The Portland City Council has again delayed a vote and continued a months-long debate on how to spend unspent housing funds.
City officials first disclosed that the Portland Housing Bureau was sitting on $21 million of unbudgeted dollars in November.
That money was generated by a fee that landlords must pay to register new rentals, and is meant to be spent on programs that support renters. Shortly after that discovery, the three council members pitched a plan to spend that new cache of money on rent assistance, legal defense for people faced with an eviction, and other tenant-support programs.
The plan was delayed by the winter break and further complicated by news in early February that the city administrator’s office had found an additional $85 million in unallocated dollars in the housing bureau.
This money came from different housing revenue streams that had accumulated over the years, and were intended to grow until the money was needed to pay for large projects. But the housing bureau had never noted these accruing dollars in its annual budget.
Unlike the $21 million first identified, the $85 million is made up of a number of funds that all have different rules on how they can be spent. The most recent vote centered on how to spend the initial $21 million in housing dollars; but with the new information on the $85 million, the council was not ready to vote.
“Every time we have met so far, the number of dollars being identified has grown,” said Council President Jamie Dunphy, one of three District 1 councilors who introduced the initial funding package in December, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting. “While finding money is a better problem than the alternative, this is certainly still a problem. I do not feel like this body is ready to make a decision of this magnitude.”
