No Audit, No Debate, No Money 3/31/03

In the middle of a war the Pentagon is more willing to tell the citizens of America and the world where its troops are than the Housing Authority of Portland, at any time, has been willing to divulge information about where its clients are located.

Should the City of Portland, Multnomah County, the state of Oregon and the United States of America give taxpayer's money to a quasi-government institution that steadfastly refuses to release basic information about its operations to the public or the press?

The Enron Model
For years individuals and institutions invested heavily in a company that everybody said was a solid, well managed corporation. Similarly, there is a large contingent that believes that the Housing Authority of Portland is doing an excellent job managing its investors, i.e. taxpayers, money. But the operative word here is "believe" because the most essential facts about HAP's operation continue to be concealed.

The questions HAP refuses to yet MUST answer:
1. How many clients do you serve and where are they located by neighborhood?
2. What is the difference in cost to house similar clients in HAP owned housing versus section 8 vouchers?
3. What is the true market value of the property and the land HAP plans to demolish and sell at Columbia Villa?

And when it has answered ALL of the above HAP must tell us how many individuals it anticipates would be living in Columbia Villa after the remodel that are at or below HAP's client economic threshold of 80% AMI and any other subsides it will provide to future Villa residents.

MIA - The Politicians The Press The Planners
You would certainly be right to ask, Why haven't our elected officials, urban planners and the press asked these questions? Indeed, why haven't they?

The Housing Authority of Portland
HAP doesn't know where its thirty-five thousand clients are by neighborhood in Multnomah County because it doesn't matter to them. By refusing to keep track of and identify the number of its clients by neighborhood HAP avoids engaging in the troublesome public policy debate of concentration versus distribution.

HAP will not produce reports showing the costs of housing similar clients on public property versus private property because it is afraid that it would then be forced, in a time of dwindling budgets, to engage in a public policy debate regarding efficient use of limited public funds and would have to defend its choices.

HAP does not want to tell taxpayers the true market value of the houses scheduled for demolition and the value of the land proposed for sale because that would raise a considerable public policy debate over the destruction and sale of millions of dollars of public property.

All of these public housing policy debates should have PRECEDED any plans to remodel Columbia Villa with or without Hope VI funding.

The Politicians
Not a single elected official in the state of Oregon has asked HAP the basic questions stated above. And yet the City of Portland, Multnomah County, the state of Oregon and the Federal Government have pledged millions to an institution which is not directly accountable to any taxpayers for how it spends hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. In the military parlance of the day this lack of oversight by our elected leaders is called, "dereliction of duty." Just because public housing policy is a tough messy issue does not absolve our elected officials from trying to conveniently sweep this matter under a seventy acre rug in North Portland.

The Press
Not a single member of the press has asked HAP the basic questions stated above. To date readers throughout our state have mostly gotten rehashed HAP press releases or human interest pieces. To seriously advance this story journalists must peek under some unmoved rocks and shine a light into dark tunnels.

There is only one essential story left to tell on this issue. Will the money be there? That's it. Nothing else matters. If the money from all sources shows up in the bank the game is over. We won't know that until probably September, maybe sooner. The questions that I hope journalists will ask preceding each government's vote on shelling out taxpayers money for the Villa remodel is, Should we give money to a quasi-government institution that steadfastly refuses to release basic information about its operations to the public or the press? How can any government seriously discuss public housing policy without the fundamental accounting information? I'll give you the answer to that one, it can't.

The Planners and Architects
Oregon has lots of professional urban planners, public structure architects, and those who teach these subjects. Believe it or not Portland actually has a Planning Commission. Curiously neither the Commission as a whole nor any individual members have chosen to share their thoughts on this massive urban planning development with their fellow citizens. So, you might ask, what's the point of a Planning Commission that ignores one of the largest building and social engineering projects in the city of Portland? It's an excellent question for which I have no answer. And for the rest of you not on HAP's payroll, Where have you been? Would you agree that Robertson Merryman Barnes (Portland) and Mithun (Seattle) are not acting in the public interest or considering the social impact of their professional activities by working for a client, HAP, a publicly funded institution, which refuses to release basic information about its operations to the public or the press? If this isn't a violation of the Architectural Canon of Ethics then what is?

Potential Legislative Squeeze
HAP appears to be taking a very big gamble by starting the removal of clients and the demolition of buildings BEFORE all the money is in the bank. Perhaps HAP is betting that the legislature will be forced into funding the project if people have already been moved and the bricks have started falling. Legislators should be especially wary of this potential trap.

Jumping The Gun
Would it not be a prudent decision to wait until all the money is in the bank before HAP starts issuing exit notices?

Imagine the possibility that one or all of these contributors, the City of Portland, Multnomah County, and especially the Oregon state legislature, are unable or unwilling to match the contributions listed in the original Hope VI grant application and HAP has created a 70 acre ghost town. How would that look? Can you name the elected public official(s) who will boldly step forward and take responsibility if that scenario unfolds?

If HAP, a quasi-government institution, will not give the people that pay HAP's bills or the press basic accounting information about their operations then why should anyone, especially legislators, believe anything HAP has to say or consider giving them any money?