 Councilor Green and Ground Score Association at their gallery event in Old Town
Dear Portland,
Last week I was made aware of the mind-blowing fact that the Portland Housing Bureau is currently sitting on upwards of $106 million in unspent funds.
This is money intended to create and preserve affordable housing, to prevent homelessness, and to provide stability for our most vulnerable neighbors. The fact that it has been sitting idle, hidden from public view and even from the City Council itself while we debate cuts to beloved programs, and while more Portlanders fall into homelessness every single day is frankly shocking. This profound failure of transparency and accountability highlights deep, systemic problems within our city's administration.
One of the roles the City Council is tasked with in our new charter is to perform oversight to ensure that City policies are carried out effectively and efficiently. And that’s exactly what I intend to do.
When the initial $20 million was discovered late last year, I immediately pushed for a Council investigation to find out how this happened and who knew about it. At that time, I needed eight colleagues to vote for oversight. I did not receive that support. Last week, on February 4th, after more funds were reported (but before the staggering total was known) I brought my oversight resolution back before the council. Despite continued opposition, we finally passed it.
Formal oversight is not about blaming individuals, or even bureaus. It’s about transparency. If we’re going to fix what is a clearly broken system, we need to see where things have gone wrong in the past. And if we want to begin to repair the loss of public trust that this episode has surely engendered, we need to do this work in public.
For too long, under the old form of government, bureaus operated in silos with little coordination or public accountability. This $106 million is a relic of that system. My resolution mandates the release of all related public records and will trigger the first formal oversight hearing under our new charter. Portlanders deserve answers.
But we also need action, and we need it with the urgency this crisis demands. It is scandalous that this money has been withheld while the human cost of our housing crisis mounts. The real issue here is that we are not getting resources into the hands of those who need them most, nearly fast enough.
That is why I’m also pushing to move swiftly to disburse the initial $21 million for critical, life-saving interventions like eviction protection and legal services, emergency rental assistance, and most of all, rent buy-downs for existing affordable housing.
Rent buy-downs are the most cost-effective, immediate, and long-lasting tool we have right now. Here’s how they work: non-profit affordable housing providers carry high debt, which forces them to charge rents near market rates. For about $60,000 per unit (a fraction of the $600,000+ it costs to build one new unit) the City can buy down that debt, with a mandated, permanent reduction in rent for the tenants. We can lower rents on these units by around 18% immediately, keeping hundreds of families housed now and for years to come. This is a direct investment in people, not a subsidy to for-profit landlords. This method also helps address the shocking vacancy problem in some affordable buildings, where units sit empty because the rent is set too high for the people who need them most.
This moment must be a turning point. This Council must move quickly to get these funds out the door. We must begin to restore public trust through oversight and reforms that will surely follow. Because only then will we be able to begin the vital work of transforming our housing system from one that treats homes as speculative commodities into one that guarantees housing as a human right. We need a model that builds housing for people, not portfolios. That model is called Social Housing. It’s high-quality, permanently affordable housing at all ages, wages, and stages of life, that would serve most people and families in Portland. It’s a heavy lift, and it’s time to get started.
In solidarity,
Mitch Green
 Dear Portland housing exhibit sign at Stelo Gallery in the Pearl District
 Visual data on Portland's housing shortage at the Dear Portland Exhibit
Oversight: Our oversight hearing on the unspent funds will be scheduled for March. More details on how to participate coming soon.
ICE Facility and Protest Actions: We've collected testimonies and evidence from those impacted by ICE violence. If you were harmed on Saturday or have other incidents to report, please contact our office at councilor.green@portlandoregon.gov. All submissions become part of public record. Most importantly, several organizations want to build the case against federal overreach and violence, and they want to hear from you so they can help. Report concerns related to federal actions to the Oregon Department of Justice and Attorney General Dan Rayfield. Use ACLU of Oregon Complaint Form to report constitutional violations. Send pictures, video, and a written account of what happened at the Macadam Facility on Saturday, January 31 (and all other dates and instances) to the National Lawyer's Guild in Portland: pdxlegalobserver@nlg.org.
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 Councilor Green as a guest lecturer at Lewis and Clark College
Portland Mercury: Update: Portland Housing Bureau's Unspent Funds Reach $106 Million (February 6, 2026) Councilor Mitch Green filed the resolution December 16, 2025, urging the Council to use its investigative authority to learn how nearly $21 million in funds went unspent. The investigation will attempt to answer questions about who was aware of the funds and when, and why the Council was not informed of the funds until the day after it concluded a November budget process to address an $18 million shortfall.
Reed College Quest: DHS Response to Portland Protests Sparks Community Condemnation (February 6, 2026) Councilor Mitch Green, one of the city council members representing the fourth district, which includes the area of the city where the ICE facility is located, was in attendance along with several members of his staff. Maria Sipin, Chief of Staff, estimated that “the gas easily reached 500 ft. in each direction, which affected air quality and safety for blocks around the ICE facility.” Councilor Green was noticeably affected by the gas, according to Caddy. His office provided the Quest the following statement from the councilor: “Yesterday, our city was attacked. Federal agents deployed chemical weapons against peaceful protesters, including families with children. This was not law enforcement. It was an act of intimidation, and it is inexcusable.
Willamette Week: Robotaxi Company Waymo Is Eyeing Portland, PBOT Director Says (January 31, 2026) Councilor Mitch Green tells WW in a statement that he looks forward to “learning more about how PBOT intends to regulate this, with the expectation that we do not issue any permits without a rigorous analysis of the impacts they may have on our communities. I’ll add that until we’ve done right by our ridershare drivers, who’ve been asking for a resource center, it would be a huge slap in the face to enable another way to hurt their livelihoods.”
BikePortland: A showdown looms over robotaxis on Portland streets (February 5, 2026) “I oppose this bill’s effort to preempt our ability to locally regulate autonomous vehicles. It’s particularly appalling that the Oregon State Legislature would even consider introducing new factors that contribute to VMT, congestion and potential road safety issues after their catastrophic failure to deliver a transportation bill, which has undermined the viability of our transit agencies and the ability for municipalities to deliver basic, routine upkeep of our transportation assets.”
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