Rents are rising. Wages are not. Construction costs are rising. Public assistance is not. Desperation is spreading. Vacancies are not.
In recent months, attention has been focused on such sites as the Courtyard Village Apartments in Vancouver, where a new landlord has notified hundreds of this area’s lowest-income and least-portable renters that they need to leave — or reapply to stay in upgraded buildings that will command higher rental prices.
Courtyard Village is just the tip of an iceberg, experts have said — only the first example of a housing market that is “broken,” according to Andy Silver, the executive director of the Council for the Homeless, who’s been working to find placements for desperate renters and avoid a new wave of homelessness here.
The Vancouver City Council held an initial workshop to look at the problem in February. This year, the city may adopt new legal protections for vulnerable tenants as well as new incentives for developers to build more truly affordable housing stock.
Meanwhile, inspired by recent survey findings that underscored public concern about housing — and about local policy-making that appears increasingly adversarial and angry — Washington State University Vancouver recently announced a new Initiative for Public Deliberation that aims to “enhance local democracy through improved public communication and community problem-solving,” according to a statement from project partner the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.
“We see this initiative as providing a much-needed neutral ground … outside of the polarized vacuums that have come to dominate local and national decision-making,” said Carolyn Long, associate professor of political science.
Long and some of her students, who have been studying meeting facilitation, will be on hand as the Initiative launches its first project: a series of six public forums about affordable housing. The forums are coming to places where it’s easy for the public to turn out, and organizers are hoping for great turnout and lively, positive, structured discussions that consider various options as well as their longer-term implications and compromises.
You don’t need to be a housing expert, Long said. You just need to care.
Here’s the schedule:
• 10 a.m. to noon Tuesday, Battle Ground Community Center, 912 E. Main St.
• 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, Mark Morris High School, 1602 Mark Morris Court, Longview.
• 2 to 4 p.m. Thursday, WSU Vancouver, 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave.
• 5 to 7 p.m. March 31, Camas High School, 26900 S.E. 15th St.
• 5 to 7 p.m. April 1, Stevenson High School, 390 N.W. Gropper Road, Stevenson.
• 5 to 7 p.m. April 2, Clark College, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way.
To register, contact Carolyn Long at ipd@wsu.edu or visit www.500Kvoices.org. A final summary of forum results will be written and made available to the public after all six forums have been held, Long said.
