52 I agree in some ways with that, but in some

15:07:55 ways I don't.

And one of the ways

15:07:58 is because at least internally, my agency, obviously, during

15:08:01 the pandemic, we saw more people needing

15:08:04 rent assistance due to lost jobs, lost income, than ever

15:08:07 before, and we worked with a lot of people,

15:08:11 thousands of people in getting rent assistance.

But now

15:08:15 what we're still seeing is

15:08:19 even having reported income and [indiscernible],

15:08:23 haven't recertification and

15:08:27 the -- but now

15:08:31 -- the past due rent paid

15:08:34 due to all rent systems available but

15:08:37 some cases are still not paying their rent and I think that

15:08:40 it is worth looking at the

15:08:44 reasons why someone might need to

15:08:48 request rent assistance more than a year, but I disagree it is

15:08:51 always because the landlord is always charging too much

15:08:54 rent.

I think there's a lot of factors to consider, and I

15:08:57 think it would be worth knowing from a data perspective and a

15:09:01 policy perspective why someone is

15:09:04 requesting rent assistance multiple times in a

15:09:07 year and it could be many factors for that and not always

15:09:12 because the landlord is charging higher

15:09:15 rent because they have a chance of getting rent

15:09:18 assistance or the renter has a chance

15:09:22 of getting rent assistance.

15:09:26 Vivien, you might be seeing a lot of that on your end, but there's

15:09:29 also the possibility that there's other factors that are

15:09:32 influencing a resident's ability to pay the rent.

And I do

15:09:35 think it's worth the recommendation that if

15:09:38 someone has to request rent assistance multiple times in a year to

15:09:41 find out why that might be.

15:09:45

But I don't think it's always going to be because the rent is too

15:09:48 high.

I know on the affordable end that it's

15:09:51 usually not because the rent is too high,

15:09:54 necessarily, but because so many factors are

15:09:57 impacting people's ability to earn enough money

15:10:01 to pay rent.

It is true that

15:10:04 rent in many cases have

15:10:07 risen in a much higher rate than wages

15:10:10 have gone up, but a lot of people don't

15:10:13 have the same steady income that they had

15:10:17 prepandemic and so many factors are worth looking

15:10:20 at.

And I agree -- I guess generally

15:10:23 what I'm saying it if someone had to

15:10:26 request rent assistance multiple times that we look at

15:10:30 possible ways for them to -- it would be good to know

15:10:34 why.

But I don't think that it's always -- I know that it's not

15:10:37 always going to be because the rent was too high.

15:10:41

There's going to be other variables.

15:10:45

Thank you.

>> LAURA: Thanks, Regina.

15:10:48

Vivien?

>> VIVIEN: Well, Amber already

15:10:51 pointed out in the chat that I -- my

15:10:54 recommendation wasn't a penalty or

15:10:58 repercussion, nor did I

15:11:01 suggest that it's always going to be because

15:11:04 the landlord is charging too much rent.

15:11:07

But as Regina said, sometimes it may be, and

15:11:10 it's worth investigating.

I think the reason why I

15:11:14 suggested that is because I am seeing that quite

15:11:17 a lot.

And I am also seeing landlords

15:11:20 and property managers who are aware of what

15:11:24 our program can offer send a slew

15:11:27 of their tenants to us for assistance.

Now, on

15:11:30 the one hand, that's helpful

15:11:33 because these folks need help staying housed with the law as it

15:11:36 currently is and with their situation as it

15:11:39 currently is.

Nevertheless, it also

15:11:43 -- it raises some red flags to me, and

15:11:47 it does to other providers who are working in

15:11:51 this area as well.

It's a

15:11:54 very loose proposal and would be

15:11:57 amenable to, you know, fleshing out.

15:12:00

What does it mean to have

15:12:04 that trigger and investigation

15:12:07 and exploration, mediation, you

15:12:10 know, there's -- there's

15:12:13 a number of ways that could be

15:12:17 implemented or proposed.

15:12:22

What I would resist is making the inquiry

15:12:25 all about the tenant.

I think it should be about the

15:12:28 tenant and I think it should

15:12:32 be about the landlord and the value of what they're

15:12:35 providing as well.

Having said that, I just

15:12:38 -- I want to make sure

15:12:41 that folks understand, I never

15:12:44 said that landlords are greedy.

I don't think

15:12:48 anybody here has said that.

That's a vast

15:12:51 oversimplification of the issues that we're all facing here in

15:12:54 Portland.

So this can be

15:12:57 extremely nuanced.

15:13:03

I would -- I would

15:13:07 -- I would welcome suggestions for how something like

15:13:10 this could work rather than people making assumptions

15:13:15 about what I suggested.

15:13:20

>> LAURA: Thanks, Vivien.

Thank you

15:13:23 all.

What I am going to do now is just remind us

15:13:27 when we make recommendations to the

15:13:30 City Council, they're going to need to

15:13:33 see actionable recommendations that the city can turn

15:13:36 into an ordinance or a

15:13:39 policy or something that they can

15:13:43 do as opposed to just a concept.

I mean, I think it

15:13:46 starts with a concept.

15:13:49

So the city, as

15:13:52 I understand it, their control over

15:13:56 how rent assistance is

15:13:59 distributed, organizations like where I work, we

15:14:02 have our own guidance and rules and

15:14:05 rules from our renters about rent

15:14:09 assistance.

So I think we have to think about if we're going to

15:14:12 go to the city and

15:14:15 propose or ask the

15:14:18 city to recommend mediation

15:14:23 of -- under certain

15:14:26 situations, there has to be some sort of

15:14:29 lever for them to pull.

There has

15:14:32 to be something they can control.

And that would be

15:14:35 more the relocation ordinance.

So changes to

15:14:38 the relocation ordinance is something

15:14:42 that the city controls.

>> VIVIEN:

15:14:45 Laura, if I could just break in.

I totally agree

15:14:48 with you.

I don't think that what I put forth is --

15:14:51 rises to the level of an actual proposal

15:14:54 or something that could be recommended.

15:14:57

It's far too vague.

>> LAURA: Thank you for

15:15:02 that.

But I don't want to ignore

15:15:05 it.

>> VIVIEN: What I said

15:15:09 previously, though, I feel like

15:15:12 I'm most interested in helping, to the extent that

15:15:16 we can, helping City Council understand that that's

15:15:19 a real area of concern, is

15:15:23 the -- is the possibility

15:15:26 of all these various modes of

15:15:29 -- and pools of money to

15:15:32 subsidize rent and to keep people housed,

15:15:36 which is extremely important, can have

15:15:39 --

can, not will or always

15:15:42 has, but can have

15:15:45 the unintended effect of

15:15:49 keeping rents higher than they should

15:15:52 be.

Or incentivizing rents to remain as high as they are,

15:15:56 which is, in my experience, an

15:15:59 estimation, too high.

As it stands right

15:16:02 now.

So just -- just to highlight

15:16:05 that as something to be addressed, however

15:16:09 City Council feels that that can

15:16:12 be addressed.

>> LAURA: Got it.

I hear

15:16:15 you.

And I'm trying to

15:16:18 orient myself very much to an

15:16:22 action that we can take in a letter

15:16:25 or in some sort of communication to City Council because

15:16:28 I hear you on that one.

Moriah, I

15:16:31 saw your hand up earlier.

Do you want to -- do you want

15:16:34 to -- did you want to say something?

15:16:38

>> MORIAH: Thank you very much for checking in with me, but it's

15:16:41 okay.

>> LAURA: Great.

Matthew and then

15:16:45 Amber.

>> MATTHEW: Well,

15:16:49 Vivien had asked earlier if anyone had ideas on how her

15:16:52 proposal could work.

So my impression from

15:16:55 the idea of mediation is to

15:16:58 increase landlord costs without a lot of incentive for them to lower their

15:17:02 rents.

What you could try and what

15:17:05 they do in some other contexts, they

15:17:08 offer tax incentives.

So for instance, Portland

15:17:12 landlords pay business taxes to Portland.

There's other tax incentives

15:17:15 that you could have, which is, the

15:17:18 advantage is that it doesn't necessarily come out

15:17:21 of the city budget.

Depending on how you account for it

15:17:24 right away, but you could incentivize certain things

15:17:28 for landlords that way if

15:17:31 you wanted to kind of give them a carrot for doing the

15:17:34 mediation, for doing other things that

15:17:38 might help.

So I was just trying to be constructive in

15:17:41 saying, I don't necessarily approve of it, without

15:17:44 any additional sticks for the landlord, I think there are ways that

15:17:47 you could formulate it that it

15:17:51 might be helpful.

15:17:54

>> LAURA: Thank you, Matthew.

Great suggestion, to bring it back

15:17:57 to something actionable for City Council to think about.

15:18:01

Amber and then Regina.

15:18:05

>> AMBER: This is -- first, it's just

15:18:08 a friendly -- I haven't

15:18:12 seen anybody on the commission -- any

15:18:15 of the commissioners using blanket language, like X is

15:18:19 always true or why is always bad, so just

15:18:22 a friendly reminder if we're hearing

15:18:25 that, stopping, this is a charged issue for all of

15:18:28 us, so nothing is any individual

15:18:31 person, right, but these are charged issues

15:18:34 that we're passionate about and if you feel like you're

15:18:38 hearing, you know, very, you know, negative

15:18:41 comments or that kind of thing, then maybe we

15:18:45 should discuss that rather than responding to

15:18:48 it.

You know what I'm saying, listening

15:18:52 to it, just because --

you know, for

15:18:55 example, no one should have to feel like

15:18:58 they have to constantly apologize for what

15:19:01 they're saying or like Vivien now is saying --

15:19:04 and I'm not trying to speak for her, now I have

15:19:08 to preface everything and say five things so it

15:19:11 doesn't make sure I'm being too demanding and

15:19:14 no one on the commission should have to feel that way.

So if this

15:19:18 is something that we need to have a discussion

15:19:21 about, a forum for how we discuss

15:19:24 these things, then let's do that.

If not, we can

15:19:28 move on.

I wanted to suggest

15:19:31 for the first point,

15:19:34 one of the things that we discussed previously was

15:19:38 the city being unable to change

15:19:41 rent raises because the state has been granted

15:19:44 that authority, so a direct request to

15:19:48 the City Council would be

15:19:52 to make a challenge, to advocate

15:19:57 specifically, to set upped a vote

15:20:02 -- set up

15:20:05 advocatation.

>> That's a

15:20:09 tangible suggestion.

>> LAURA: Yes, thank you,

15:20:12 Amber, and that is

15:20:15 definitely one of the recommendations and that

15:20:18 would mean, I believe, a change to state law,

15:20:21 but certainly doesn't stop us from recommending that

15:20:24 to City Council.

Did I cut you off, Amber?

15:20:26

I'm sorry.

>> AMBER: No, no.

15:20:29 It's in the chat.

Thank you.

>> LAURA:

15:20:32 Yeah.

Regina.

>> REGINA: I just wanted to add that,

15:20:35 you know, I did not mean to

15:20:39 insinuate anything critical.

And I don't know what a

15:20:42 policy or what a framework like this would look like, but

15:20:46 if we do recommend some kind of policy on

15:20:49 this, which I really like the idea of, if folks

15:20:52 are having the need -- if the tenants are having

15:20:55 the need to make multiple requests

15:20:58 for emergency rental assistance that

15:21:02 some way of gathering information

15:21:09 about why they

15:21:12 have requested rental assistance multiple times would be

15:21:16 helpful to inform future policy recommendations.

Laura,

15:21:19 when you say your agency has your own specific

15:21:22 rules and guidelines for rent assistance

15:21:25 and who qualifies and that's --

that's the case for every

15:21:29 organization.

You know, a lot of --

15:21:33 and so that's something that's really difficult.

There are so many places where

15:21:36 people can go to get rent assistance, and every

15:21:40 agency, based on the rent assistance, based on

15:21:43 the funding source

15:21:46 of that rent assistance on how

15:21:49 it's disbursed, residents have to actually have a

15:21:52 notice, an eviction notice or a

15:21:55 nonpayment of rent notice until they'll get rent assistance.

15:21:59

So sometimes it has to go as far as someone having a

15:22:02 notice of nonpayment or a threat

15:22:05 of eviction to get rent assistance.

So if someone

15:22:08 has to do that multiple times

15:22:11 in a year, the

15:22:14 --

the hurdle is

15:22:18 immense, but as we think this through, in the time that

15:22:21 we have, it would just be, I think --

15:22:24 I think it would just be

15:22:27 really good if it was possible

15:22:30 to know the reasons why someone is in that

15:22:33 situation, because it could help us

15:22:36 with future policy recommendations to the

15:22:39 city.

But I always

15:22:42 want data that's impossible to get but I

15:22:45 think would be super helpful.

So

15:22:50 -- yeah.

Thank you.

>> LAURA:

15:22:53 Got it.

Thank you,

15:22:57 Regina.

15:23:00

Welcome,

15:23:07 Angelita.

15:23:10

Moriah, I saw your hand again.

Go for

15:23:19 it.

>> MORIAH: I think the data we

15:23:22 wish we had, they don't exist, but I wanted to

15:23:26 comment, on this issue of repeat

15:23:30 recipients of rental assistance, I hear us

15:23:34 talking about different and maybe often interrelated problems

15:23:37 like a renter can't afford their

15:23:41 place and the issue of -- but there's

15:23:45 evidence that certain landlords may be taking advantage of these

15:23:48 programs so I just wanted to point out for that second

15:23:51 problem, I think the way you would intervene on

15:23:54 that is the property owners are repeatedly

15:23:58 getting this -- these monies and

15:24:01 so working with them, what is going on

15:24:05 that you're constantly needing this public -- I just wanted

15:24:08 to point out there's two types of recipients of

15:24:12 it.

That's all.

>> LAURA:

15:24:15 Great.

Thanks, Moriah.

15:24:21

So are we good with taking a break now for five

15:24:26 minutes and coming back at

15:24:29 let's make it a nice six minutes and come back at

15:24:32 3:30, and then we will have

15:24:36 until 4:15, Justin, how many people do

15:24:39 we have for public testimony?

15:24:42

>> JUSTIN: We have six people signed up, maybe, but

15:24:46 I do have some -- that I have to wait for

15:24:50 the Listening Session, so we'll take

15:24:53 the full minutes again.

>> LAURA: So let's

15:24:58 come back at 3:30 and talk again

15:25:01 to 4:15, do public testimony, and then finish out with

15:25:05 a continuation of this discussion and

15:25:08 Angelita, we'll get

15:25:11 to your topic after the break.

15:25:15

>> JUSTIN: Thanks, Laura.

[Break]

15:32:09

>> LAURA: All right, all right, we're

15:32:12 back.

Can everyone hear me?

Can

15:32:14 anyone hear me?

Okay.

Good.

15:32:18 I swear Zoom is the best.

I'm sure all of you

15:32:21 have the exact same experience

15:32:24 with that.

15:32:35

Okay.

15:32:43

I want to

15:32:49 -- Justin, can you take this?

I need to answer a phone

15:32:52 call.

Can you just get us

15:32:55 started again?

I'm sorry.

>> JUSTIN:

15:32:59 No worries at all.

15:33:02

And so where we left off,

15:33:05 Laura mentioned she wanted to go ahead and

15:33:09 jump in and revisit -- to your

15:33:13 point, before the

15:33:16 break, about --

15:33:19 Vivien's proposal of the average rent

15:33:23 $1700 per month and the relief and

15:33:26 BIPOC --

household in the

15:33:29 City of Portland -- and you

15:33:32 know, kind of keeping this to mind --

15:33:37

Laura, you're back.

And

15:33:40

15:33:44 tangible, actual recommendation we can make to the City

15:33:47 Council, that's where we're at before the break, but I see that

15:33:50 Laura is back, so I'll pass

15:33:58 the reins

15:34:01 back over to her.

15:34:04

>> LAURA:

>> LAURA:

15:34:08 Angelita, we wanted to give you

15:34:11 space and time for your

15:34:14 comments and at the beginning of the meeting

15:34:17 what I said was Michael was to

15:34:21 try to get us to a final set of

15:34:25 recommendations to get to City Council and

15:34:29 the PHB leadership about these issues

15:34:32 that we talked about.

15:34:35

So

15:34:49 I wanted to give you time to flesh that out.

If the

15:34:52 average rent in Portland is around $1700 a month for

15:34:55 a

15:34:59 one-bedroom, we have outpaced Black, Latino,

15:35:03 and native Portlanders from being here and we

15:35:08 can't continue to maximize landlord profits

15:35:11 without making sure that city funds are put to good

15:35:14 use.

You don't have, to but if you'd

15:35:17 like to, we'd love you to

15:35:22 amplify that a little bit.

>> ANGELITA: Thank you for bringing that

15:35:25 to the forefront.

I think it's important

15:35:28 to discuss, especially since Portland is one of the

15:35:32 whitest cities in the United States of America because it is

15:35:36 unlivable here for many reasons and one of the reasons is

15:35:40 the cost of rent

15:35:44 of

15:35:47 Black, Latino, and native

15:35:51 Portlanders and why I think it's

15:35:54 amiable to help people pay their rent and

15:35:57 that's something that needs to look into, it

15:36:01 seems to incentivize that behavior from certain landlords if

15:36:05 they want to increase the rent an

15:36:12 exorbitant amount and I think doing a rent cap --

15:36:15 if you don't do a

15:36:18 rent cap, you are essentially

15:36:23 incentivizing bad behavior from landlords, not just from

15:36:26 the people to maintain their housing, it's going to be

15:36:29 beneficial to everybody in the city.

The less people that are

15:36:32 homeless on our streets, the better our

15:36:35 streets look, the better it is that everyone

15:36:39 stays housed, so from a human or aesthetic

15:36:45 perspective, it is best

15:36:48 that the people in our city with

15:36:51 the least are well taken care of.

Those

15:36:54 are my main concerns with subsidizing

15:36:58 an increase in rent payment without doing

15:37:02 something to address why they're increasing in

15:37:05 the first place.

Thanks, Laura.

15:37:09

>> Thanks, Angelita.

Any

15:37:12 additional conversation with that additional perspective?

Any

15:37:16 other thoughts on that?

15:37:27

Okay.

So I wanted to

15:37:34 suggest a couple of things and come back to you

15:37:38 all.

So I'm going to -- Vivien, I see

15:37:41 your hand.

Go ahead, Vivien.

>> VIVIEN:

15:37:44 Well, as Angelita

15:37:47 was talking, I had

15:37:50 a thought about tying

15:37:54 something together related

15:37:58 to accessing financial assistance for

15:38:01 rent.

When I say financial assistance, that means I'm talking

15:38:04 about not just rent but also associated costs

15:38:07 like late fees, utilities, other things that may

15:38:10 be required as a payment

15:38:13 by the tenant or

15:38:17 by the landlord.

When a tenant has

15:38:20 access to financial assistance from

15:38:23 any agency and within that

15:38:26 same 12-month period, the landlord

15:38:30 then raises rent,

15:38:33 that would be potentially

15:38:37 a narrower set of circumstances

15:38:41 that I think would really

15:38:44 bear some

15:38:47 scrutiny, to look at what the

15:38:51 justification or need on the landlord's part for

15:38:54 raising the rent would be and to ensure that

15:38:57 the tenant who has recently had

15:39:00 to access financial assistance is

15:39:03 able to -- reasonably able to pay that

15:39:07 on a going-forward

15:39:10 basis.

