City Council Entrance Interview: Candace Avalos

Seeks to represent: District 1 (East Portland)

Pronouns: She/her

Job: Executive director of Verde

Fun fact: She took her first steps in Guatemala.

In 2020, Candace Avalos ran for City Council and lost to Commissioner Carmen Rubio. But that only added to her motivation to serve.

“I doubled down on my community,” she tells WW.

The next year, she became vice chair for Street Roots and a board member of the Coalition of Communities of Color. She also became the executive director of Verde, an environmental justice nonprofit. Last year, she served on the substance use subcommittee of the Portland central city task force that Gov. Tina Kotek organized.

Avalos is best known, however, for her work on the Portland Charter Review Commission, where she was one of 20 volunteers who constructed the ballot measure that led to the overhaul of city government.

“I have been on the teams of all of these groups of people who have been championing big progressive change for Portland,” she says. “I have dedicated my life and this last decade in Portland to being a solutions-oriented leader who brings people together, and I plan to do that at City Hall.”

Avalos moved to Portland after getting her master’s in education from James Madison University. For eight years, she was a coordinator for student government and Greek life at Portland State University.

Avalos has received $40,000 in matching funds through the Small Donor Elections program. Overall, her campaign has raised almost $76,000. She’s been endorsed by Rubio, Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and former Gov. Kate Brown. She’s also been endorsed by several key labor unions: LiUNA Local 737, Northwest Oregon Labor Council and Service Employees International Union.

We spoke to Avalos about her campaign. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

WW: What are your top three priorities if elected?

Candace Avalos: My No. 1 priority is public and community safety. Those are things that East Portlanders care about, and I have a lot of experience working in that area. The second thing Portlanders care about is housing and homelessness. Lastly, environmental justice, but really infrastructure. East Portland in particular has been lacking in the city’s investments, and I plan to bring that investment in infrastructure to East Portland.

What aspects of the city’s current approach to drug use and overdose deaths do you support and what would you change?

I would advocate for increasing funding for mental health and substance abuse treatment as well as social service workers ensuring accessible and integrated support systems for those in need. We need to build up the workforce for these treatment centers. I think that Measure 110 dollars are still flowing in to help us build the infrastructure for that, but we need to make sure that we’re paying employees working in these careers living wages so that they also aren’t living on the edge, like many Portlanders are, living paycheck to paycheck.

We need to build all kinds of infrastructure, whether that’s more housing, more treatment centers, increasing our public safety infrastructure around Portland Street Response and making sure that we have ways to intervene with communities that are living on the streets and are experiencing these challenges. It takes partnership with the county and with the state, and as a city councilor, we would be responsible for helping to facilitate this dialogue.

Do you support the city staying in the Joint Office of Homeless Services? What’s your plan to address homelessness?

Yes. We need to prevent homelessness by protecting vulnerable Portlanders from losing their housing. We need to push for housing first, but not housing only. That means that we can invest in the full spectrum of housing opportunities, from shelter options that are proven to work in Portland—like tiny homes—permanent supportive housing, and affordable housing and, of course, at the end of that spectrum is homeownership.

In addition, we need to invest in real and effective ways to end homelessness for the people experiencing it, and that goes back to those mental health and addiction resources we were just talking about, but also things like job training and placement, housing vouchers, funding living wages for social service workers who are the backbone of solving the crisis.

Which current City Council member do you and your policies most align with?

Carmen Rubio. I’m proud to have her endorsement, and also proud to endorse her. I think that she is the right leader that our city needs right now.

How do you want police to respond to riots if Trump wins in November?

I was the chair of the Citizen Review Committee when everything broke loose after George Floyd’s murder. We know that if there are mass protests like there were back in 2020, all eyes are going to be on Portland and our police response. I believe the police need to take proactive steps before the election results are in, preparing for different scenarios and doing community outreach. If this outcome were to happen, police need to always follow the Constitution as well as Portland Police Bureau policies and procedures.

I was not only the chair of this committee, but I was also the chair of the subcommittee on crowd control and new support, and we produced a 40-page report after the 2020 protests, explaining what we saw as best practices that were not met. Unfortunately, I think a lot of our recommendations were left in a drawer somewhere. I think the biggest issue that Portlanders had was the indiscriminate use of less lethal force on community members who were trying to protest and exercise their First Amendment-protected rights.

How do you feel about the new structure of city government and ranked-choice voting?

Well, you’re talking to a charter commissioner here, so you should know how I feel, right? I am very supportive of this. I’m very excited to see how this change is going to transform what voters can accomplish at the ballot box, being able to see and elect people who represent them and their interests.

Ranked-choice voting is great. This is an opportunity for folks to express their interests and have more options. It’s especially huge for East Portland, which in all of our 100-year history has only had two people [who] live east of 82nd [be a part of the City Council], so we’re going to have the most representation ever.

See the other Portland City Council Candidates here!