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At Glisan Landing in Portland’s Montavilla neighborhood, families have taken up residence in the Aldea building’s 96 units. Residents can enroll in an on-site preschool.

Across a small courtyard, in the 41-unit Beacon building, residents who were homeless or at risk of losing their homes have access to case managers and culinary training. Renters have access to a program offering help with resum茅s, job interview practice and employment searches.

A nonprofit caf茅 that opened on Monday offers at-risk individuals training as baristas.

鈥淲e want to help them not just get a minimum-wage job, but set them on a path to wealth creation,鈥� said Christine Putterman, development director for Stone Soup, the nonprofit group that operates the caf茅.

Such heady goals were made possible by Portland-area voters, who approved more than $911 million in two separate affordable housing bond measures in 2016 and 2018.

As a result, dozens of midsize affordable housing buildings have risen in Portland and surrounding communities, providing thousands of homes to at-risk residents, often with attached social services.

But now, the flood of affordable housing funding is slowing to a trickle.

Both the Metro and Portland bonds are largely spoken for, officials said. The local governments intentionally marshaled the resources quickly, spending the funding on projects in local communities before construction and acquisition grew any more costly.

That enabled the bonds to produce more units than originally projected. But as a result, the $652.8 million Metro bond is nearly exhausted 鈥� it’s about 90 percent allocated 鈥� while the $258.4 million Portland bond is completely ascribed to various projects.

鈥淭he Portland bond is fully allocated,鈥� said Danell Norby, housing investments and portfolio preservation manager for the Portland Housing Bureau.

If they’re not followed upon, the approximately 80 bond-funded projects could come to represent a generation of affordable housing 鈥� a discrete, one-time allocation of public and private resources that was discontinued.

That leaves the city and region at risk of stalling the progress it has made in increasing affordable housing, experts said.

鈥淭hat’s where I’m hearing a lot of concern,鈥� said Dave Otte, a principal and owner at Holst Architecture, a local firm that has designed seven total projects funded by the two bonds. 鈥淭he resources are dwindling, and the need is increasing. So, both of those are going in the wrong direction.鈥�

A reckoning with homelessness

Before the pandemic, homelessness in Portland grew steadily as rents and home prices outpaced both wages and inflation. Then the pandemic kicked the problem into a higher gear, with unsheltered homelessness nearly doubling from 2017 to 2022 as a fentanyl wave took hold.

Complaints followed from residents and business owners of public drug use, vandalism and other petty crimes that made Portland the subject of national media attention.

Politicians tried a number of strategies to clean up the city: The state recriminalized drug possession, and the city founded Portland Street Response to respond to nonviolent calls and pursued harm-reduction strategies. Shelters sprang up in unusual locations via conversions of a former county jail and a string of outdated motels.

Elected leaders also turned to what many officials and advocates identified as the root cause of the problem: a lack of affordable housing.

Generations of restrictive zoning, byzantine permitting processes and resistance to building affordable apartments had resulted in a dire supply-and-demand crunch. There were simply too few housing units for the population, leaving thousands of low-income residents without shelter in a game of musical chairs with life-and-death consequences.

Portland-area voters threw an enormous amount of money at the problem. In 2016, they approved a $258.4 million housing bond. Metro followed up with a larger regional housing bond in 2018, with $652.8 million going to affordable housing projects in Portland, Hillsboro, Beaverton and Gresham, and three Portland-area counties.

The bond added affordable homes in places that hadn’t previously been targeted for subsidized housing, including Happy Valley, said Emily Lieb, housing policy director for Metro.

鈥淭he intent was really to distribute investments everywhere in the region,鈥� she said.

Sites with access to transit and amenities were given priority. In some cases, developers had already acquired a site and came to local jurisdictions seeking bond funds. In other instances, the sites were publicly owned. In at least one case, the land was donated (by the Strong family in Alberta) for a 75-unit project.

The bonds formed the foundation of the finance stack for dozens of affordable housing projects. Local bond funding is only one source of affordable housing spending, paying for less than half of a typical project’s costs. Federal low-income housing tax credits, state programs, construction loans and other sources added more.

So that $911.2 million in taxpayer-approved bonds leveraged more than $3 billion in affordable housing projects.

The results

The city of Portland has completed 1,551 units, with 308 more in some stage of construction in 15 total projects with the proceeds of the city bond. That’s higher than an initial goal of 1,300 units. (The Portland Housing Bureau administered both the Portland bond and the city’s portion of the Metro bond. Only one project 鈥� Hollywood Hub in Northeast Portland 鈥� used funds from both the Metro and city bonds).

