HAP, Columbia Villa, Ellmyer,Kulongoski Gets HAP Map

It turns out that the ONLY elected official or member of the Press in the entire state of Oregon interested or even curious enough to ask the Housing Authority of Portland WHERE it puts its clients is the governor of the state, Ted Kulongoski. Way to go Ted! Bravo! Unfortunately, the format of HAP's client maps are politically useless.

HAP has finally admitted that if it has to it can provide data on where BOTH its on government property and Section 8 housing clients reside. However, HAP has chosen to organize its data by zip codes* not neighborhoods**. HAP has yet to accept that Multnomah County, HAP's jurisdiction, is divided up into 117 officially authorized neighborhoods.*** All of these 117 neighborhoods were created and recognized by governments as political entities. The leadership of these neighborhood associations may not have statutory power but they are recognized as an integral part of our political system, that is the system by which we set public policy and govern ourselves. The organization and work of neighborhood associations is a vital part of how the citizens of Multnomah County exercise their version of the democratic process.

HAP has provided governor Kulongoski with client data organized by the number of households but not by individuals. Two hundred households of single seniors does not have the same impact on a neighborhood that two hundred low-income households each with three kids does. Two plus two may equal four. Two plus two may also equal sixteen. We heard a great deal about this kind of math during the last presidential election. It's known as Fuzzy Math. It is not taught in Oregon schools. Yet it has been used by Enron, HAP and quite frequently these days by legislatures throughout the land. It's useful to many politicians. It's not so useful to citizens, honest policy makers and restaurants taking dinner reservations.

History
It is already possible to enter any address and find its neighborhood in the city of Portland. ( See Portland Maps site, http://www.portlandmaps.com ).

Proposal
A request has been made to the Office of Neighborhood Involvement to create an application which enhances the already written code within the Portland Maps web site that can identify any address by neighborhood to batch process a group of addresses and return a file with the neighborhood field completed.

Project Mostly Done
The most difficult aspect of this application has already been completed. New coding would only require adding a record loop until end command and some automated error checking routines. This is a relatively simple assignment and could be completed in a short period of time. The cost in staff time would be relatively low. Its cost benefit ratio would be relatively high.

Benefits
Any government organization, such as HAP, PDC, or private sector institution or citizen activist with a group of addresses could easily assign them a neighborhood. This neighborhood designation would aid all users' efforts to confine their message to a single or several specific neighborhoods thus saving time, money and annoyance to those outside the target area.

Why ONI?
ONI's mandate is to assist and develop neighborhoods and our neighbors that volunteer their time to improve the quality of life for all of us. ONI would be fulfilling its mission, serving neighborhood activists and assisting other government and private institutions to work within the Portland neighborhood structure.