And in terms of City Council having

15:39:14 something -- having the power to enact that

15:39:17 and what that scrutiny

15:39:20 looks like, I'm

15:39:24 going to try to put together sort of a sketched

15:39:28 out paragraph in the next period of time

15:39:31 before public testimony starts and

15:39:35 offer that in the chat so that it's a concrete proposal

15:39:38 and not a squishy

15:39:41 proposal.

15:39:46

>> LAURA: Thank you, Vivien.

I appreciate that.

15:39:49 I'm actually doing the same sort of

15:39:52 thing.

So

15:39:58 I did hear -- so

15:40:03 I think we've got

15:40:08 -- I think we've got a few things that we can talk about

15:40:13 in this next phase.

15:40:20

Sorry to be

15:40:23 multitasking.

So I'm going to

15:40:27 -- oh, my goodness, the --

15:40:30 where is the chat here?

Here

15:40:34 it is.

I'm going to

15:40:39 put this in the chat

15:40:49 -- it's all mushed together.

It didn't

15:40:52 copy over the way I wanted it to.

So I'm going out

15:40:56 on a limb here.

And I'm

15:40:59 saying here are maybe four

15:41:02 proposals that we could

15:41:05 --

or proposals, recommendations, ideas, that we could

15:41:09 share with City Council.

So one is

15:41:12 that idea -- and the language in this can

15:41:15 be totally wordsmithed, but whatever.

The first

15:41:18 one is the idea that the city work

15:41:22 with state legislators to change state law

15:41:25 about the rent cap.

And that's,

15:41:28 you know, as I said, that's a big ask.

15:41:31

I have no idea what sort of appetite the city

15:41:34 would have for that, but that's not

15:41:38 my problem, not our problem.

Our issue

15:41:41 is to put forward ideas.

If they don't like it,

15:41:44 we can circle back and say why didn't you like it and try to get

15:41:47 a conversation.

So that's

15:41:50 one.

I did

15:41:58 rent -- I think,

15:42:02 Pippa, how many people for how long because just

15:42:05 saying $10 million for rent assistance doesn't tell you

15:42:08 a whole lot.

But if we were to say

15:42:12 the City Council allocate funds and a directive to

15:42:15 PHB to set aside $10

15:42:18 million for rent assistance for 138 households

15:42:21 for four years at $72,000 a

15:42:24 year, and work with the county to advocate for

15:42:28 faster spending, that's

15:42:31 just a

15:42:37 ballpark figure, but we work with single

15:42:40 adults in studios, so $1500 is just

15:42:43 a ballpark.

So that's

15:42:46 one.

I think

15:42:50 I missed one.

Oh,

15:42:53 yeah, sorry, this is sort of messy.

I

15:42:56 apologize for that.

And then

15:42:59 thank you

15:43:05 , thank you, Justin, educate city leaders about the

15:43:08 potential impact of rent assistance on rent

15:43:11 increases.

Rent caps, and part of the

15:43:15 PHB to study the reasons why a renter

15:43:19 might need rent assistance and the reason

15:43:22 I'm suggesting the city fund PHB, there

15:43:25 are, one, the city has control over the Housing Bureau.

15:43:29

Two, there are so many agencies that provide

15:43:32 rent assistance.

Somebody has to

15:43:36 wrangle those agencies and get some sort of

15:43:39 an understanding of -- and collect

15:43:44 the data and understand why

15:43:47 different agencies might provide different rent assistance

15:43:50 more than once to the same person in a month.

15:43:54

The other thing is understanding which

15:43:58 agency has provided rent assistance directly to clients,

15:44:01 to tenants versus rent assistance to landlords, and

15:44:05 I think also understanding that are the requests

15:44:08 coming from landlords, are the requests coming from tenants.

So

15:44:12 there's a little bit of a --

a

15:44:16 lift there that I don't think a CBO would be

15:44:19 able to do but certainly the

15:44:23 Housing Bureau --

theoretically, could do

15:44:26 it, in gathering -- and there was one more that I had

15:44:29 that maybe Vivien will magically come up with

15:44:33 her proposal.

And so,

15:44:36 again, putting this forward, not because I'm in love with all

15:44:40 of these ideas, but because I'm trying to move us forward and

15:44:43 get us something to poke at.

I

15:44:47 always work better when there's something I can poke

15:44:51 at.

And I have absolutely no problem if everybody

15:44:54 says, I hate all of these.

So

15:44:57 I don't really care.

That's not my

15:45:01 goal.

So any

15:45:04 thoughts, any -- and we're not

15:45:07 wordsmithing these, but maybe

15:45:11 concept-Smithing, if you will, do we want to go with three

15:45:14 recommendations, with a fourth?

I did have a fourth

15:45:17 one and I sort of lost track of

15:45:20 it.

Do we want to focus

15:45:23 in on maybe just one

15:45:28 with -- and then sort of

15:45:31 provide the context in

15:45:34 which all of these pieces fit together?

What

15:45:39 do you all think?

15:45:47

You all love it, Justin,

15:45:50 you have an appointment to wordsmith!

Just

15:45:55 kidding.

Regina.

>> REGINA:

15:45:58 It wasn't one time per month but one time

15:46:01 per year, I think,

15:46:04 on the requests.

And then my -- my

15:46:08 question for number 2 is

15:46:15 138 households, 138 households with full

15:46:19 rent assistance for full years.

15:46:22

>> LAURA: $1500, $72,000.

And then that's,

15:46:25 you know, some people are going to be paying more

15:46:29 if it's a family with [indiscernible], some

15:46:32 people are going to be paying a lot less

15:46:36 he -- if it's a studio.

It's all over

15:46:39 the place, using the number that Angelita put

15:46:42 in, $1700 a

15:46:46 month.

You know, and -- yeah.

>> REGINA:

15:46:49 So it could be a figure like 138

15:46:52 households, to me, that doesn't seem

15:46:55 like enough households.

>> LAURA:

15:47:00 It never is.

15:47:05

You're absolutely right.

I think to this point, we can't

15:47:08 just say, I'll take $10 million of rent assistance and figure

15:47:12 it out.

We have to give them some very

15:47:15 specific direction.

If we went -- if we're asking

15:47:19 them to allocate city money for rent assistance, they're

15:47:22 going to want to know how much for how long

15:47:25 and who is worthy.

15:47:29

>> REGINA: Right, I gotcha.

Sorry.

15:47:32 >> LAURA: No, just getting to this point,

15:47:35 I was going to answer Angelita's

15:47:38 question.

I took $72,000 a year and

15:47:42 $10 million and that ends up -- for four years.

The

15:47:45 other thing, I picked four years, because in my

15:47:48 experience at the project, what we see over and over and over

15:47:52 again, two years of rent assistance with the expectation that

15:47:55 the person, that the tenant

15:47:58 is going to be able to either move to a fully

15:48:02 subsidized building or pay a portion or most of

15:48:05 their rent is just no longer enough time.

The

15:48:09 wait-list for subsidized buildings are much longer.

15:48:12

The challenges of being able to really

15:48:16 get on your feet are tough.

So

15:48:19 I picked four years,

15:48:24 $1500 a month, $10 million

15:48:28 total -- and if somebody else wants to

15:48:31 do the math, that's great.

$10 million was the number we had in

15:48:34 our notes before.

It doesn't matter.

We could

15:48:38 ask the city $15 million, to set

15:48:41 aside $15 million.

>> MORIAH: Like issuing

15:48:44 a bonderbonder

15:48:49 -- bond or something?

Where is this money coming

15:48:52 from?

>> LAURA: Who knows.

We didn't

15:48:55 address that in previous conversations.

Go ahead.

15:48:58

Regina, do you want to finish up?

>> REGINA: Yeah, just a few

15:49:02 thoughts on, you know, just using an example of, you

15:49:06 know, this many people getting full rent assistance, right,

15:49:09 for, you know, X period of time, is perhaps in addition to

15:49:12 that, we could, you know, while

15:49:16 I totally get it that

15:49:19 City Council will want something really tangible,

15:49:22 right, maybe using this but then also other possibilities,

15:49:25 right, like in the event that some

15:49:29 households are able to

15:49:33 pay, rent assistance would be able to

15:49:36 spread longer with more households, so holding this

15:49:39 up, 138 or 200 -- there would be

15:49:42 folks who were able to pay a portion of their rent and 30% of

15:49:45 their income in rent and the rest

15:49:48 is rent assistance so hopefully it

15:49:51 stretches farther, and just thinking about

15:49:55 -- we had that with -- we could use

15:49:59 this, 138, with full rent paid for four years,

15:50:02 but also, you know,

15:50:05 the goal maybe -- some

15:50:08 potential -- other alternatives being

15:50:11 met if the rent is lower than

15:50:15 $1500 or if

15:50:18 some households need less

15:50:21 rent assistance that the money would

15:50:24 stretch farther.

15:50:28

>> LAURA: Thank you.

Kristina.

15:50:31 >> KRISTINA: This is all over the place

15:50:34 and I don't want to list --

15:50:39 low-hanging fruit, adjust for

15:50:43 relocation assistance which feels like maybe an easy recommendation

15:50:47 to make and match it

15:50:50 a little bit more closer to rent increase and then I think the first

15:50:53 one in the chat, so easy.

The

15:50:56 second one, I'm just going to name it, I feel like I have

15:50:59 a conflict of interest on that one, so I'm going to

15:51:03 recuse myself out of that.

For the

15:51:07 third one, probably not tonight, there's not time, but I

15:51:10 think it would be worth having a little more conversation

15:51:13 around the idea that Matthew proposed around

15:51:17 exploring tax credits and how to potentially leverage

15:51:21 those.

It feels like when folks

15:51:24 receive rent assistance or vouchers, the way those are

15:51:28 issued, those come with what's considered rent

15:51:32 reasonable, right, so they're only paying

15:51:35 a certain amount for that rent.

