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Affordable Housing

Rubin Vital and his family of nine were unable to find decent housing in the Portland area. Though Rubin worked as a welder and made a decent wage, he soon found himself and his family homeless. No one was willing to rent an apartment to his family because his family was too large and as he explains, no one wanted to rent to Mexican-Americans.

As the director of an affordable housing nonprofit, The Clackamas Community Land Trust, I worked with Rubin and his family to help them save money, qualify for a loan, and find and renovate a home. Rubin has successfully transitioned from homelessness to homeownership. “If it wasn’t for the Land Trust”, explained Rubin “my family and I would be out on the street.”

More recently, I worked with others to create Affordable Housing Now!, a coalition that secured millions of dollars for affordable housing that will serve seniors, working families with children, disabled, and many others that have been homeless. We brought our experience to help create the Housing Alliance at the state where we secured millions in new investment dollars to serve working people with low incomes.

Healthcare and housing should be affordable and we need a “healthy” Oregon Health Plan. Working families with children, seniors, disabled and others shouldn’t have to make choices between food, medicine or housing--yet they do every day in Oregon.

These are some of my highest priorities, but through my past and current community service work I have been involved with other important issues such as transportation, neighborhood livability, taxes, individual rights and much more. I have served on the boards of the Coalition for a Livable Future, Northwest Neighborhood Association, and Housing Development Center. I was also a co-founder of X-Pac an organization that was formed to involve the next generation in community service and politics.