HAS IT BEEN 50 YEARS? PortlandSEE LIFE, B1 Tribune THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014 • TWICE CHOSEN THE NATION’S BEST NONDAILY PAPER • WWW.PORTLANDTRIBUNE.COM • PUBLISHED THURSDDAYAY Auditors to TriMet: Fix labor relations Health care costs are problem: unfunded employ- to the audit, which was released 2004. Over the last 10 years, the ee health care costs and Wednesday by the Oregon sec- percentage of track mainte- biggest issue as state pensions. retary of state’s offi ce. nance completed on time has “The most serious and loom- Among other major fi ndings, dropped from about 92 percent digs into transit agency ing concerns are the health ben- the audit reported that on-time to about 53 percent, and on-time A state audit efi t costs of employees, and the maintenance of the MAX light- signals maintenance declined confi rms By JIM REDDEN $852 million unfunded liability rail system has slipped in recent from about 100 percent to about TriMet’s The Tribune to pay these benefi ts for current years. Although other mainte- 72 percent.” employee and future retirees, as well as nance tasks have only fallen The audit also faulted TriMet benefi t An unprecedented state their benefi ciaries. TriMet also slightly, the audit found, “On- management for not communi- problems but performance audit of TriMet needs to fund an additional $274 time completion of preventive cating better with the union says rail agrees with the regional million liability to pay retirees maintenance for tracks and sig- representing most of its employ- maintenance is transit agency about a in its defi ned benefi t plans, now nals appears to have decreased lagging, too. major source of its fi nancial closed to new hires,” according signifi cantly since (fi scal year) See TRIMET / Page 8 TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO DOORS SLAMMED SHUT Benson Randy went from opens its a six-fi gure salary TO ROSE CITY HOMELESS to unemployed and living at the entry just Portland Rescue Mission the last seven weeks. Increasingly, a crack Portland’s homeless are working people caught in a bind. PPS lets more ninth and 10th graders in, changes lottery rule By JENNIFER ANDERSON The Tribune Three years after limiting Benson Polytechnic High School’s enrollment to 850, Portland Public Schools will lift — but not remove — the cap “I believe this year. Board this is a member Tom formula for Koehler, a vo- planned cal advocate for Benson mediocrity.” as PPS’ ca- — Tom Koehler, reer-techni- PPS board member cal education hub, says the action is a start but doesn’t go far enough. “If we want Benson to be one ■ of the best CTE schools in the Ten-year plan to end homelessness is stuck without low-rent housing nation, we are not going to get there by capping enrollment,” t the depths of the Great able in the face of the unexpected. he says. Recession a few years ago, Story by Peter Korn • Photos by Jaime Valdez Rhonda is 28, married with a Koehler asked for a timeline nonprofi t homeless agency 2-year-old daughter. For most of her and plan, including the optimal AHuman Solutions was get- adult life she has had a job, mainly in enrollment for a robust Benson, ting 200 to 300 calls a month from tions. About half the adults Human homeless people looked like, she the service industry. Most of the jobs which has 821 students. desperate families about to be evict- Solutions shelters on any night De- would have said older men “looking paid $8 to $12 an hour. On Monday, the School Board ed from their homes, unless some- Master classifies as for their next beer” or Rhonda works for a debt collection approved a resolution that one could help pay their rent. This people who never ex- street kids. agency. Her take-home pay is about would admit 40 more freshmen winter, the agency is getting 1,000 pected to be homeless TribSeries Rhonda and her fam- $400 a week, or $1,600 a month. Her and sophomores, as well as pi- calls a month, and only has enough — people like Rhonda. ily, like others in the husband cares for their daughter at lot a new “regional balancing money to help 40 of those 1,000. Rhonda (not her real FIRST OF TWO STORIES Portland area, are the home. tool” to guide Benson’s enroll- In addition, calls for family shelter name) has a hard time new working poor, The cheapest apartments Rhonda ment process rather than the have grown to unprecedented num- thinking of herself as the face of earning just enough to get by, but and her husband have been able to random lottery now in place. bers this year, says Jean DeMaster, homelessness in Portland. If you had saddled by steep rents in a region executive director of Human Solu- asked her a few years ago what that lacks low-rent housing, vulner- See