美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Granny Pods' Help Keep Portland Affordable

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And now, how one family found a way to stay in their neighborhood, even after their rent doubled. They moved into someone's backyard. This is the latest from the NPR Cities Project.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I was a part of the community.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: You need to move out.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Fix up these properties.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: A wide range of incomes living with each other.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: I may not afford the rent.

GREENE: Portland, Ore., is ranked the fastest-gentrifying American city by Governing magazine. But the city is working on ways to keep at least some housing affordable¹. Amelia Templeton of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on one solution.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: No more landlord greed, housing for human need.

AMELIA TEMPLETON, BYLINE²: This was back in February outside an apartment complex in Portland - hundreds of people protesting a rent increase.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Cheering).

TEMPLETON: The Normandy was an aging complex of two-story yellow buildings with siding coming loose in places. It's on the main drag in Cully, a neighborhood of mobile home parks and ranch³ houses. About 20 families, most of them Hispanic, lived in the complex, including Michelle Labra's family.

MICHELLE LABRA: (Through interpreter) We are me, my husband and two kids - my son, who's 8 years old and my daughter, who's 5.

TEMPLETON: The new owner sent Labra a notice doubling her rent from around $620 a month to more than $1,300. Talking about it brings her to tears.

LABRA: (Through interpreter) My son, he said, I really don't want to leave this area. My friends are here. My school is here. And I realize it would be destabilizing to him.

TEMPLETON: The owner of the Normandy declined to comment for this story. But Labra and the other tenants⁴ did win a small concession⁵. The rent increase was delayed by several months. They still had to move out eventually. Community organizers helped about half the families find new homes in the neighborhood, including Michelle Labra and her kids.

DAPHNE LABRA: This is our yard.

TEMPLETON: You might be surprised where they ended up - a little house in somebody else's backyard, a cottage - 800 square feet.

LABRA: (Through interpreter) When we first came in and I saw this beautiful house, I was really amazed. My kids loved it. We've never had a place that's sort of new like this.

TEMPLETON: The Labra's new home is known as an accessory dwelling⁶ unit, or an ADU. They're becoming trendy in Portland.

ELI SPEVAK: We're coming up to the first accessory dwelling unit that I know of on this street.

TEMPLETON: To find out more about ADUs, I took a walk with Eli Spevak. He builds smaller homes, including ADUs.

SPEVAK: An accessory dwelling unit is a fully⁷ legal, independent structure that has its own front doors, own address and its own kitchen.

TEMPLETON: Spevak lives and works in Cully. In true Portland style, there is a flock of chickens right outside his office.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKENS SQUAWKING)

SPEVAK: I'm not the expert on the chickens.

TEMPLETON: Cully used to be a place you went to find cheap rent or cheap land. Then its big lots at the edge of the city started attracting urban farmer types. Now Spevak points out expensive new homes going up.

SPEVAK: So this is the house that was built as a spec development, and it sold for $720. That was an eye-opening change for this Cully neighborhood, where we realized many new people who want to live here might be able to afford to outbid anybody who lives here already.

TEMPLETON: Spevak says Portland's zoning code is contributing to its housing problems. On much of the city's land, it limits how many units you can build on a lot. So developers build the biggest house possible to turn the most profit. ADUs help sprinkle some smaller, lower-rent housing into single-family neighborhoods.

SPEVAK: They allow neighborhood to have people at a wide range of incomes living with each other.

TEMPLETON: Portland has some of the most permissive zoning for ADUs in the country. Almost any homeowner is allowed to add one. And the city has encouraged property owners to build them by exempting⁸ them from certain fees and parking requirements. That's led to a backyard construction boom in Portland. Last year, the city issued building permits for about one ADU a day.

SPEVAK: And the numbers seem to be climbing, still.

TEMPLETON: It's catching⁹ on in other places, too. Seattle, Austin, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco all recently made it easier to add a second unit, or granny flat.

DAPHNE: Look. This is my mom and dad bedroom.

TEMPLETON: Oh, it's really nice.

Back with the Labra family, the kids are settling in to their cottage. 5-year-old Daphne likes showing visitors around. There's a queen bed that her brother Jose likes to jump on.

JOSE LABRA: I'm going to do it right now. You do a flip¹⁰ in the air.

TEMPLETON: The rent here is still a stretch - $900 a month - more than half what the family earns. But Michelle Labra says it's worth it because her kids get to stay right here in Cully, and they didn't have to leave their school. In a backyard in Portland, I'm Amelia Templeton for the NPR Cities Project.

1 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 ranch   

n.大牧场，大农场

参考例句：

• He went to work on a ranch.他去一个大农场干活。
• The ranch is in the middle of a large plateau.该牧场位于一个辽阔高原的中部。

4 tenants   

n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者

参考例句：

• A number of tenants have been evicted for not paying the rent. 许多房客因不付房租被赶了出来。
• Tenants are jointly and severally liable for payment of the rent. 租金由承租人共同且分别承担。

5 concession   

n.让步，妥协；特许(权)

参考例句：

• We can not make heavy concession to the matter.我们在这个问题上不能过于让步。
• That is a great concession.这是很大的让步。

6 dwelling   

n.住宅，住所，寓所

参考例句：

• Those two men are dwelling with us.那两个人跟我们住在一起。
• He occupies a three-story dwelling place on the Park Street.他在派克街上有一幢3层楼的寓所。

7 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

8 exempting   

使免除[豁免]( exempt的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• EPA adopted regulations exempting discharges from agricultural activities, with certain exceptions for relatively major pollution sources. 环境保护局采用管制规章，禁止源自农业活动的各种排放，对于一些相关的大型污染源也有例外。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

9 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

10 flip   

vt.快速翻动；轻抛；轻拍；n.轻抛；adj.轻浮的

参考例句：

• I had a quick flip through the book and it looked very interesting.我很快翻阅了一下那本书，看来似乎很有趣。
• Let's flip a coin to see who pays the bill.咱们来抛硬币决定谁付钱。