There may be ways to meet the People First Portland goals with fewer unintended side effects:

• State-level hazard pay would protect small businesses and nonprofits and the jobs and services they supply.

• Expanding rental assistance and first-time homebuyer programs would help keep Portland affordable and protect socioeconomic diversity.

• The establishment of a revolving loan fund to help low- and middle-income, minority and new Mainer homebuyers would have the added benefit of giving those of us who inherit assets a place to donate (after we pay off student loans, put a down payment on a house, save for a rainy day).

• Speculation and vacancy taxes targeting sellers who inflate prices and then wait until that one buyer with money to burn comes along would slow housing price inflation.

• A progressive property tax – with exemptions for “house poor” and lower- and fixed-income homeowners to defer paying the surtax until the property is sold – might also help.

• Pushing Congress to raise taxes on inheritance, capital gains and to eliminate the lucrative 20 percent pass-through included in the Republicans’ 2017 tax bill would stop real estate firms from gobbling up properties and wealthy families from accumulating real estate to create big endowments for their kids.

• A national green new deal would reduce pollution while protecting local development, jobs and tax revenues. Pushing for Portland to enforce existing anti-idling laws would also clean the air.

These measures are more ambitious and would require more organizing and policy advocacy, but they’d be more effective.

Lisa Morris
Portland