Metro expects to add approximately 5,600 units from the regional bond once it’s fully spent 鈥� far more than the original goal of 3,900 units. Of the higher total, 2,410 units have been completed, 1,491 are under construction and 1,327 are in preconstruction, Metro officials said in May.

As of December 2024, 62 Metro projects were providing homes for an estimated 9,500 to 16,000 people. Three or four more projects are expected to be added to the total.

鈥淭he bond has been a huge success,鈥� Lieb said.

Unlike the infamous monolithic 鈥減rojects鈥� that were built in American cities in the mid-20th century, chronicled in social-science literature and pop culture products like 鈥淭he Wire,鈥� the buildings were kept relatively small and interspersed in neighborhoods.

The buildings were designed to be largely indistinguishable from market-rate apartments.

鈥淚 really can’t imagine that your average Portlander would be able to point these out by the building and say, ah, that’s affordable housing,鈥� Housing Bureau spokesman Gabriel Mathews said.

Certain developments are intended to serve seniors, veterans and families 鈥� demographics that are sometimes ignored by for-profit multifamily developers.

鈥淭hey’re not just buildings,鈥� Lieb said. 鈥淭hese are thoughtfully designed properties that are designed to meet the needs of specific communities that are most impacted by the housing crisis.鈥�

Developments were designed to fit into neighborhoods rather than become impositions.

鈥淭hese are beautiful, in many cases, highly efficient buildings with 99-year affordability,鈥� Norby said.

The burst of construction came at the same time as a post-Ferguson reckoning with racism, redlining, forced relocations and other tactics that had shaped Portland neighborhoods.

Building on existing preference policies, local governments and developers contracted with women- and minority-owned firms such as Colas Construction to build many of the projects.

鈥淭here was a more intentional focus on community engagement and equity throughout the project design and delivery,鈥� Norby said.

Economic impact

The affordable housing bonds have buttressed construction and related industries during a slowdown for private-sector projects. As private developers sat on the sidelines, bond money sluiced through the local economy.

鈥淚t has obscured a true downturn that otherwise would have happened,鈥� said Noel Johnson, an independent local housing developer. 鈥淭he good news is that all of this public money kept our construction trades busy longer than they otherwise would have. That’s a good use of public money 鈥� that’s Keynesian economics 101.鈥�

The Metro bond alone has supported an estimated 3,000 living-wage jobs, according to the regional government.

Holst Architecture has been among the beneficiaries of the bonds. At any given time, about one-third of the 50-person office is working on bond-funded affordable housing projects, Otte said.

鈥淲e’ve kind of ridden the wave of what is getting funded and what is penciling for developers 鈥� whether they’re affordable-housing developers or market-rate housing developers 鈥� and it changes over time,鈥� Otte said. 鈥淗aving the affordable housing bond has shifted our focus.鈥�

The bonds have funded affordable apartment types that would not otherwise have been built, Otte said. Private developers tend to build smaller units, which are typically more profitable than alternatives.

鈥淚t’s hard to make larger units pencil,鈥� Otte said. 鈥淭hey’re harder on pro formas. They’re more expensive to construct. So, I think a subsidy on those was wise, even though it was harder to deliver.鈥�

Metro is managing the end of the regional bond measure. Interest earnings have added to the tax revenue, and Chief Operating Officer Marissa Madrigal last month approved $26 million to be distributed to local governments to offset unexpected cost increases and help finish projects.

Still, public officials say that much more affordable housing is necessary.

鈥淎s huge as the impact of this program has been, we know there’s still significant need,鈥� Lieb said. 鈥淪o, Metro is looking at different options to continue funding affordable housing in the future. We know there isn’t a lot of appetite right now among voters for a new property tax.鈥�

The Metro Council is considering allowing the use of the supportive housing services tax to fund affordable housing projects.

At the city, six tax-increment financing districts approved last year will provide money in the Eastside and Central City. But revenue will come in slowly at first, and spending will be limited to projects inside the districts’ borders.

Despite the massive public investment, homelessness has continued to grow. A 2023 count found 4,355 individuals unsheltered, and an additional 2,467 in shelters and transitional housing.

Mathews, the Housing Bureau spokesman, said affordable housing is keeping those numbers from further worsening.

鈥淚t’s hard,鈥� Mathews said, 鈥渢o quantify the homeless folks that you’re not seeing because the units are there.鈥�

Editor’s Note: This article has been corrected to reflect a numerical error in unit count related to the city of Portland housing bond. Also, the nature of the Strong family’s donation has been clarified.