Listeners in and to the northeast of Portland, Ore., soon should be hearing a low-power FM station that promotes affordable and safe rental housing. The FCC has issued a construction permit to the Community Alliance of Tenants.
The alliance, formed in 1996, is a tenant rights organization: “CAT educates, organizes and develops the leadership of low-income tenants to directly challenge unjust housing policies and practices,” it stated in its application. “Our mission is to educate and empower tenants to demand affordable, stable and safe rental homes. We address the impact Oregon’s decreasing supply of decent, affordable housing and absence of meaningful tenant protections has on low-income tenants.”
Alliance President Michelle Lasley wrote in the application that radio “would be a valued and welcomed tool for outreach serving as an extension of our existing programs.”
The station will air at 96.7 MHz. The alliance was one of four applicants listed by the FCC as mutually exclusive for this particular LPFM slot near Portland. The alliance wrote in a subsequent filing that two of the other applications had been dismissed while the fourth, Opal Environmental Justice Oregon, had relocated in a concurrent application.
Based on information on the website of consultancy REC Networks, those two applicants appear to have moved their respective proposed signals to the northeast and southwest, bracketing Portland, in a coordinated manner.
To see station footprints projected by REC Networks, check out the graphics for the Community Alliance of Tenants and Opal Environmental Justice.
