Current Campaigns
INNER EASTSIDE FOR ALL
We’re building a cross-ideological alliance around a simple long-term vision for Portland’s close-in, walkable and transit-rich neighborhoods: #FourFloorsAndCornerStores. We think it should be legal for any residential lot from roughly 12th to 60th, Fremont to Powell, to contribute to a thriving, mixed-income, mixed-use fabric of urban neighborhoods by allowing street-scale apartment buildings. Our fellow travelers include Housing Oregon, the Oregon Environmental Council, Verde, 1000 Friends of Oregon, the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon, Oregon Smart Growth, and Oregon Walks.
Past Campaigns
Eviction representation for all
We helped mobilize volunteers for the unsuccessful 2022 Eviction Representation for All ballot measure that aimed to ensure that all evicted tenants have access to a lawyer, funded by a new county-level capital gains tax.
Portland’s Residential Infill Project 2
We worked alongside Habitat for Humanity, other mission-driven builders, and interest groups like Disability Rights Oregon and AARP to ensure that a round of tweaks to Portland’s low-density zoning advanced affordable homeownership, fairer ADU rules and more flexibility for market-rate fourplexes. You can read our recommended testimony here.
Kelly Butte Place
We supported the efforts of the residents of the manufactured home park Kelly Butte Place to avoid eviction from the land where they’ve lived, just as other manufactured home park residents have been able to.
Portland’s Historic Resources Code Project
We worked to support a reimagination of historic preservation, including measures to give overdue attention to the histories of BIPOC and queer Portlanders. The reform also removed costly parking mandates and incentivized adaptive re-use of historic buildings. We also warned the city council about the power of historic districts as exclusionary tools, but failed to persuade them to reduce that power to the greatest extent state law allows. (We did persuade them to reject an amendment that would have unduly strengthened that power.) You can read our recommended testimony here.
Portland’s design overlay zoning amendments
We supported and improved a major change in how Portland regulates the design of new buildings. The so-called DOZA project created a new, objective, appeal-proof point system for most new apartment buildings in mostly higher-end, closer-in neighborhoods. We worked with affordable housing developers, architects and advocates including Housing Oregon, ROSE Community Development, REACH Community Development, Proud Ground, Oregon Smart Growth, SERA Design & Architecture and others to pass rules that would protect all projects, especially regulated-affordable ones, from frivolous NIMBY appeals and de facto housing bans. It was unanimously approved by city council. You can read our recommended testimony here.
Portland’s Shelter to Housing Continuum Project
We recruited a broad social justice coalition including the Community Alliance of Tenants, Street Roots, Unite Oregon, the Interfaith Alliance on Poverty, Sunrise Coalition, Business for a Better Portland, Sunrise PDX, Sightline Institute, Portland DSA and Stop the Sweeps Portland to support and improve the transition of Portland’s six-year “housing emergency” into a permanent legalization of temporary and permanent living in many more situations. The measure allowed group living by right in every residential zone as well as tiny-home villages, and small homes on wheels (including RVs) on any lot. You can read our recommended testimony here.
Portland’s Residential Infill project
We worked alongside Portland for Everyone, Anti-Displacement PDX, Sightline Institute, Business for a Better Portland, Portlanders for Parking Reform, AARP Oregon, Sunrise PDX, Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East and others as the leading mobilizers for a landmark reform to Portland’s low-density zones. It re-legalized up to four homes on any lot, or up to six for projects offering deeper regulated affordability. You can read our public statement here.
Portland’s Better Housing by design Project
We joined Portland for Everyone, Anti-Displacement PDX, Business for a Better Portland, Portlanders for Parking Reform, Sightline Institute and Sunrise PDX in support of a landmark reform to Portland’s mid-and high-density residential zones that created big new size bonuses for mixed-income apartment and condo buildings and effectively legalized parking-free apartment buildings citywide. You can read a summary here.
Portland’s Fair access to housing ordinance
Before we had a name or website, many of the co-founders of Portland: Neighbors Welcome joined the Community Alliance of Tenants, Portland Tenants United, the Urban League of Portland, and others to support stronger fair housing laws in Portland that create a first-come-first-served system for processing tenant applications, prioritize accessible homes for tenants with disabilities and limit landlords’ ability to reject applicants based solely on criminal history, income or credit score.
Oregon’s middle-housing legalization
Before we had a name or website, many of the co-founders of Portland: Neighbors Welcome joined Habitat for Humanity, AARP Oregon, the Oregon Housing Alliance, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Better Housing Together, the Rogue Action Center and many others to support House Bill 2001, the nation’s first state-level legalization of duplexes on any lot in larger cities and other “middle housing” options, up to four homes per lot, in every neighborhood.