Sten shows ‘affordable’ is relative

The Portland Tribune, Sep 11, 2007

http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=118945876994466600

Portland city commissioner Erik Sten had every right in March 2007 to buy a house wherever he can afford. If that's a $1,285,000 5,000 square foot home and swimming pool in South West Portland with no public housing clients within view that's his choice. However, it does beg the question: How does Erik Sten explain that while he purports to support the rights of public housing clients, the record shows that he has actively worked against giving public housing clients the same opportunity for choosing the location of a place to live that he and his family enjoy?

Portland's Bureau of Housing and Community Development's published public housing location policy 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.

The operational reality is this:

1. There are six public entities that provide public housing (means test + government subsidy + rental agreement) in Multnomah county. They are: Portland's Bureau of Housing and Community Development, Portland's Bureau of Planning, the Portland Development Commission, Multnomah county, the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services and the Housing Authority of Portland.

2. These six public entities provide public housing to approximately 60,000 clients in Multnomah county.

3. Of the six public entities that provide public housing in Multnomah county only Portland's Bureau of Housing and Community Development has a published public housing location policy - which it disregards with impunity.

4. All of these six public entities make public dollar spending decisions without knowledge of or regard for where the other public entities are spending their public dollars. This circumstance of self-inflicted ignorance leads to their mutual, witting participation in the discredited and abhorrent public policy of unlimited neighborhood concentration of public housing. This indefensible economic segregationist location policy is the foundation for ghetto building.

Portland city commissioner Erik Sten:

1. As the craftiest and smoothest politician on the Portland city council, Sten has manipulated the language of, "affordable" housing to obscure his position on, "public housing", especially public housing location policy.

2. Is opposed to all efforts by elected and appointed officials as well as candidates for public office and voters to gather and publish public housing statistical data.

3. Refuses to instruct the four members of the HAP board that represent the city of Portland to comply with the Oregon Public Records law and provide Richard Ellmyer et. al. with the public housing statistical data Ellmyer legitimately and legally requested. 

4. As the city commissioner in charge of the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development, Sten watches disconnectedly as this request for public information, made under the Oregon Public Records law, to Sten's bureau marches slowly up the ladder towards his office. Here is an excerpt from a recent email exchange between Stephen Fulton, BHCD Housing program manager, and Richard Ellmyer:

Fulton - "BHCD receives CDBG, HOME and HOPWA which it distributes to non-profit housing organizations who develop, own and operate subsidized housing."

Ellmyer - In addition BHCD is responsible for the property tax exemption for low-income housing held by charitable nonprofit organizations program despite that fact that it has contracted out the administration of this program to the Bureau of Planning.

Fulton - "Applying your definition (Public Housing = Means Test + