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The Portland City Council approved a spending plan for $114 million in CARES Act funding on Wednesday. Just over $100 million will be allocated for community programs, household assistance, and aid for other Multnomah County cities. In comparison, nearly $13 million in federal funds and around $6 million in additional funds will go toward the city’s pandemic response efforts. $15 million will be allocated for rent assistance, though it is unclear whether that will be direct relief to families or whether it will be administered through a specific city program. An additional $15 million will be immediate cash assistance in the form of gift cards. The Joint Office of Homeless Services will receive $16.5 million, and businesses will get $12 million in direct grants. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was the only city council member to vote against the plan – she argues that more aid should be given directly to Portland residents, rather than businesses or city programs. Multnomah County’s 5 cities outside of Portland will receive a total of $5 million for public health expenses. The CARES Act directed the majority of regional funding to the City of Portland, despite Multnomah County spearheading coronavirus response efforts. All local CARES act funding must be spent by December 30th of this year.
The Portland Tribune reports that Oregonians who are stuck waiting for unemployment benefits could lose out on backpay if their applications are not processed by July 25th. The extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits is scheduled to expire on July 24th. Still, several Oregonians have not received that money due to the state’s outdated computer system and a backlog of unemployment claims. Oregon Employment Department Acting Director David Gerstenfeld urges Congress to act immediately by extending the program. In states across the country, unemployment remains high, and hiring is not expected to pick up substantially in the near term. Unemployed residents have been using the enhanced benefits to pay for essentials like rent, childcare, and groceries. Republicans in the US Senate have rejected a plan passed by the House of Representatives for another round of assistance for struggling families and businesses. A handful of Republicans are considering a short-term extension of the program while the House of Representatives works on a new relief package. Still, Senator Ron Wyden cautions that they have rejected similar plans in the past. He had previously proposed a plan that would tie increased unemployment assistance to economic conditions. Senator Wyden is now offering a program that would provide $500 million in funding for states to upgrade their unemployment claim systems.
Public interest advocacy group OSPIRG released a report urging several counties in Oregon to tighten restrictions to contain the spread of COVID-19. They created a color-coded system based on containment benchmarks to categorize Oregon’s counties. Green counties are areas where at least two containment benchmarks are being reached, yellow counties should maintain current restrictions, and red and failing counties should be locked down for at least 2 weeks. Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties all fall into the report’s yellow category. Most coastal counties and some Southern Oregon counties are green. Sherman, Morrow, Umatilla, Malheur, and Josephine counties are failing, while Marion, Jefferson, and Wasco counties are in OSPIRG’s red category. Counties that are failing have a positive test rate of over 15%, and over 50% of cases cannot be tracked to a known source of infection. While most counties in the state meet benchmarks one and two – containment and testing – the state fares extremely poorly on contact tracing metrics. Even in counties that fall into the green category for low rates of positive tests and few infections, the percentages of untraced cases are incredibly high. In Curry County, 100% of cases are untraced, while in Benton County, 83% are. The group urges the state government to define clear benchmarks that, if not met, would require additional containment measures, and advocates that bars and indoor dining rooms be closed. OSPIRG also argues that all indoor gatherings should be treated the same – there should not be exemptions to size limits based on the type of gathering.
As counties across Oregon see their unemployment rates drop, many counties still have rates above national and state averages. Nationwide, unemployment claims are starting to creep up after 15 consecutive weeks of declines. In the week ending July 18th, 1.4 million new unemployment claims were filed in the US. The CBO expects the unemployment rate to peak at around 14% in the third quarter of this year. On June 16th of Oregon’s 36 counties saw at least a 3 percentage point drop in unemployment rates, but included on that list are counties where the rate remains stubbornly high. Clatsop County’s unemployment rate dropped by 8%, but it still has the second-highest unemployment rate in the state at 15.2%. Like the national rate, Oregon’s unemployment rate is expected to go up this quarter. Recent layoff announcements portend this unwelcome trend. Nike announced that going forward, the company will be “nimbler” and “flatter.” While the company has not announced how many jobs it will eliminate in pursuit of this goal, it did say the company will experience a “net loss” in employment. Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy announced that it is laying off 11% of its global workforce – a total of about 150 jobs. Unlike Nike, it directly attributes the layoffs to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent announcements position the companies Microsoft and Stratacache as potential bright spots for state employment. Microsoft is reportedly looking for at least 50,000 square feet of space in the Portland area. Sources say the company has expressed interest in an 85,000 square foot space in Beaverton as well as offices in the US Bancorp Tower in Downtown Portland. Also, Ohio-based Stratacache plans to hire several hundred workers to re-open the shuttered Hynix factory in Eugene, where it plans to build video display technology, including MicroLEDs.