Those calculations do not

15:51:38 always keep up with what the market is charging

15:51:41 for rent and we all know that there is a shortage

15:51:44 in affordable housing stock,

15:51:47 so if all those vouchers are being

15:51:51 applied to affordable housing, it doesn't leave enough

15:51:54 affordable housing for those who don't have the assistance

15:51:57 but need affordable housing.

So I'm wondering if there's

15:52:01 some way to explore Matthew's

15:52:04 idea a little bit more, better understanding those tax

15:52:07 credits, if there's a way to leverage those to

15:52:10 free up the affordable housing to give folks

15:52:13 a little more self-determination on where they

15:52:16 can choose to live when they're issued vouchers.

15:52:19

>> LAURA: Yes.

And we

15:52:23 did a lot of scattered sites

15:52:26 placements, and -- yeah,

15:52:29 it's important to have the

15:52:32 tenant choice as well as subsidizing

15:52:36 buildings.

So yeah.

Thank

15:52:39 you, Kristina.

Matthew.

>> MATTHEW:

15:52:42 So for the issue of a specific amount

15:52:45 to subsidize a specific number of families

15:52:49 for a specific period of time, I

15:52:52 guess I don't remember from our prior conversations why our

15:52:56 body is the body that would be best

15:52:59 suited to be experts on that sort of thing.

I thought that we would

15:53:02 give, you know, some feedback to the City Council

15:53:05 of, you know, tenants

15:53:09 need more subsidizing, we think you should

15:53:12 look into this.

But I would think like

15:53:15 others, like financial planners or others

15:53:19 might know what amount of money is feasible for the

15:53:22 city.

So I just wonder

15:53:25 why we're focusing on specific dollar amounts rather

15:53:28 than the general idea.

I thought that wouldn't be

15:53:31 productive since we're not the ones that would have any idea how

15:53:35 that would be funded or where that would come

15:53:38 from.

Maybe the general idea would be better.

15:53:41 Hey, we heard this, it's a great

15:53:45 idea, we should look into this.

That's

15:53:48 my thought on that.

>> LAURA: Yes, I was pulling from the notes

15:53:51 and we had a prior recommendation in our notes

15:53:54 to ask the city to set aside somewhere in the

15:53:58 $10 million range for rent assistance.

So that's where

15:54:01 I pulled that.

We don't need to go that direction.

We

15:54:03 can go the direction you're talking about.

Absolutely.

15:54:06 We can just say, more

15:54:09 rent assistance is

15:54:13 needed.

Personally, my

15:54:18 opinion is the city is going to say,

15:54:21 great, the county can deal with that, not our problem.

I think

15:54:24 if we put a very specific

15:54:27 ask in front of the City Council to do something with city

15:54:31 dollars, that it will be a more effective,

15:54:35 tangible ask.

But, you know, in our -- in

15:54:38 our body here, it's what we collectively agree

15:54:41 on.

So thank you for that.

15:54:45

Amber.

15:54:56

>> AMBER: Yeah, I wanted to clarify.

15:54:59

Universally, it seems like everybody discussing rental assistance

15:55:02 and thumbs up on more rental assistance, but in

15:55:05 essence, it's also not that simple.

You know, many of

15:55:08 us have been saying that while we want more

15:55:12 rent assistance, we don't just want to tell

15:55:15 the city to spend a bunch of money

15:55:18 on rents that seem inflated

15:55:22 or we have no way of knowing whether

15:55:25 they're inflated or not so

15:55:28 we don't know.

But a lot of us have been

15:55:31 saying, we don't just want to

15:55:35 recommend rent assistance.

We want to recommend rent assistance

15:55:39 that, you know, is being spent

15:55:42 wisely on, you know, tenants and

15:55:46 landlords who need it.

>> LAURA:

15:55:49 I think that's very subjective, tenants

15:55:53 and landlords, spent wisely.

In my

15:55:57 experience in dealing with the city and the county, there's

15:56:02 more objective

15:56:08 criteria that they're going to want to put that into our

15:56:11 ask, and I hear you saying,

15:56:15 make it more general, and in that case, I

15:56:18 guess what I would say to you all, what would be

15:56:21 the specific ask to the city around

15:56:25 rent assistance?

Where we started, with a recommendation

15:56:28 that we pulled from our July meeting,

15:56:31 which was to ask the city to come up with $10

15:56:34 million from their own --

from their

15:56:38 own resources, and

15:56:41 then qualify that, you know,

15:56:45 what outcomes would -- as

15:56:48 some -- as I have

15:56:51 heard, run that

15:56:54 by us from the

15:56:57 vendor perspective, but if

15:57:00 we wanted to frame it differently,

15:57:03 what would it look like.

>> LAURA:

15:57:07 Pippa.

>> PIPPA: Yeah, just

15:57:10 to add complexity to --

15:57:13 a couple more ideas, because

15:57:17 there is a shortage of housing

15:57:20 and because I feel like

15:57:24 that is the responsibility of the comments and we need to take

15:57:28 care of our neighbors and sometimes we can do that as

15:57:31 individuals and sometimes our government comes in and

15:57:34 helps, our recommendation would be the city build more housing

15:57:37 that they own, which then they can really,

15:57:40 you know, moderate the price of, would be in charge of

15:57:43 that, so I would just put that as a recommendation.

If

15:57:47 I had my druthers, let's have the city

15:57:50 build more housing to be in

15:57:53 charge of that.

Sort of

15:57:56 tangentially, but there's always the permit issue,

15:57:59 just making the -- and I know they're working on it, God

15:58:02 bless them.

They're working on making the

15:58:06 permits better, but keep emphasizing that to

15:58:10 incentivize the development of more low-income

15:58:13 housing if that low-income housing is going to be

15:58:16 private, but my recommendation is more public

15:58:19 low-income housing.

>> LAURA: Got it.

15:58:24

Thank you, Pippa.

15:58:34

What other thoughts?

We have a few

15:58:37 more minutes.

I'm going to read Vivien's

15:58:41 proposal.

If the tenant

15:58:44 has had to access

15:58:52 financial assistance to pay

15:58:58 rent/utilities/fees in

15:59:04 the last year, then the landlord wants

15:59:07 to raise their rent within

15:59:11 12 months of provision of assistance,

15:59:14 then landlord must provide reasons and

15:59:18 substantiating documentation for the rent raise or agree to

15:59:21 participate in mediation with

15:59:24 resolutions or another group that provides

15:59:28 no-cost mediation you.

If the landlord does

15:59:31 neither, then that triggers relocation assistance requirements, and not

15:59:34 necessarily with the full range of exemptions or

15:59:38 exceptions.

Vivien, do you want to flesh that out for

15:59:41 us a little bit?

>> VIVIEN: I'm not sure about fleshing

15:59:46 out.

I will say that

15:59:51 , although I didn't make it clear, this would

15:59:54 be irrespective of the percentage

15:59:57 of rent raise.

I feel

16:00:00 like from a policy perspective

16:00:04 when we're talking about somebody needing to access

16:00:07 financial assistance for the level of

16:00:10 rent they're currently obligated to pay, then

16:00:13 any increase, obviously, puts them at

16:00:17 risk of facing yet another

16:00:20 default on the lease requirements and then, you know, very

16:00:24 likely facing a termination

16:00:27 notice and an eviction action.

So that making

16:00:30 it, you know, if the landlord

16:00:34 wants to raise the rent by 5% or

16:00:37 more, I don't think it really matters how much

16:00:40 they would want to raise the rent.

The

16:00:43 very fact that they're doing it

16:00:46 is quite obviously going to cause potential problems for that tenant.

So

16:00:50 this is -- this is aimed at

16:00:53 creating housing stability for people we

16:00:57 know, have recently experienced housing

16:01:00 instability.

That's all I really have

16:01:03 to say about that.

16:01:11

>> LAURA: Thank you, Vivien.

Any comments or

16:01:14 questions?

Yes,

16:01:17 Moriah.

Go ahead.

And I'll read

16:01:20 Kristina's comments.

>> MORIAH: I appreciate how we're all

16:01:23 trying to work through this idea or bunch of ideas

16:01:27 and clarify them.

I'm having trouble

16:01:30 like grasping this concept and

16:01:33 like what problem it's attempting to fix.

I

16:01:38 appreciate,

16:01:41 Vivien, summarizing you see helping households that have

16:01:44 been under strain, which I agree is really important.

A couple of

16:01:48 things, what are the potential outcomes of this

16:01:51 mediation is that the landlord would agree to lower

16:01:54 the rent or have the payment plan?

I don't really

16:01:57 understand the mediation

16:02:00 mechanism and also if the

16:02:04 purpose of this is to help the

16:02:08 household under strain, why wait until the second time they

16:02:11 need assistance?

How about doing it the first time?

16:02:14

>> VIVIEN: Those are great questions, and I mean, in terms of why not do

16:02:17 it the first time, I think the

16:02:20 first time sort of -- at least

16:02:23 in my experience of helping

16:02:28 tenants apply for financial assistance many times

16:02:31 a week, a lot of times these are people who have never had

16:02:34 to do this before and the reasons why they're needing to do

16:02:37 it now are related

16:02:40 to, you know,

16:02:46 are issues that arose from the

16:02:49 moratoriums, they lost their jobs, they were disabled for a period of

16:02:52 time.

These are significant dislocations in their ability to have the

16:02:55 income that they used to

16:02:58 have, and

16:03:02 they access the assistance and that helps them

16:03:05 get stabilized and

16:03:08 the income is there, so a one-time doesn't

16:03:11 necessarily signify any issues

16:03:15 but then

16:03:18 if that happens again, or if

16:03:22 there's a rent increase during that period where they're trying to

16:03:27 get stabilized, I feel like

16:03:30 that's the time period when

16:03:33 some extra eyes could be placed on it.

As to your question

16:03:36 about the mediation, obviously, that would

16:03:40 also have to be fleshed out, and

16:03:43 I am trying to multitask right now because I almost

16:03:46 didn't attend this meeting because I have

16:03:50 a lot of work.

