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Gov. Tina Kotek Laser Focused on Housing, Homelessness in First 60 days March 14, 2023 | The Oregonian G ov. Tina Kotek describes her first 60 days in office as an all-out dash to set her priorities in motion. A sprinter on her high school track team, Kotek Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson in the meetings at least once a month.
The governor’s early focus on housing and homelessness has the potential to shift how local governments and the state approach the two crises. Kotek’s new housing council met for the first time Friday to begin generating recommendations to boost home construction. Kotek has also directed local governments in regions with the largest increases in people living unsheltered to draft plans by March 17 for how they can collaborate to reduce homelessness. Those plans will be the basis for deploying money appropriated by the Legislature. “They have to explain how they’re going to reach outcomes, not only for keeping people housed” but also for connecting people with services and getting unsheltered people into homes, Kotek told The Oregonian/OregonLive. She is personally leading the multi-agency coordination group in the Portland metro area. n
said her administration probably needs to downshift to a sustainable pace soon “but it’s really important for people to see us working hard to set the foundation.” It’s clear two months in that Kotek is running hardest at the state’s twin crises of homelessness and a lack of affordable housing, problems that loomed large for voters last year and were top concerns for Kotek dating back to her years as state House speaker. Within 24 hours of taking office, Kotek issued a trio of executive orders that set an ambitious statewide goal of building 36,000 housing units a year, declaring a homelessness state of emergency in parts of the state with the largest increases in unsheltered homelessness and directing all state agencies to focus their resources on finding ways to reduce the number of people living on the streets. She has also met biweekly with Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler since before taking office and has included
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The Business Review | March 2023
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