HOMELESS / Page 2 See BENSON / Page 9 More tourists put Portland at top of travel plans Now lines of customers form tinued its slow-motion recovery where most visitors stay. Propri- City’s culture, food, outside Voodoo Doughnut act. All those tourists helped etary hotel industry data com- Annemarie around the clock, and tourists make downtown feel more vi- piled by Smith Travel Research Slaven and ‘feel’ draw record carrying pink boxes of dough- brant, and pump more money shows Portland’s central city David Riott nuts are a common airport sight- into the economy. broke records in 2013 for number munch on visitors in 2013 ing. Voodoo’s two funky shops “No question about it, it was a of overnight guests, occupancy Voodoo are among Portland attractions gangbuster year,” says David level, average room prices and Doughnuts By STEVE LAW that lured a record number of Schargel, founder of Portland total rental income. after waiting The Tribune tourists here last year — shatter- Walking Tours. His business was “It will be the highest occu- in line on ing prior levels. up 20 percent, enabling him to pancy we’ve seen in the central a chilly day Tres Shannon never set out The record number of tourists operate tours year-round for the city since 1999,” when such data to visit the to create a tourist attraction in Portland are all the more im- fi rst time. was first made available, says popular shop. when he opened his quirky pressive considering 2013 was a Industry experts say the best Brian McCartin, Travel Portland doughnut shop in a seedy part lukewarm year for conventions gauge of tourism comes from ho- TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ of downtown 11 years ago. here, and the local economy con- tel business in the central city, See TOURISM / Page 5 “Pamplin Media Group’s pledge is to Portland Tribune deliver balanced news that refl ects the HAWKS HAVE A PLAN stories of our communities. Thank you Inside — SEE SPORTS, PAGE B8 for reading our newspapers.” — DR. ROBERT B. PAMPLIN JR. OWNER & NEIGHBOR ...YOUR RIDE BEGINS HERE. FEBRUARY 463547.012914 6 - 9, 2014 OREGON CONVENTION CENTER portlandautoshow.com A2 NEWS The Portland Tribune Thursday, January 30, 2014 Homeless: Some offer vouchers as solution ■ ernment incentives involved in ally 10 percent of the total cost From page 1 getting low-income housing of the project. A $50 million built ensure that the housing public housing project will in- fi nd are $700 or $800 a month, will cost more and fewer units clude $5 million for the agency. about half her monthly salary. will be constructed. Govern- That 10 percent fee, Justus Their last Portland apartment ment funding comes with too says, encourages developers to — which they realize was too many strings attached, say Ol- build bigger, more expensive much of a reach on Rhonda’s sen and others, from require- public housing rather than income — had two bedrooms ments that buildings be built work effi ciently to save money and rented for $915 a month. green to extra regulations that for future housing projects. After paying their medical force developers to pay exorbi- Justus says he has seen the bills, the couple had little left tant amounts to attorneys and corrupting infl uence of the de- for food and none for an emer- accountants just to make sure veloper’s fee fi rst-hand. gency. When their apartment they meet all the requirements. “I’ve got executive directors became infested with insects, Another piece of the puzzle, (of nonprofi t agencies) in town they left to temporarily live Olsen says, is that most money saying, ‘I’ve got to get my proj- with family in California. to build low-income housing ect up to $12 million because That led to Rhonda going comes from the federal govern- I need $1.2 million to run my two and a half months without ment through local nonprofi t organization,’ ” Justus says. work. It also meant that when agencies that don’t feel the “Why we do what we do has she, her husband and daughter pressure of efficiency that been compromised.” returned to Portland, they might result in more units per Human Solutions’ DeMaster were homeless. Last week, the dollar. In the private sector, Ol- says she would never take three of them were lucky to get sen says, if an owner of rental more public money just to into Human Solutions’ family housing can fi gure out how to raise the cost of a project and shelter in Northeast Portland, provide equally good housing TRIBUNE PHOTO: JAIME VALDEZ get a larger fee. “We bring the which Rhonda must leave at less expensively, he makes “The majority of my income is going to go toward a place to live,” Randy says about his soon to be job and project down to as little as pos- 4:30 every morning to get to her more money.