Mayor Potter:
With all due respect, NONE of the information I requested has been provided. You are ill informed if you think so. Your staff is doing you a disservice and misguiding you on the facts as they have since you were elected. Neither you nor any of your staff have been willing to discuss this issue with me publicly or privately for almost a year. This is not the behavior of a mayor or staff that knows what they are doing and has the confidence to defend their positions in the court of public opinion. Your failure to send a letter to HAP immediately after your directive of January 26, 2005 to provide public housing data by neighborhood, made in front of HAP's Chair, Kandis Nunn, and two other HAP board members, Katie Such and Shar Giard, is damning evidence of incompetence or public disingenuousness.

I have consistently asked for only this information:
An authentic, accurate, complete and timely record for every HAP public housing client in the form of a tab delimited text file with the following four fields: neighborhood, median income range (0-30,31-50,51-80%), age, gender which would be downloadable via FTP from HAP's website.

I have already demonstrated that providing this information is technically trivial. Jim Robison, a computer professional and candidate for a house seat in North Portland, whom you have endorsed, has, among other computer professionals, already confirmed the ease with which neighborhood fields could be affixed to HAP records. Jim has even volunteered to do the job himself. No Information Technology professional, public or private, has ever offered a contrary assessment. If the records are incomplete it is because HAP has failed to keep appropriate records. If it should take them some time to fix THEIR errors, so be it. In addition, I have addressed most if not all of your comments below in a 2500 word response to the draft AI report, dismissing the data as irrelevant, incomplete, outdated and generally not useful to a public policy debate.

Mr. Mayor, this conflict to access public housing data by neighborhood is no longer just between you and me. The debate over the need for quantification of public housing policy in Multnomah county via the 3-6-9 Resolution, which you are on record as supporting, has moved into the area of those seeking public office in Multnomah county. It is these candidates, such as Jeff Cogen, Amanda Fritz, Bruce Broussard, LaVonne Griffin-Valade, Jim Robison, Ted Wheeler, Ginny Burdick, Steve March, Erik Sten, Diane Linn, Dan Saltzman et al. which will have to address this issue and challenge you, or not, to get access to data which they can use to support whatever positions they choose to take in the matter.

In addition, city commissioner Sam Adams, who as candidate and city commissioner, supported both public housing data by neighborhood and the introduction of the 3-6-9 Resolution is now being called from the sidelines to get into the game. It remains to be seen if and when commissioner Adams will step up to the plate and take a swing at this issue. However, unlike you, Sam has proved remarkably stedfast in keeping his word as both candidate and commissioner. Should Sam Adams, and I'm hopeful that he soon will, demand, and as a city commissioner he can demand from HAP public housing data by neighborhood in the form I have requested, it will be very difficult for you, even as Multnomah County Public Housing Czar to deny commissioner Adams that information.

And let's not forget about the press and the public records law. This game is not over yet. Not by a long shot.


Richard Ellmyer
3-6-9 Resolution author and project champion
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watcher commentary - Published on the Internet and distributed to 4000 readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County.
Portsmouth - formerly the 18%, currently the 8% and rising solution neighborhood, North Portland
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org


On Dec 6, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Potter, Mayor wrote:

Richard,
As you know, much of the information you have requested about public housing has been provided by the Bureau of Housing and Community Development.  This information includes:
∑ ·       The location of public housing units mapped by neighborhood, and the data tables used to create those maps.
·       A map of Section 8 vouchers holders by neighborhood, with an attached data table.
·       Addresses and unit types of the 8,852 units of public housing, HAP affordable housing, and all other housing subsidized by the City and PDC.  This combined affordable housing information is also mapped by neighborhood.
•  
BHCD worked extensively with HAP and PDC to not only do the basic reporting on housing that is required by federal agencies, but to also provide these illustrative maps and tables of subsidized housing units by neighborhood, including HAP's public housing and Section 8 units.  Your readers can find that information online at http://www.portlandonline.com/bhcd/index.cfm?c=38776 (click on 2005 Analysis of Impediments, and Appendix XV includes the maps and tables.  Maps 9-13 and the accompanying tables illustrate different kinds of subsidized housing by neighborhood).  Citizens may request hard copies from BHCD, too.  My staff and I were well informed of this project since early this year and responded to you very clearly in August that we were satisfied with the scope of information BHCD was gathering and has since provided.  BHCD and HAP staff have responded to you several times about the availability of this information to you and the general public.
HAP has also considered your more lengthy request for this information to be provided in a file with the income range and other demographic information of each client or unit/address, and responded to you about the information they can and cannot provide. BHCD, PDC, and HAP all track their client data and ensure that the residents in publicly-funded units meet eligibility criteria based on their incomes and other circumstances, but much of this information is protected by privacy and fair housing laws.  My staff have discussed your request with them, and agree with both HAP and BHCD's assessment that this request would require an inordinate amount of staff time be dedicated to re-creating client data files in the format you request.  I believe that the information already provided about subsidized housing is both appropriate and ample for good public conversation about housing location policy and practice.
I consider BHCD and HAP's response to your request complete and satisfactory, and this information is available to you and every other Portlander.  If you have specific concerns about the location of affordable housing, I encourage you to bring those into the public discussion about the location policy review at BHCD and through our citizen Housing and Community Development Commission.  I also request that you cease your unconstructive, personal insults towards the hard working staff and volunteer board members of the Housing Authority and the Mayor's Office. 
Tom Potter
Mayor of Portland