So I don't have

16:03:53 that whole --

16:03:56 I don't have the whole architecture scheduled out in my

16:03:59 head.

But the mediation

16:04:02 programs have -- we've tried pilot projects with

16:04:07 them, there is something that people like to talk about,

16:04:10 but they're not very well

16:04:13 established and so

16:04:18 they're a way to

16:04:28 -- well, I'll leave it at that.

I don't have the

16:04:33 architecture all sketched out.

16:04:41

You're free to propose something.

>> LAURA: I think we're

16:04:44 happy to throw out the

16:04:47 concept.

I want to read Kristina's remark in the

16:04:50 chat, and then I'll come to you, Pippa.

Is it

16:04:54 a fair housing violation to offer different rent amounts

16:04:57 for different tenants or to increase some rents

16:05:00 but not all, and Justin

16:05:04 responded, I'm not entirely certain, but I can find

16:05:07 out and get back to you individually.

And Justin, I think that would

16:05:10 be good for all of us to know.

Good

16:05:15 question.

Pippa.

16:05:20

>> PIPPA: Thank you.

Vivien,

16:05:23 I really -- I like a lot about that

16:05:26 proposal and the way it's written, and I think it

16:05:29 does lend towards stabilizing housing, which is great.

As

16:05:33 -- from a landlord point of view, I think there's some

16:05:36 unintended side effects, so I just wanted

16:05:39 to highlight those to flesh those out, which

16:05:43 is, something like this further

16:05:47 disincentivizes a housing lender from renting

16:05:50 to someone who might seem

16:05:53 as they they might need rental

16:05:57 assistance at some point because if someone

16:06:00 needs rental assistance more than twice a

16:06:03 year, I guess, I am bound as an

16:06:07 owner to not raise my rents for more than 12

16:06:10 months, a year, from the time that you're needing assistance or

16:06:13 something like that.

So I'm

16:06:17 -- my private business is being bound

16:06:20 by something that is not entirely related to me, which

16:06:23 is the income that this

16:06:26 person doesn't have versus my business

16:06:30 but I just need X amount from, so there's a

16:06:34 disconnect there so I was wanting to highlight that.

And then with

16:06:37 mediation, it --

I'll

16:06:40 stop there.

>> LAURA: Thank you,

16:06:45 Pippa.

I'm going to read Amber's

16:06:49 comment in the chat.

Even

16:06:52 OHCS, Oregon Housing Community

16:06:56 Services, changed their rent raise policies this year on

16:07:00 affordable housing, where before property owners had to apply

16:07:03 to raise the rent and show good faith property

16:07:08 management, now they can raise the rent

16:07:11 5% per year without application.

So in some places

16:07:15 rent raises are being made easier not more

16:07:19 fair.

Do you know, Amber, is

16:07:22 that just for the low income

16:07:25 credit tax properties?

Regina is shaking her head, yes.

16:07:28

So that is a subset of the

16:07:32 affordable housing, they're regulated, so it

16:07:35 doesn't apply to all rental

16:07:40 properties,

16:07:43 just the

16:07:46 LICTA properties.

We have seven or eight

16:07:50 minutes before public testimony.

16:07:54

I'm going to be a little

16:07:57 pushy, again, and just

16:08:00 say -- let me frame it this way.

It's

16:08:03 not being pushy.

So we do -- we do

16:08:07 have one more meeting in November.

16:08:10

And I feel like we've made a lot of progress

16:08:13 today in talking about this, and

16:08:17 there's a lot

16:08:20 here.

Do we want to

16:08:25 try to pick the top three or four concepts

16:08:29 that we then want to hammer

16:08:32 out at the November meeting with a goal of

16:08:37 finalizing recommendations?

Or do we want to trier

16:08:41 to get to some maybe --

16:08:45 pick two recommendations that we could land

16:08:48 on today and come back and revisit

16:08:51 a couple of other ones?

Or another

16:08:54 option, are there --

maybe I should also ask,

16:08:57 and I'm definitely trying to move us toward a

16:09:02 very specific deliverable because as I said

16:09:05 before, this commission, this body has

16:09:08 one, what I call a superpower

16:09:12 superpower, one thing we can do which is communicate to

16:09:16 the City Council and PHB

16:09:19 leadership our

16:09:24 thoughts, our ideas, our recommendations, so I would like to take advantage of

16:09:27 that.

I would like to walk away with maybe two

16:09:30 recommendations today that we could

16:09:33 ask Justin to work

16:09:36 on.

What do people think about

16:09:40 that?

>> JUSTIN: And for the

16:09:43 process wise, after I

16:09:49 -- recommendation, I'll take them

16:09:52 to the next meeting and

16:09:56 [indiscernible], the January

16:09:59 meeting.

>> LAURA: Thank you, Justin,

16:10:02 for that reminder.

It just keeps getting

16:10:07 further down the road.

But I

16:10:10 mean, that's sort of -- to Amber's point early on in

16:10:13 the meeting, that's where we are with only six

16:10:17 meetings a year.

That's

16:10:20 sort of where we are.

Thoughts

16:10:23 on that.

Amber?

>> AMBER: Yeah, I

16:10:26 mean, in response,

16:10:30 I feel like a lot of people have

16:10:33 [frozen]

16:10:37

you know, the whole group has --

you know, been

16:10:40 excited or wanted to back

16:10:44 most of the ideas, so

16:10:47 I'm not sure how we could create any kind of

16:10:50 consensus at this point.

>> LAURA: Okay.

I'll just remind us,

16:10:53 we started off with recommendations that were made at the

16:10:56 July meeting and I think one of the

16:11:00 things that

16:11:04 gets in our way is

16:11:07 continuing to go back and revisit other ideas.

16:11:10

So -- I mean,

16:11:13 that's fine.

We just have to

16:11:17 understand that if we feel like we're not going to reach

16:11:20 consensus on any of these then

16:11:23 it is going to be January before the commission

16:11:27 hears from us.

And so what I'm trying to do

16:11:30 is poke at all of you and say, is there anything

16:11:33 we can agree on that we could

16:11:37 send the recommendation to the city in

16:11:39 November, because as Justin said, he's got to work on

16:11:43 it, then we've got to vote on it.

We have to wait

16:11:46 and vote on it in

16:11:49 November.

So

16:11:52 maybe

16:11:57 -- well,

16:12:01 Pippa.

16:12:06

>> PIPPA: I want to go back to the idea that I don't think was brought

16:12:09 up in the June meeting

16:12:12 but some of these ideas

16:12:16 -- this idea of encouraging the city to build

16:12:19 more housing so they can control at least some of the

16:12:23 stack of housing to

16:12:27 provide more comments for other neighbors.

Is that an idea

16:12:30 that could be included in that or is it too late for

16:12:33 that?

I hear what you're saying, Laura.

16:12:37

>> LAURA: No, not too late at all, if it's an

16:12:40 idea that we can get

16:12:43 behind, I will say that I believe that

16:12:47 the Welcome Home Coalition

16:12:51 is working on putting forward the

16:12:54 concept for a new housing

16:12:57 construction bond.

So --

>> PIPPA: Something along the

16:13:03 lines of, you know, the permit process and/or honestly,

16:13:06 it's tax process too, but encourages

16:13:09 more private developers for low-income housing,

16:13:13 but not the sneaky kind

16:13:16 where they crank up brands within minutes.

16:13:20

I know there's snakey stuff out

16:13:23 there.

And I don't know legalese so I don't know how to craft

16:13:27 that, but permits and building, common

16:13:30 housing.

>> LAURA: Thank you.

Moriah.

16:13:33

>> MORIAH: Personally, I am so into the idea

16:13:37 of public housing, housing

16:13:41 owned by the government and managed by the

16:13:44 government, and amazing gardens and beautiful -- that is

16:13:47 not a policy direction, cities in the United States have taken for

16:13:50 a long time and I think that people

16:13:54 on this commission know this stuff better than

16:13:58 me.

But I think putting

16:14:01 our eggs in that basket would

16:14:05 take us in the direction -- not necessarily

16:14:09 the direction of the bureau we're advising is working on and not

16:14:12 necessarily what our elected officials are doing

16:14:15 in the community.

So I just think

16:14:19 -- I would hope our commission could be

16:14:23 strategic about aligning what's important to us in all of

16:14:26 our various roles in the community with what

16:14:29 our city employees are doing and thinking about

16:14:33 do we want to propose things that are really different from what's

16:14:36 going on and push on those or do we want to get

16:14:39 a strong understanding of what they are working on

16:14:43 when we're hearing about so much staff strain they're

16:14:46 having and thinking about avenues for us to help them

16:14:49 in the direction that they're trying to go in.

So for

16:14:52 me, like when I look at this list of

16:14:55 things or what I'm hearing people talk

16:14:58 about, there's a lot of conversation in the city right now

16:15:01 about city permitting.

So if you think that's something

16:15:05 that can help stabilize people in housing in our city,

16:15:08 maybe that's something we want to focus our energy

16:15:11 on.

How can this commission support that.

If

16:15:14 we do want to bring the big ideas that are

16:15:17 maybe really different, I'm not saying

16:15:21 necessarily I would oppose that, but I want to

16:15:25 point out how our conversations relate to

16:15:28 other conversations going on.

16:15:33

>> LAURA: Thank you,

16:15:36 Moriah.

>> JUSTIN:

>> JUSTIN: We have to

16:15:39 pause here.

It's 4:15.

16:15:43

No problem.

>> LAURA: Angelita and go to Matthew

16:15:47 and we'll come back.

>> JUSTIN: Thank

16:15:50 you, Laura.

The public comments, we have

16:15:53 30 minutes for the process.

16:15:56

Several people have indicated they may want to provide

16:15:59 public comment.

Are there any other members

16:16:02 of the public who would like to provide testimony,

16:16:06 please get your name in the chat and we'll circle

16:16:10 back to you.

The testimony that was submitted

16:16:13 for the Listening Session which will probably take us

16:16:17 through most of the half

16:16:20 hour.

