Housing Oregon’s advocacy helped secure an additional $15 million for carbon-reducing measures in affordable housing as part of the City of Portland’s Clean Energy Community Benefit Fund (PCEF) Climate Investment Plan approved by City Council at their March 11, 2026 meeting.
This increased PCEF funding for affordable housing to $78,7000,000 over the next five years and will support an estimated 580 additional high performance housing units. The goal is to ensure buildings are built and operated in a way that reduces carbon emissions, reduces operating costs, and improves resilience and health for tenants particularly for low-income residents and BIPOC households who are disproportionately impacted by climate change.
Housing Oregon has been advocating to support this proposal since November 2025 when the PCEF Committee first recommended an amendment to the Plan to increase funding for affordable housing. We also urged members to testify as Council’s Climate, Resilience and Land Use committee considered the proposal in January 2026.
At that time, the committee’s two co-chairs, Councilor’s Steve Novick and Angelita Morillo, had advocated to reject the PCEF Committee’s amendment and instead shift the $15 million to transportation projects. Housing Oregon again testified at the February 25, 2026 City Council meeting to include the full $15M for housing.
When layered with federal, state, and local housing funds, PCEF dollars expand project scope and unlock climate-forward building strategies that would otherwise be unattainable. Without these PCEF funds, many of these projects may not achieve full financing and could be built only to minimum code standards, resulting in higher utility costs.