- Oregon Public Broadcasting – Oregon Counties See Unemployment Rates Drop, but many Still above National and State Rates
- Politico – New Unemployment Claims Rose Last Week to 1.4M, Ending Months of Decline
- Portland Tribune – Nike “Building a Flatter, Nimbler Company,” Confirms Layoffs
- The Oregonian – Wieden+Kennedy Lays off 150, Blames Coronavirus
- The Portland Business Journal – Exclusive: Microsoft on Portland-area Hunt for 50,000 Square Feet
- The Oregonian – Ohio Company Plans to Hire “Several Hundred” to Restart Hynix’s Shuttered Eugene Factory
The Portland Tribune reports that people fleeing the effects of climate change in Micronesia are increasingly choosing to settle in Oregon. The Federated States of Micronesia is an archipelago of over 600 low-lying islands in the Western Pacific, and many of these islands are rapidly losing land mass due to rising oceans. According to the CIA World Factbook, Micronesia is expected to have the 4th highest rate of net emigration per capita in 2020. And according to the UN, Micronesia is the tip of the iceberg – by 2050, the international body believes there could be 200 million climate refugees worldwide. Currently, Hawaii and Oregon are the two most popular destinations for people from Micronesia seeking to settle in the US. Dexter Moluputo, who grew up in Micronesia and now lives in an apartment in Salem, believes that Micronesians are moving to Oregon because a handful of elders who attended Eastern Oregon University told their community positive stories about the Pacific Northwest. But Micronesian immigrants to Oregon have had to adjust to different cultural norms – for instance, some have been told by apartment managers that they are not allowed to leave their shoes in the hallway outside of their doors. Oregon’s Micronesian community is also working to preserve traditions while living farther from the ocean, and sharing cultural practices with their new neighbors. Last Summer, health worker Sandi Wells of the non-profit Micronesian Islander Community taught a group of people at the Oregon Food Bank how to grow water spinach.
The Oregonian reports that retailers around the state are worried that a second round of shutdowns due to rising coronavirus rates could shutter their businesses for good. Terry Currier, who owns the iconic Music Millennium store in Portland, found that the market was surprisingly strong when he opened the store up on June 1st. Despite restrictions on the number of patrons in the store and the shift to curbside pickup, his store’s sales were down just 4% year over year. But a recent spike in cases has hurt his business – he expects July sales to be down by up to 20%. According to Sandra McDonough, CEO of Oregon Business and Industry, companies that were able to get PPP loans are once again strapped for cash, and it is unclear whether there will be a second round of federal assistance. Emily Powell, CEO of Powell’s Books, says her company is even seeing a decline in online ordering. She has heard from other bookstores that customer foot traffic is down, and she is unsure what her industry can do to stay afloat. Some businesses are banding together to find creative solutions. The NW Business Association held a successful sidewalk sale to attract cautious shoppers earlier this month, and the Hawthorne Boulevard Business Association plans to move its annual street fair online. But these efforts are unlikely to keep many small businesses open in the long term. In Downtown Portland, companies rely on foot traffic from people who work in the area – now many of those people are working from home. Business owners are willing to fight to keep from closing, but without help, the second round of shutdowns could be devastating.
As the coronavirus pandemic continues, homeless camps in Portland are expanding. The CDC issued guidance earlier this year, ordering cities to refrain from sweeping or dismantling homeless camps. Public health experts need to be able to reach people who may have come into contact with someone who tested positive, and they feared the chaos and dispersal caused by sweeps of these camps would hamper contact tracing efforts. Encampments in Downtown Portland, Laurelhurst Park, Old Town, and other parts of the city have grown over the last few months. But sanitation facilities have been mostly absent – in Laurelhurst park, there is one portable toilet and one handwashing station for the people residing in roughly 50 tents. Laurelhurst neighborhood resident Mary Ann Schwab blames the camp’s presence in the park on the city’s inability to provide affordable housing to those who need it most. The town now oversees three organized camps in the Central City, which serve up to 120 homeless residents. But the city has also recently executed a sweep of an encampment in Lownsdale and Chapman squares, near where protests have been taking place, and Heather Hafer of the city’s Office of Management and Finance announced that the city will begin performing more sweeps later this summer. Experts believe that as pandemic-related closures continue and local and federal assistance programs and eviction moratoriums expire, the number of people on the streets could increase substantially. It is less clear where these new homeless residents will be able to go.
Finally, CityLab reports that the city of Barcelona, Spain, is warning landlords that they must immediately fill units that have been sitting vacant. The city identified 14 investment companies that own a total of 194 vacant units in the city and warned that if those units are not filled within the next month, the city will seize them and turn the units into public housing for low-income tenants. Also, the owners would be fined between 90,000 and 900,000 Euros. The Catalonia region of Spain, where Barcelona is located, passed a law in 2016, allowing cities to seize properties that have remained vacant for over two years. These seizures were not intended to be permanent; however – under the 2016 law, municipalities could only rent the units to low-income tenants for between 4 and 10 years. The groups then had to be returned to the owner. But a new law passed in 2019 allows the city of Barcelona to acquire units through compulsory purchase at 50% of market value. Barcelona has been working to discourage property owners from leaving groups vacant since the last recession, and the city has been working to find ways to encourage property owners to fill these vacancies. Housing Commissioner Lucia Martin argues that the city does not actually want to acquire these units – it would rather see the landlords make an effort to find tenants. The notices sent to the 14 property owners were intended as an ultimatum, and officials expect them to fill the units promptly. The city has identified an additional 232 empty groups that it plans to target in the future.
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