Each person has two minutes to speak, if you go

16:16:23 over, I will stop you.

And we'll start

16:16:27 at the top of the list.

16:16:30

Shaun Irelan.

16:16:38 A.T.

16:16:51 [Indiscernible].

16:16:58 Danielle Parks.

16:17:08

Mary Margaret Wheeler

16:17:11 Webber.

16:17:22

Wila Logan.

[Indiscernible].

16:17:32

>> Jessica

16:17:35 Greenlee.

>> I work with property

16:17:38 management.

I just wanted to frame a couple of things

16:17:42 for the commission, and

16:17:45 understanding -- actually down between

16:17:49 1.2% and 4.4%, depending on what report you want to

16:17:52 look at.

If you look at Portland

16:17:55 Proper itself.

So year after

16:17:58 year [indiscernible].

Expenses have

16:18:02 increased with inflation, which everybody has had to deal with.

16:18:05

And more importantly, interest rates, the

16:18:09 increase in --

dramatically

16:18:12 shifting the value of all properties at this point in

16:18:16 time.

Right?

You see 30% decline

16:18:19 in the value of -- to interest

16:18:23 rates, which means that the [indiscernible]

owner

16:18:26 to capital are decreased and

16:18:30 often time NEPA.

Now, that happens,

16:18:33 right, you have to deal with those factors that are

16:18:36 coming forward.

But the

16:18:39 regulatory

16:18:43 LA --

>> JUSTIN: Can you speak

16:18:46 up?

>> JESSICA: Is that a little bit

16:18:49 better?

>> JUSTIN: Yes.

>> JESSICA: Sorry.

16:18:54 I'm trying to project.

16:18:58

So the regulatory restrictions

16:19:01 that are being proposed by some of

16:19:04 members of the committee really start to

16:19:09 [indiscernible]

the housing and management of housing within

16:19:12 the market.

And that

16:19:15 really -- weighs in on your decision

16:19:18 as you're looking forward to that, as

16:19:21 we go past certain policies and

16:19:25 quite honestly, part of the conversation, very

16:19:28 disheartening to hear that there was a thought that

16:19:32 there's some kind of

16:19:37 nefarious intent by landlords and advocating

16:19:41 for them to get rental assistance and we think the policies

16:19:44 that our company uses and when a

16:19:48 renter comes to us

16:19:51 and says they're struggling, we find the time and

16:19:54 resources -- which is expensive for our company to do

16:19:58 -- to help advocate for

16:20:02 additional resources.

So

16:20:05 when you start -- these additional barriers to being able to

16:20:08 do that.

Quite honestly, and I'm sure many

16:20:11 other companies or individual housing

16:20:14 providers will -- will step away from doing that and say, you're on

16:20:19 your own.

Because it's viewed of

16:20:23 something as we're being greedy

16:20:26 or taking something -- unjustified, it's just --

16:20:29 I'm sorry to be emotional, but that's

16:20:32 really insulting.

And

16:20:37 I don't -- [indiscernible] a lot of number and

16:20:41 facts and --

and I do

16:20:45 realize that a lot of people need continued support and the best way to

16:20:49 do that has always been rental assistance and

16:20:53 institutional housing and those should be the primary factors you're

16:20:56 looking at as a committee because the

16:20:59 regulations increase staffing costs,

16:21:02 increase administrative

16:21:06 expenses, increase legal fees, all of that drives rent

16:21:10 costs.

>> JUSTIN: You're out of time.

I'm sorry about

16:21:15 that.

>> JESSICA: Thank you.

16:21:20

>> JUSTIN: Do other members of the public

16:21:23 want to provide public testimony

16:21:26 at this time?

16:21:32

I'll go ahead and

16:21:35 [indiscernible], I'll go ahead and read written testimony

16:21:40 from the Listening Session.

16:21:50

[Indiscernible].

Dear thank you for taking the time to

16:21:53 listen to members of the rental housing

16:21:56 community.

I was about to buy a house

16:21:59 but -- to rent but

16:22:02 after learning details

16:22:08 and rent ordinances,

16:22:12 I'm canceling.

It's exhausting to try to keep

16:22:15 up with the changes, staffing and

16:22:19 changes.

[Indiscernible].

16:22:24

Incremental impact on housing supply

16:22:27 and 14% increase in single family rentals

16:22:32 since the policy passed.

The RSC should

16:22:36 work to hold leaders

16:22:39 accountable for delivering on rent assistance and the housing

16:22:43 industry, the RSC to be a

16:22:46 prominent voice in ensuring

16:22:49 that budget dollars are spent and

16:22:53 ending homelessness must be an

16:22:56 all-hands on

16:23:00 deck effort and [indiscernible], restricting the member

16:23:03 and affordable units in the

16:23:07 city,

16:23:10 unequivocally looking to rent.

16:23:14

Please do not end the state's harassment

16:23:18 policies, already held to a

16:23:21 strict statewide standard and stakeholders are

16:23:24 complying with.

We should not

16:23:27 free up state [indiscernible]

16:23:31 adverse landlords disputes.

Thank you

16:23:35 again for your consideration.

16:23:38

Next up is testimony from Michelle

16:23:41 and John Fitzgerald.

16:23:45

Thank you for the opportunity to represent a small

16:23:48 business owner's point of

16:23:51 view.

I am the owner of short term

16:23:54 and long term rental in northeast

16:23:57 Portland and I have worked hard to

16:24:02 educate ourselves and -- that said, we

16:24:06 have continuously had situations where

16:24:10 we -- just trying to save for

16:24:13 retirement but held to a standard that --

the rental

16:24:16 -- holding them

16:24:19 accountable, the --

16:24:22 rental properties, of

16:24:25 -- a city like Los Angeles, the result

16:24:29 has been for many mom and pop owners

16:24:32 to sell to larger

16:24:35 entities, rentals of Multnomah County and

16:24:39 --

permanent nants are creating

16:24:44 --

creating those conditions --

16:24:48

lack of rental homes has greatly

16:24:51 dwindled.

We need to bring back the convention

16:24:55 for owners and properties scaled

16:25:00 appropriately.

The rental increase is somewhat understandable

16:25:03 and we as mom and pop

16:25:07 landlords [indiscernible].

16:25:19

We chose to --

16:25:24 the property management companies rental negotiation and

16:25:28 contracts.

Our tenants were

16:25:31 approved and then served --

16:25:36 [indiscernible].

16:25:39

Asked about the job and at that point, we

16:25:42 have no recourse

16:25:45 and -- this is unfair,

16:25:49 and we did not --

16:25:52 should be allowed

16:25:57 for damages.

We completely

16:26:00 understand the need for -- and agree that

16:26:04 landlords need to accept the --

16:26:07

[indiscernible] should still be made to pay

16:26:10 a deposit for potential damage since we currently have no

16:26:13 recourse to collect from

16:26:17 these damages and a response

16:26:20 -- rental code

16:26:23 the damage, the

16:26:26 ADA provides that any

16:26:30 accommodations, must be paid for by the

16:26:33 tenant.

A service animal should be no

16:26:36 different.

We would love to have joined the

16:26:40 session but are unable to have

16:26:43 [indiscernible] Concordia Neighborhood Association

16:26:47 and the meeting conflicts and

16:26:51 [indiscernible] organization the same

16:26:54 evening.

Perhaps channeling the announcement to the

16:26:58 neighborhood associations would increase attendance.

Thank you for

16:27:02 the chance to submit

16:27:05 comments.

16:27:15

Next up is Rhea

16:27:18 Hannon.

My name is Rhea

16:27:21 Hannon and I'm a Portland -- in the

16:27:24 [indiscernible] neighborhood.

By moving into

16:27:28 my current neighborhoods I was extremely

16:27:31 fortunate to find in my

16:27:34 budget.

Securing our apartment

16:27:38 from these rental sites every single day multiple times

16:27:42 a day to ensure

16:27:45 a rental application,

16:27:56 will diminish your chance of being approved

16:28:00 on the access to secure WiFi,

16:28:02 the process was

16:28:08 painstaking

16:28:12 painstaking, anxiety producing and stressful and over

16:28:15 and -- a house speak other languages.

The

16:28:18 obstacles that these people faced do not disappear

16:28:22 even when housing disappears as all these

16:28:25 communities are at higher risk for eviction.

16:28:28

We -- resources for all the

16:28:32 renters, affordable housing and smaller

16:28:35 rent increases, measures like

16:28:38 eviction representation for all, despite the

16:28:43 vitriol, and long-term disability and the city's

16:28:48 renters and housing market.

Any

16:28:51 interest in diversity and professionals

16:28:55 [indiscernible]

renters.

Do you have

16:28:58 a comment?

16:29:24

I don't know if this the time

16:29:28 to respond to testimony.

16:29:37

>> ALLEN: I am consistently

16:29:40 distressed --

16:29:54 landlord's consistent

16:29:57 interpretation of responsibility.

16:30:04

Around emotional support animals.

16:30:17

And other disability accommodations.

16:30:32

And the housing discrimination

16:30:35 complaints are related to people with

16:30:39 disabilities.

16:30:56

And landlords complaining about damage

16:31:00 from our emotional support animals is

16:31:04 pretty inappropriate.

16:31:15

So I just wanted to see

16:31:18 if we can as a body

16:31:24 do more work around this

16:31:27 type of discriminationdiscrimination.

16:31:30

I know we had the fair

16:31:33 hougzing

16:31:37 control --

16:31:42 and I'm hoping there's

16:31:46 something about disability

16:31:50 but I think we've heard

16:31:53 these type of comments

16:31:57 many, many times.

16:32:05

They reflect the needs

16:32:09 within the housing market

16:32:14 for more protection for people with

16:32:17 disabilities.

Thank you.

16:32:22

>> JUSTIN: Thank you.

16:32:30

All righty.

Back to written testimony

16:32:35 submitted during the

16:32:38 Summer Listening Session.

