Heart Free Pham, Portland City Council, District 3

During the 2024 election, KATU News is helping you “get to know your candidates” with a series of interviews with people who will appear on your ballot.

We ask local candidates running for the same office the same questions so you can compare their answers.

The candidates interviewed on camera had about seven minutes to answer seven questions. Some candidates may have spent more time on some questions and therefore not answered them all on camera.

We also sent questionnaires to these candidates.

For some races we only sent questionnaires to the candidates.

If a candidate has submitted answers to the questionnaire, you will find them below.

Candidates’ answers have not been edited or fact-checked.

All candidates running for Portland City Council District 3:

For more interviews, visit the Know Your Candidates page.

Heart Free Pham

Who is Heart Pham?

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I grew up on NE 30th and Burnside from birth. I attended MLC (Metropolitan Learning Center) from kindergarten through 8th grade and then attended Benson Polytechnic for high school – my roots are firmly planted in the Rose City.

I studied biochemistry in college hoping to escape poverty and ended up saddled with debt. I did every job I could to keep the lights on just to give half my salary to a landlord. I’m a son and brother, but I can’t afford to start a family – I’m like you.

Why are you running for Portland City Council?

I’m running for three reasons: to stimulate discussion (prioritizing the most important issues that can actually impact Portlanders), to address the issues with empathy, practicality, and logic, and to prevent us from implementing costly, naive public policy, Wasting money does nothing to solve the problem. The only home I have ever known is Portland, OR, and I am exhausted watching our out-of-touch leadership implement ineffective policies at the expense and detriment of our communities. For me, enough is enough, and that’s why I run.

What are your qualifications?

I am one of the few candidates who was born and raised in the city. Our public school system taught me from 12th grade onwards and public transportation took me away from AB my entire life. I am the candidate who most fully embraces the spirit of Portland and is best suited to preserve the essence of our city simply because I am one of the few who were born and raised here. Additionally, I studied biochemistry in college and am guaranteed to be better at math than any other candidate in the field – a crucial quality for a city known for spending big and getting the worst results. We are the fifth-largest spender on education and 45th in outcomes. We are in the top percentile for mental health care spending and the bottom percentile for outcomes; Massachusetts spends half of our spending on mental health care and ranks 5th in outcomes. We have spent over $400 million on homelessness since 2017, and the situation has only gotten worse. Most recently, our teachers went on strike and the state auditor had to tell them that their demands were far beyond what the district could provide; The teachers union overestimated the $21 million that the district simply didn’t have. We need leaders who represent the community’s values, but who can also count.

What do you think is the most important task for members of the new Portland City Council?

Leaders have a responsibility to represent the voice of their constituents, but also to avoid bankrupting the city by pursuing costly public policies that don’t work. For example, many candidates support the “Housing First” approach to solving homelessness – which commits to housing an unsheltered person without conditions or supervision – which I do not support. They tried it in San Francisco with disastrous results. San Francisco spends the most on homelessness per capita than any city in the country, and its homelessness problem has only gotten worse. Our city’s $70 million budget deficit last year is another example of our need for responsible leadership that puts the needs of Portlanders above political ideology. We don’t have the luxury of doing more ineffective and costly things. It’s important for the new city council to listen and advocate for his constituents, but it’s just as important to avoid extreme policies that don’t work and bankrupt the city.

What is the most important issue in your district and what will you do to address it?

Housing and infrastructure because they are inextricably linked to numerous other issues facing Portlanders today. Someone gets caught with hard drugs and chooses diversion over prison – there is no bed for them. Someone suffering from severe mental illness chooses treatment – there is no bed for them. The rent is rising and you can no longer afford your living space – there is no other affordable option. If we can properly address our dire lack of housing and infrastructure, we will have a major impact on the other critical issues of our time. As a city councilor, I would introduce the use of hemp blocks to address the housing crisis. Please visit my website heartforpdx.com to learn more about this innovative new design.

Portland residents continue to say homelessness is the city’s biggest problem. How will your approach generate new solutions?

Form a coalition with surrounding cities, counties, and stakeholders to create a federally funded construction company that will produce hemp blocks for the construction of non-market housing, diversion/rehab centers, and mental health facilities. Even though we live in 2024, our methods of building homes have remained largely unchanged for over 100 years. Poured concrete is one of the most carbon-intensive types of housing construction, and it can take more than 20 years before a tree is ready for timber harvesting. Hemp grows quickly and takes 4 to 6 months from seed to harvest. The entire process of making hemp blocks sequesters more carbon than it emits, making it the only carbon-negative construction method. And by using locally grown Oregon hemp, we would save on delivery costs for materials while providing money to local farmers. Additionally, the innovative “Lego-style” hemp block lock-and-key construction is 80% faster than traditional wood framing methods for framing a home and does not require special craftsmanship normally required for construction. Hemp blocks are self-leveling, so no masonry skills are required, and the blocks are load-bearing, so no structural engineer is required. Additionally, hemp blocks are incredible thermal insulators that would save homeowners up to 70% on their heating and cooling utility bills, they are fire, mold, and pest resistant, and provide better acoustic value compared to standard building code requirements.

Housing is a human right, and history has shown that we cannot rely on the free market to provide this vital service. The state must intervene, as is the case in Vienna and Singapore, where 80-90% of all citizens live in state-subsidized, non-market housing. Please visit my website Hearforpdx.com to learn more.

Why should people who live in your district vote for you?

People should vote for me because I am driven by the empathy that is the spirit of Portland, but I am also bound by logic and practicality – virtues that have been missing from our city leadership for some time. For example, I love nature. Living in Oregon is a special privilege because all major ecosystems – forest, mountains, desert and coast – are within driving distance. While I love our state’s natural splendor, fighting climate change is a fight we are simply too small to fight and one that is far beyond the purview of a local city council. Oregon uses less energy than 66% of the nation; Even if the state were 100% renewable, that wouldn’t stop the fight against climate change. Additionally, 62% of residential and commercial energy consumption comes from renewable sources. We are already doing good work. So why recklessly spend tens of millions more fighting a distant battle we cannot solve, while residents can barely afford to live and we ignore the homeless and mentally ill who continue to live? the street? Furthermore, spending tens of millions of dollars to electrify our public transportation system makes no sense because even though 62% of our residential energy use comes from renewable energy, 89% of the energy used for transportation still comes from fossil fuels. Why spend millions electrifying our transportation system when we would charge our batteries with fossil fuels? Not to mention the humanitarian costs of switching to green energy. Cobalt is the most important component of lithium-ion batteries and 70% comes from the Congo. Anyone who stubbornly wants to fight climate change while we ignore our neighbors and leave out the mentally ill and homeless on the sidewalk needs to look up “cobalt mining in the Congo” and realize that our green transition is only possible to American dominance and is up built on the blood, sweat and tears of abandoned souls abroad. Clean energy for us, indentured servitude elsewhere. As a Portlander, I can’t be proud of “going green” if it’s built on the backs of a few fortunate souls abroad.