More police, police funding and anti-homeless ordinance enforcement; declaring homelessness a state of emergency; recriminalizing drugs; more permanent housing; lower taxes and fewer regulations on developers; and investing in addiction and mental health services. These are the core tenets of Republican Governor hopeful Christine Drazan’s plans to “address the crisis in our streets” and “restore community safety and the rule of law.”
Save for a few exceptions, Drazan’s platform to address housing and homelessness embodies the pro-business, rugged-individualism law-and-order principles part and parcel for Republican politicians.
Drazan was first sowrn in to represent Oregon’s 39th district in 2019. By the end of her first year in office, Drazan became the Minority Leader of the Oregon House. She won reelection in 2020 before resigning in January to pursue her bid for governor.
Notably, Drazan said between permanent housing, transitional housing and emergency shelter, the state should prioritize investment in permanent housing — a rare departure for the lifelong Republican from standard conservative stances which typically oppose investment in social services.
Drazan supports prioritizing permanent housing because she feels it creates more long-term stability.
“Permanent (housing) is probably the portion of that that the state has the more substantial role in,” Drazan said, noting the availability of federal resources for permanent housing. “The other two (emergency shelters and transitional housing) … the lion’s share of that is, from my perspective, appropriately born on the charitable or nonprofit side with the state playing a secondary role.”
Drazan said she supports “continuing existing programs” that provide assistance to renters and homeowners, but stopped short of advocating for expanded rental vouchers.
“We can’t abandon any of the tools that are currently available to ensure that people can remain in their home and have access to housing,” Drazan said.
And for those already priced out of the rental market in their area, particularly in Portland’s urban center, Drazan places the responsibility almost entirely on the individual.
“The people that are priced out of the rental market, what we find is that that is, in most cases, it's a matter of choices,” Drazan said. “You don't have to live in downtown Portland. If your job doesn't allow you and accommodate your ability to live in a high-rent region, there are other options across the entire metro area.”
The average rent increased by 40% in Portland last year, according to Redfin, but Drazan doesn’t see profiteering or price gouging in Oregon’s tight rental market as the cause. Instead, Drazan said taxes and regulation create undue burden on landlords, who then pass that burden along to renters.
“The role that the government has played has been one that has increased taxes, and increased regulations and all of that drives business costs, which are felt by consumers,” Drazan said. “We have got to look at our housing affordability challenges and do our own part as well, to do what we can to lower costs.”
Fervently opposed to imposing income-based or market-based rent caps, Drazan said the government’s role is to incentivize and create jobs in areas with less-expensive housing, despite minimum wage only being considered a “housing wage” for one-bedroom apartments in Harney County and Wheeler County, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which ranks Oregon as the 11th-most expensive state for rental housing.
“The challenge that we have as policymakers then becomes, ‘Okay, so do we have jobs in all of those areas where housing is more affordable?’ Is there economic activity that people can live out there and not be commuting across the metro area? Everything's connected, everything's interconnected,” Drazan said before returning to the theme of personal choices for renters. “But, I can't afford to live in the Pearl District. So for people that are living in parts of the city that are known to be high rent, very excessive, whether or not that, you know, that's a historic neighborhood or one of the newer developed areas. That’s a choice that they’re making to live in that community.”
Drazan’s philosophy on personal choices as they relate to economic hardship and unstable housing extends to that of homeless Oregonians, though she sees the issue of homelessness as interconnected with drug addiction, specifically pointing out Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs. Measure 110 passed with over 58% of the vote — a margin of nearly 386,000 voters — in the 2020 election.
“I have had the opportunity to talk with folks in homeless encampments and be present with law enforcement as they have visited with folks that are homeless,” Drazan said. “And the experiences that people shared with me had an awful lot to do with navigating addiction. And many of the people I talked to weren’t ready to go into treatment. And told me that living on the street was their choice.”
Drazan acknowledged people end up on the streets for a variety of reasons, but made it clear she believes addiction, Measure 110 and people choosing to be homeless were significant, if not the main causes of homelessness.
“But, central to everything for me is we can’t have legalized hard drugs,” Drazan said. “It doesn’t support folks. And we can't continue to allow people to choose to remain to actually choose the life, a preferred life, to live outside in public spaces that were not intended for that. We’ve got to have an approach to homelessness where the goal is that it is rare and temporary, not permanent. And we haven’t taken on that mindset yet.”
In addition to calling to reinstate criminal penalties for “hard drug” possession, Drazan wants to ensure “local camping ordinances” are enforced. Drazan argued her proposal doesn’t mean taking a criminal justice approach to homelessness, despite police ostensibly being responsible for this enforcement, because most citations are not criminal offenses.
Both the United Nations and U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration say drug abuse skyrocketed in early 2020 at the start of the pandemic — Measure 110 didn’t go into effect until 2021. Yet, Drazan conflates Measure 110 with increased rates of addiction and overdose, and she’s made repealing Measure 110 as a means for addressing addiction a central part of her platform, in addition to more funding for addiction treatment.
“I actually believe that the passage of Measure 110 sends a message about Oregon that is not what we want long term,” Drazan said. “That possession of hard drugs here, that this is the place to come to, for that reason. And that's not healthy long-term for our state, and that's the wrong message to send.”
Drazan acknowledged that no evidence suggests people who use drugs are moving to Oregon as a result of Measure 110. She did note the state needs to gather more information on the demographics of drug users and those who die of overdoses.
Drazan’s platform also references the “defunding” of Portland police, despite PPB currently having a record $249 million budget, and calls for “fully funding” state police. PPB’s budget was temporarily reduced by less than 5% in 2020, as Street Roots reported in August, but was never defunded in any substantial way. When asked about this inconsistency, Drazan refocused her criticism on City Council shuttering PPB's Gun Violence Reduction Team, which was shut down the year after 50% of its stops targeted Black Portlanders, despite Black people making up less than 6% of the city’s population.
“Because it's not whether or not it was reduced by 3% or 5% — it's what programs they axed,” Drazan said. “And they axed the programs that were engaged in communities, that were preventing violence by community policing and relationships in those communities. And when those programs are taken away, law enforcement has indicated that they're back, starting over, engaging with those communities and trying to do everything that they can to keep people safe in those communities.”
She bristled at the notion that her platform included partisan talking points at odds with facts, saying she was using the language of activists who (unsuccessfully) called for the city to defund PPB. And, despite the City Budget Office evidence provided during the interview, insisted the city did defund PPB.
“It did actually happen,” Drazan said, later referencing a 2020 article detailing the initial budget reductions published by The Oregonian. “It did actually happen.”
Drazan’s interview with Street Roots ended when she said her phone was breaking up after Street Roots asked why, despite current record funding for PPB, more money was the solution for increased crime rates. At the time of publishing, Drazan’s campaign did not respond to a follow-up email asking the same question after the interview.
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
© 2022 Street Roots. All rights reserved. | To request permission to reuse content, email editor@streetroots.org or call 503-228-5657, ext. 404