In a recent email vote a majority of the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee recently endorsed the following letter:

Dear Portland Development Commission:
We, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee, support a public housing location policy of equitable distribution of public housing (defined as requiring three components: means test + government subsidy + rental agreement). This is consistent with the public housing location policy of the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development's published public housing location policy which is:
1. Maximize housing choice, especially for low-income people who have traditionally been limited in the location of housing that they could afford; 
2. Discourage the concentration of low- or no- income households in any one area of the city; 
3. Encourage the creation of additional housing resources for low-income households integrated throughout the community.

Much of the work of the citizen volunteers on the ICURAAC involves advising the PDC on how to spend public funds on public housing. Acknowledging equitable distribution of public housing as a policy gives us the foundation upon which we can make reasonable, justifiable and defensible decisions.

As an operational imperative of a public housing location policy of equitable distribution of public housing, we have set 15% as a cap on the percentage of public housing clients in any of the 10 neighborhoods included in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area which would allow future PDC funding for public housing projects. The Portsmouth neighborhood, which has more than 30% public housing clients, is indisputably in this category. As a result, we, the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee, exercise our advisory responsibility by advising you, the Portland Development Commission, to stop all future funding for pubic housing projects in the Portsmouth neighborhood and redirect those funds to other Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area neighborhoods with a population of less than 15% public housing clients.

Thank you for your support of this recommendation by the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee.

Sincerely,
Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area Advisory Committee


The Portland Development Commission needs to do all of the following:
1. PDC must acknowledge the ICURAAC letter and agree to its requests.
2. PDC must cease and desist all funding for the newly proposed Hacienda CDC public housing project on N. Newell Street in the Portsmouth neighborhood.
3. PDC must provide the ICURAAC with the public housing statistical data requested by PDC commissioner Sal Kadri on February 28, 2007 to gather information by neighborhood on the location of all public housing clients that are subsidized and administered by any government agency within PDC's area of influence.


Richard Ellmyer
Community activist leading the campaign to stop all potentially new public housing (means test + government subsidy + rental agreement) in the Portsmouth neighborhood, especially the following:
1. Hacienda CDC public housing project on N. Newell Street
2. The recently decommissioned Sharff Army Reserve Center
3. The former John Ball School site
4. The recently closed Clarendon School site
Standards for Equitable Distribution of Public Housing Resolution author and project champion
Writer/Publisher - HAP Watchers commentary - Published on the Internet (http://www.goodgrowthnw.org) and distributed to thousands of readers interested in public housing policy in Multnomah County. To Subscribe: HAP-Watchers-on@goodgrowthnw.org
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses. Located in Portsmouth, the neighborhood with the second highest concentration of public housing clients, 30% and rising, within HAP's Multnomah county jurisdiction of 117 neighborhoods.