16:32:44

On a single unit in the City of

16:32:48 Portland, a two-bedroom

16:32:52 bungalow before we were married and got together,

16:32:55 long-term tenants over three years

16:32:58 now and found the landlord and rotate

16:33:02 around the rentals to be so

16:33:06 overwhelming that actually getting some --

and planning to

16:33:09 sell the house this summer

16:33:12 and -- the market for doing

16:33:16 so.

In particular, bully restrictions

16:33:19 such as creating undue hardship of

16:33:24 small landlords, moving financial

16:33:28 assistance, the rates started

16:33:33 out high and we've been --

required timelines,

16:33:36 AKA [indiscernible],

16:33:39 for tenants and

16:33:43 landlords.

Requirements and notices

16:33:46 be mailed -- now tenants before

16:33:49 email and digital documents.

And

16:33:52 the approach that only residential

16:33:57 landlords able to do business,

16:34:00 various corporations to scale,

16:34:03 that at every juncture which has resulted in our case

16:34:07 having to charge as high of rent as possible, just to

16:34:10 make it worth our

16:34:14 effort.

There's obviously [indiscernible] to all results and

16:34:18 restrictions, and as services

16:34:21 provide for legal

16:34:24 advice, as a

16:34:27 resources, would decrease due

16:34:30 to increased

16:34:34 competition.

Next up is testimony

16:34:37 from [indiscernible].

16:34:47

I

16:34:51 moved to Portland in 1978 and

16:34:54 -- 1987, and 70 hour weeks at my

16:34:57 job, looking at rentals,

16:35:01 25 plus years,

16:35:04 renters almost had their

16:35:07 [indiscernible] and --

whatever capable of doing and

16:35:12 continuing to invest any

16:35:16 -- have told me that I'm the best landlord

16:35:19 they've ever had.

Average renter stays with me

16:35:22 from 12 to 15 years and 25 years and

16:35:26 counting.

I haven't had rent

16:35:29 -- I have had

16:35:32 renters over for dinner many

16:35:35 times.

The cover your

16:35:38 own expenses, the wear and

16:35:41 tear and [indiscernible]

16:35:45 vacancy, spent a lot of time on repairs, even

16:35:48 if you hire someone,

16:35:52 tenants and [indiscernible].

16:35:57

Of the current rental increase

16:36:00 between 14 and 26% if I was a

16:36:05 renter and there was that increase,

16:36:08 I'd --

16:36:12 [indiscernible]

in the past.

16:36:15

And

16:36:19 increase, knowing that they might have a vacancy.

16:36:23

The City of Portland has brought us to this

16:36:26 point by steadfastly -- the nearly 50

16:36:31 years that I've been -- and owners saying they refuse to work in

16:36:34 the city and it's so much more difficult,

16:36:37 costly, just

16:36:40 costly expenses are often

16:36:44 [indiscernible] to construction in the city.

The city

16:36:49 the area builders are --

16:36:52 in Portland, whatever the percentage,

16:36:55 very similarly, the

16:36:59 update for developers and an

16:37:02 example,

16:37:06 over many years when they're so high, but somebody

16:37:09 else has to be the

16:37:12 scapegoat.

At the

16:37:17 -- that the city has has been evident

16:37:20 for a long time and virtual harassment with new

16:37:23 taxes, registration, what has the city done with

16:37:28 all that money to create

16:37:40 nothing about --

16:37:43

schedule for every little --

16:37:47

location and

16:37:51 -- 30 days notice, we'll get back to you,

16:37:54 and the expenses, just

16:37:57 goes on and on.

16:38:01

It's no wonder -- Portland as well as

16:38:05 other jurisdictions who are -- as

16:38:08 ours, but who have Oregon's

16:38:11 laws created by the legislature which

16:38:16 [indiscernible] as well.

16:38:20

Just in the last two

16:38:23 years, that has been getting

16:38:26 out as quickly as I can, I am only one in Portland,

16:38:30 thankfully, but as soon as [indiscernible].

16:38:35

Unfortunately for me, I don't have the ability to

16:38:38 sell, I have to wait until people vacate

16:38:41 and I sell.

That's my

16:38:45 choice, but at the beginning of the Zoom meeting

16:38:48 and the [indiscernible].

16:38:57

One more here.

Next

16:39:09 Next.

16:39:15

[Indiscernible] property owner, from

16:39:18 Michelle -- I have a couple of rental properties and

16:39:23 ACPA until I had to get

16:39:27 -- to migraine issues.

I have

16:39:30 a real estate license although I can't use it much because of the

16:39:34 migraine issues.

I'm

16:39:37 worried about -- harsher rental -- my mom

16:39:40 and other landlords, raise rents

16:39:43 in 2016 to raise

16:39:46 rents that if they increased rents they might get stuck

16:39:50 with the lower rent later and

16:39:53 not able to raise them and [indiscernible]

16:39:56 landlord that rent ceilings won't happen with the

16:39:59 renters and the issue with rules

16:40:02 about COLA, rate increases as well,

16:40:07 new renters and

16:40:11 60-day notices.

But I don't

16:40:14 -- I don't want to see

16:40:17 any increase

16:40:21 again, with evictions,

16:40:27 a month's pay or not seems

16:40:30 pointsless and

16:40:33 landlords -- to try to give the

16:40:38 renter one month --

16:40:41 personal imbalance issues, my personal pet

16:40:44 peeves, I'm not sure if

16:40:48 this falls within your purview or

16:40:51 not, the same value and each

16:40:55 the same property taxes,

16:41:00 to the disparity between the remodeled

16:41:03 and market houses and remodeled

16:41:06 houses, are not so huge.

The exemption on

16:41:10 the schedule and the tax of Portland and

16:41:14 Multnomah County, if you have only [indiscernible]

16:41:17 properties you pay a tax on

16:41:20 rentals such rental

16:41:23 income that

16:41:27 other zone and -- idea, that's a different issue.

16:41:30

The exclusion to have a schedule C for a

16:41:33 small -- a business

16:41:36 on the state seems weird.

I don't know the

16:41:40 [indiscernible]

on personal property investment to

16:41:44 combat business income, why factored into the

16:41:48 business income.

This is

16:41:51 weird

16:41:54 [indiscernible]

and just confusing

16:41:57 and -- more

16:42:00 useful if you want to get rid of

16:42:03 large business or individuals

16:42:06 buying property and jumping up the credit on them,

16:42:09 for residential rental properties,

16:42:13 depreciating over 39 years

16:42:16 is stupid and you should be

16:42:19 able to appreciate the

16:42:23 [indiscernible], overall building, no, historically, the

16:42:26 past seven years, the rents have gone up, not

16:42:29 down, account for depreciation

16:42:32 at

16:42:35 ordinary income just allows for

16:42:39 a stupid and 1031 exchanges on

16:42:43 taxes on the income and [indiscernible] to

16:42:46 market, a

16:42:50 pretty big

16:42:54 estate tax exclusion, and if you want

16:42:57 to get more landlords

16:43:00 to -- set up the

16:43:03 same type of thing

16:43:06 [indiscernible].

Instead of paying their rent, just

16:43:09 operate for them, they can pay

16:43:13 a bit more in insurance which the government pays

16:43:16 for --

as long as paying on

16:43:19 time and --

pays for the

16:43:22 landlord and damage in an amount that

16:43:25 far more landlords --

16:43:29 low-income housing people -- and there

16:43:33 should be lots of opportunities by

16:43:36 state to property to

16:43:39 low-income housing or traditional housing as to what properties

16:43:44 -- there are so many

16:43:47 --

16:43:51 someone made the comment to allow a three-day

16:43:55 back-out period.

Please don't do this.

The cost would be

16:43:59 astronomical for landlords since many are set up for

16:44:02 two weeks ahead of move

16:44:08 move-in and have to paint again after the

16:44:11 tenant and additional overhead

16:44:14 would send them running for the hills and a

16:44:17 way for tenants -- property management

16:44:20 companies and the properties themselves in

16:44:24 some sort of public forum

16:44:27 -- similarly,

16:44:32 individual basis with the

16:44:36 landlord.

This --

16:44:39 they can always ask

16:44:42 about anything they are worried is being

16:44:45 misrepresented is a legal issue

16:44:49 they can [indiscernible].

Sorry

16:44:53 --

16:45:00 [indiscernible],.

I will turn

16:45:04 it back to you, Laura.

16:45:10

>> LAURA: Justin, there were two testimonies that were

16:45:13 sent along with the media materials.

Do

16:45:17 those need to get

16:45:20 read out?

>> JUSTIN:

16:45:23 [Indiscernible].

>> LAURA: Got it.

16:45:24

Okay.

All right.

16:45:28 Thank you.

16:45:31

Okay.

So here we are.

16:45:35 We have 15 minutes, a whole

16:45:38 15 minutes!

What are your thoughts?

16:45:41

We heard a lot of new

16:45:44 ideas.

We've got the public

16:45:48 housing permit issues

16:45:51 which Moriah

16:45:55 referenced, a reference that are

16:45:58 being addressed.

Where is

16:46:04 -- I don't want to use the last 15 minutes to try

16:46:09 to do a poll.

It feels very

16:46:12 awkward.

But maybe we can

16:46:15 try something simple.

16:46:18

Anybody want to give a thumbs up on recommending

16:46:21 to the city that they work with

16:46:25 the state legislators to

16:46:30 work with the state

16:46:34 rent cap?

Any hands on that?

I've

16:46:38 got two -- yeah.

16:46:52

Nobody's feeling it.

Let's see.

16:46:55 Regina.

>> REGINA: I think the reason I'm hesitant -- I don't know

16:46:58 about others -- it seems like a really --

16:47:02 it seems unfeasible --

it

16:47:05 seems a bit

16:47:09 unfeasible -- the city making that pitch to the state

16:47:12 legislature, that the city would be willing to do it and that it

16:47:15 would have any success.

