My Fellow Neighborhood Activists:
For more than four years I have been trying very hard to persuade the Housing Authority of Portland and Portland's mayor to provide public housing data by neighborhood. I have written more than eighty HAP Watcher commentaries to keep you informed of my progress. 

In September of 2004 I spent an hour and a half interviewing mayoral candidate Potter. At that time he agreed that it was essential to disclose HAP, HCDC and PDC public housing data by neighborhood. On January 26, 2005 mayor Potter publicly told HAP to provide public housing data by neighborhood. I thought four years of hard work had finally paid off. But no. Eighteen weeks after Potter ordered HAP to produce public housing data by neighborhood there is no available public evidence to show that this has been done or will ever be done.

Since he took office our new mayor has made a great fuss about providing information of all kinds by neighborhood. And yet, at the very first opportunity he has to make data of this sort available he fails. This is not a good omen.

Please help me to persuade Tom that he must keep his word and start providing at least HAP's public housing data by neighborhood, immediately. Take a minute, now, and send two separate emails to these addresses:

Mayor of Portland - Tom Potter <tpotter@ci.portland.or.us>
HAP Board - <board@hapdx.org>

And simply ask for this:
Will you please send me a tab delimited text file containing approximately 35,000 HAP client records each with only two fields, one with a neighborhood, one with a HAP designation of median income (0-30,31-50,51-80%). I would like this public information ASAP. Since this data will be in constant flux I would also like to be able to get updated versions once a month which I or any member of the public could download from the HAP web site.

Thanks for your continuing efforts to support our neighborhoods.


Richard Ellmyer
Neighborhood Activist since 1975
Writer/Publisher HAP Watcher commentary
http://www.goodgrowthnw.org