Housing
100 State Street
Equinox
HOMES for rent
Portland has more than 18,000 rental units. Twelve hundred are owned by the Portland Housing Authority, which administers 2,000 Section 8 vouchers every month, some for their own buildings and some in others. In 2022, according to the Portland website, since 2010, more than 3,000 new units have been completed and more than 6,000 have been approved.
Most new units are market rate, but 686 are for renters with 0 to 80% of the area median income (AMI) and 126 at 80% to 120% of AMI. Many more are approved and under construction, like Equinox on Winter Street. But a trend to shrink the affordable units and build only studios and one-bedrooms, needs to be confronted — perhaps with a minimum square-foot requirement.
We need so many more livable places to live.
A Way to Buy
Lower income buyers can have a home and build some equity with low-equity cooperative housing. Maintaining covenants allows the units to be sold at lower prices in the future, beginning to build a pool of truly affordable housing units for the future.