And so that's --

16:47:19 that's my --

that's why I'm

16:47:22 hesitant to give a thumbs-up.

>> LAURA: Got

16:47:25 it.

I hear

16:47:28 you.

Thank you.

Angelita.

16:47:31 >> ANGELITA: Yeah, I think that makes sense.

I would be

16:47:35 interested in seeing them pursue

16:47:39 it for Portland, but asking state

16:47:43 legislators to do their job is always a hard

16:47:46 ask.

I actually really liked Pippa's

16:47:49 proposal to talk about government housing.

I think it's a really interesting

16:47:53 one.

And while I know it might not be in line

16:47:56 with some of the stuff that PHB is doing right

16:47:59 now, the reality is we've been in a housing emergency since

16:48:02 2015 and we do need to be

16:48:05 more imaginative

16:48:09 and thinking about housing.

It's an

16:48:13 emergency at this point.

So I don't think maybe new or

16:48:16 out-of-the-box proposals should be written off because what we are

16:48:19 currently doing is not working so maybe it's time to

16:48:23 try new stuff.

>> LAURA: Thank you,

16:48:26 Angelita.

Amber.

>> AMBER: Well,

16:48:30 I think that --

and I

16:48:33 agree with Angelita and Pippa and -- while

16:48:36 I think it's important to strategize, you know,

16:48:40 smartly or intelligently

16:48:43 on the recommendations

16:48:46 being something that the City Council can

16:48:49 hear, at the same time, sometimes there are needs that have to be

16:48:53 met and we may not have the perfect solution,

16:48:56 but we are representing the need and they could be the

16:48:59 ones that figure out how to make it happen.

16:49:02

So if we -- for example, if we felt like, you know,

16:49:05 the city should consider its

16:49:08 own, you know, rent raise

16:49:11 caps, then we can put that

16:49:14 in the letter and I don't think we

16:49:17 need to second-guess whether it's their priority or

16:49:20 what they can do or not because we're representing what we feel

16:49:24 needs to happen for the rental market.

So

16:49:28 that's just a friendly additional

16:49:32 [indiscernible] in there.

>> LAURA: Thank you,

16:49:35 Amber.

Matthew.

>> MATTHEW: I'd just like to add that

16:49:39 I think a couple of years ago it was pointed out there's

16:49:43 a whole nother committee that was set up around the issue of building

16:49:46 more housing, and so I totally agree that

16:49:50 would be, you know,

16:49:54 ending the

16:49:58 monopoly, and that's what we should be focusing most of the city's efforts

16:50:01 on.

My understanding is there's another committee about that and

16:50:05 our purpose was more narrow around assuming

16:50:42 this much housing, what kind of regulations are we going to put in place to try to help landlords and tenants and everybody get along within that situation.

That was

16:50:42 my understanding from when I first joined a long time ago but that might not be the case anymore.

And I started my career as a lawyer for public housing in

16:50:42 New York and it made me very, very against public housing in general as an institution, and I'd be happy to discuss that --

the reasons for that

16:50:42 more, you know, just the one sound bite I always give it, are you willing to evict somebody for

16:50:45 propping open a door?

If you're not, how

16:50:48 are you going to prevent drug dealers and everybody else from

16:50:51 coming in and what do you do

16:50:55 when the government is evicting that

16:50:58 person and you're housing of last

16:51:02 resort, it creates other problems that other

16:51:05 countries with successful public housing infrastructure don't

16:51:08 have, so that's my perspective from being there.

16:51:11

I'd be happy to speak to anyone more

16:51:14 about that or with the group.

>> LAURA:

16:51:18 Thank you, Matthew.

16:51:22

And I'm just putting in the chat the

16:51:26 original purpose and mission of the RSC to remind us

16:51:29 all what it's for and what it's doing, it's actually

16:51:32 pretty broad.

So if we wanted to

16:51:35 step into the space of public housing,

16:51:39 I think -- and housing construction, I think we

16:51:42 could.

Moriah, and then

16:51:46 Allen.

>> MORIAH: I just wanted to say, particularly

16:51:49 based on the testimony that we heard today,

16:51:53 I think we all know and are seeing, particularly with

16:51:57 the rapidly changing regulatory landscape

16:52:00 that we have a lot of landlords that, first of

16:52:03 all, Allen talked about not understanding their

16:52:06 responsibility, but also not understanding the

16:52:10 legal situation and not understanding that you don't have a

16:52:13 God-given or a government-given

16:52:16 right to earn money and so I just want to flag

16:52:19 that because I think it --

I was having

16:52:23 strong reactions to the testimony and I think maybe some

16:52:26 other people were and just connecting it to the

16:52:31 RSC's job of helping both landlords

16:52:34 and renters like function better in

16:52:37 the city.

Maybe they're seeing

16:52:41 -- I don't know, there is good landlord education.

So

16:52:44 I'm just really -- always see a lot of people, a lot of

16:52:47 people don't get it.

And I say that as

16:52:50 a landlord.

>> LAURA: Thank you,

16:52:54 Moriah.

Allen.

16:53:09

>> ALLEN: Yeah, so I find myself thinking about where

16:53:12 we're at with housing in the

16:53:15 State of Oregon.

And locally.

16:53:28

I know that the main focus right now

16:53:31 is housing for [indiscernible].

16:53:35

And housing need analysis

16:53:43 -- to create enough housing for

16:53:47 the next 20 years.

16:53:58

I'm not sure how -- I'm sorry.

16:54:01

I would love to explore how the

16:54:04 RSC fits into that

16:54:07 work.

16:54:17 I know today we've been talking a lot about rent

16:54:20 increases and rent assistance.

16:54:34

Those issues are really somewhat symptoms of a bigger problem.

16:54:43

And that need is for affordable

16:54:48 housing.

16:54:54 So I'd just like more information

16:54:58 from the Portland Housing Bureau

16:55:01 about how we can be involved with

16:55:05 that work.

Thank you.

16:55:11

>> LAURA: Thanks, Allen.

We only have

16:55:16 a few minutes left, so I

16:55:19 want to suggest that perhaps we take --

16:55:22 we've got some new ideas and some

16:55:25 new suggestions which are, I think, really great and

16:55:30 provocative and interesting.

And Justin,

16:55:34 is this something that

16:55:37 executive committee can discuss?

What I'm

16:55:40 thinking, I should be more

16:55:43 specific.

What I'm thinking is to

16:55:46 tee us up for getting some recommendations finalized

16:55:49 in November so that we can get them out

16:55:52 the door to City Council but after voting on

16:55:57 them in January, but Executive Committee could

16:56:00 take all the ideas that we've talked about today

16:56:03 and try to distill them down and bring to

16:56:06 the November meeting, okay,

16:56:09 here's the recommendations that

16:56:12 we heard and plan ahead to do

16:56:15 some polling and voting.

Does that -- is

16:56:18 that, Justin --

for

16:56:22 Justin, is that reasonable to

16:56:25 do?

>> JUSTIN:

16:56:29 [Indiscernible].

>> LAURA: Okay.

Does that work for

16:56:33 everyone to do that?

16:56:35

Okay.

Excellent.

16:56:39 Excellent.

Yeah, Kristina.

>> KRISTINA: Thank you, Laura.

16:56:43 I really like that idea.

It sounds like

16:56:46 we're a little all over the place.

>> LAURA: Yeah.

16:56:49

Yeah.

>> KRISTINA: So find some direction.

16:56:53 But I also like want to -- I don't know, I guess

16:56:57 kind of go back to what Allen was saying

16:57:00 and what I heard others say.

It might be good to have a

16:57:04 session that's dedicated to --

what is it that we can

16:57:07 do, like what is realistic, what

16:57:11 you were talking about, kind of talking about actionable items,

16:57:14 what the RSC does, because it feels like such

16:57:17 a broad thing that we're trying to tackle that we might

16:57:20 need to narrow it down a little bit and

16:57:23 like be more in the lines of what

16:57:27 we actually can do.

>> LAURA: Absolutely.

I love that

16:57:32 idea because I think that not only are we

16:57:35 a public body and I -- I feel,

16:57:39 you know, we've -- that constrains us a little bit in how

16:57:42 we do things.

We only meet six times a

16:57:45 year.

That makes it challenging

16:57:49 now, especially -- when we've been meeting every month.

So

16:57:52 I think the more focused we are on

16:57:55 what we can do, I think would be

16:57:58 great.

Would people be up for that being the

16:58:03 topic of the January meeting?

16:58:07

Aside from the vote, that we would have

16:58:11 a vote on the recommendations at the January meeting, but

16:58:14 then we could spend -- with the exception of

16:58:17 public testimony, of course, that would be in there --

16:58:20 we could spend the rest of the meeting having a broad

16:58:24 session about our scope of influence?

If

16:58:27 you want to call it

16:58:30 that?

Or action area?

16:58:34

Yeah?

All right.

16:58:37 We can change our minds too.

16:58:43

Well, maybe not if a public meeting and it's been

16:58:47 noticed.

Never mind!

At any rate, what we'll

16:58:50 do is we'll have Executive Committee take

16:58:53 all of these ideas and frame

16:58:56 them in a way that we

16:58:59 can do some polling and

16:59:04 prioritizing at the November meeting.

Then

16:59:07 Justin will take those and turn them into a formal

16:59:11 recommendation.

We will vote on that recommendation

16:59:14 in January, and then we'll use

16:59:17 the rest of the January meeting, aside from the public testimony

16:59:20 time, to get refocused on the

16:59:24 intent and purpose of --

16:59:27 and sphere of influencing authority of the RSC.

16:59:31

Does that sound good?

All right.

16:59:36

Awesome!

Thank you all.

16:59:39

It's always such a stimulating conversation.

16:59:42 I'm always so exhausted at the end of these

16:59:46 meetings.

Thank you all.

16:59:47

>> JUSTIN: Thank you, everybody, have a great day!