The Portland City Council on Wednesday evening voted to approve an ordinance that will allocate $55.9 million to the Portland Housing Bureau‘s budget for the 2025-2026 fiscal year. Unbudgeted bureau funds total more than $106 million.

Appropriations will be made to three Portland Housing Bureau funds: $40.4 million to the Housing Investment Fund, $4.8 million to the Tax Increment Fund, and $10.7 million to the Inclusionary Housing Fund. Separately, $4 million will go to the city’s general fund.

“Each of these tranches, we would develop programs for that,” said Donnie Oliveira, deputy city administrator for community and economic development. “In some cases, we would develop best practices.”

Options also include issuing a request for proposals from organizations to help allocate the funds, looking to see if the city has the capacity to disperse these dollars directly, or potentially partnering with Multnomah County.

“Each one of these would require us to contemplate the best way to get the dollars out as fast as possible, and as efficiently as possible,” Oliveira said.

Councilor Loretta Smith suggested the funds be dispersed directly from the city, rather than via programs. Creating programs would slow the process and the funds may not go out until September, she said.

The funds will not be allocated until July 1 at the earliest, according to Oliveira.

Unspent housing funds total around $137 million, Smith said. However, $106 million was the original amount identified, Chief Financial Officer Jonas Biery said.

“An additional amount of around $24 million was reflected in the city administrator’s memo a month or so ago, which were funds that were unbudgeted to be spent in this year, different from the original $106 million, which was sort of unbudgeted in future expenditures,” Biery said.

Some of the unbudgeted funds have already been allocated to the Housing Investment Fund, Biery said.

A proposed amendment by Smith to allocate $2.5 million for homeownership development opportunities to Self Enhancement Inc. and Williams & Russell failed.

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