Photo: Amelia Templeton/Oregon Public Broadcasting
The Granny Pods of Portland, Oregon, aren’t just for grannies. This woman and her family live in one — technically an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) — in their landlord’s backyard. Last year, Portland issued building permits for roughly one ADU a day, easing a housing crunch.
When I was a child, I used to hear a lot about zoning from my politically oriented mother — large lots were good, allowing residential uses in commercial or industrial areas was bad. Times change. Some industrial areas are clean; mixed-use development improves community vitality; higher density in cities is good for keeping rents affordable.
Amelia Templeton reports for National Public Radio about recent initiatives in Oregon.
“Earlier this year, Michelle Labra got a notice that the rent on her family’s two-bedroom apartment was doubling, from around $620 a month to more than $1,300. She worried she was being priced out of Portland and would have to move to the suburbs.
“But Labra, her husband and their two children didn’t get pushed out of Cully, their North Portland neighborhood. They were able to stay by moving into a little house, 800 square feet, built in a neighbor’s backyard. It’s a type of housing city planners refer to as an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, often called a granny flat or granny pod. …
“With a lot of cities looking for solutions to rising housing prices, the idea of making it easier for homeowners to add small second units in their backyards and garages is gaining traction. Portland has among the fastest rising rents in the country, and it has embraced the ADU as a low cost way to create more housing in desirable neighborhoods. …
“Talking about the sudden rent increase [at her old home] brings Labra to tears. She was close to the other families in the apartment complex, and so were her children …
“The [apartment complex] was on the main street in Cully, a neighborhood on the northern edge of Portland with mobile home parks, ranch houses and small apartments built in the 1960s and 1970s.
“It’s also, according 2010 census data, one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Oregon. Close to half of the people who live there are people of color.
“The residents of the Normandy started working with a community group called Living Cully and staged a protest against the rent increase. Hundreds of people marched in the streets back in February. …
“In an effort to arrest the gentrification of the neighborhood, Living Cully helped about half the families relocate to new homes in Cully. …
“Eli Spevak, a developer with the company Orange Splot, which builds smaller homes including ADUs … [says] Portland’s zoning code is contributing to its housing problems.
“On much of the city’s land, the code limits how many units you can build on a lot, so developers build the biggest house possible, to turn the most profit. There is an exception for ADUs as long as they meet certain criteria. …
” ‘The good thing about it from my perspective is they allow a neighborhood to have people with a wide range of incomes living with each other.’ ”
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Well, that sounds good — but the article totally leaves out the root causes for why people are being forced out of their homes. How can we prevent landlords from raising rents. Their costs aren’t rising anywhere close to the rent increases. So let’s talk about housing as a right and about the city of Portland building affordable housing. Rent control — anyone remember that? We visited Portland’s Chinese Garden over the Thanksgiving break. As we were walking back to our car through a rather deserted part of town, we saw a hired security person waking up and shooing away the homeless folks harmlessly sleeping in the empty doorways. These were not businesses or even homes. My son confronted the “mall cop,” and, as he said, “Why make someone’s life even worse?”
Finally, I’m not surprised that NPR is painting a rosy picture here and not proposing any real, forward-thinking solutions, given that it now tends to shut out progressive views (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/3/1720659/-Not-Just-My-Imagination-NPR-Shuts-Out-Progressive-Views-on-the-GOP-Tax-Scam).
Please note, this is not a criticism of this blog post, or of Suzanne’s Mom, but of NPR and our housing system in general.
We definitely need a major focus on housing in this country, as Matthew Desmond and many others keep saying. I don’t think we’ll get it very soon unless everyone who needs housing votes.