HAP Board HEARS The Case For Neighborhood Maps 11/19/03

At a public Board meeting on November 18, 2003 from 6:15 PM to 6:18 PM the entire Housing Authority of Portland Board HEARD the following testimony:

In 1993 Portland adopted a location strategy that discourages low-income housing from being clustered in any one neighborhood. Andy Miller, acting housing program manager for the city's Bureau of Housing says "the intention of the city's location policy and Ellmyer's crusade to decentralize poverty are one in the same."*

At a Planning Commission meeting reviewing the St. Johns/Lombard Plan, after seeing a map identifying HAP clients by neighborhood and hearing a report from the Portland Planning Bureau that identified "lack of buying power" as a major negative component in attracting businesses to certain neighborhoods in North Portland, Rick Michaelson, VP Portland Planning Commission, asked for and got ideas about how to stop concentration of low-income housing clients in North Portland neighborhoods. Most, if not all, of the members of the Portland Planning Commission discuss, acknowledge, and make decisions based on values and testimony from neighborhoods. No member of the commission acknowledged being influenced by zip codes or zip code groups.

In a private meeting, Matt Hennessee, Portland Development Commission Chair, was shown the same map as Rick Michaelson and the Portland Planning Commission. Hennessee noted the importance of neighborhoods, supported distribution rather than concentration of low-income housing clients and, significantly, offered the idea that perhaps establishing a cap on the percentage of housing clients allowed in any neighborhood would be worthy of public discussion. He was right on all counts.

A Neighborhood Leaders’ Survey conducted last weekend at the 2003 Portland Neighborhood Summit included the following two questions and answers.**

1) Should the city of Portland be required to prove, using neighborhood map based evidence, that it is succeeding with its own policy of not locating low-income housing clients in a few select neighborhoods?

91% of the respondents answered YES**

2) Public information from the Housing Authority of Portland is most useful to me when it is presented by neighborhoods or zip codes.

83% of the respondents answered By Neighborhoods.**

Oregonian columnist Renee Mitchell recently wrote, "Nick Fish says he agrees with Ellmyer's philosophical point. But he would like to see all the housing-related agencies -- including the Portland Development Commission -- contribute their information to a neighborhood-based map, too. "As a matter of policy," Fish says, "I think it makes perfect sense.""*

I look forward to a public motion by HAP Commissioner Nick Fish to direct the HAP staff to construct a neighborhood based map of HAP client locations which will be placed on the HAP web site and updated quarterly and letters from HAP Commissioner Nick Fish to the Portland city council and the PDC board requesting similar actions.

I hope that this board will give serious consideration to the growing weight of public opinion in favor of neighborhood based mapping of low-income public housing clients. Thank you.

* http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/Porcupines.html
** http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/survey.html

Richard Ellmyer
Portsmouth Neighborhood
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org

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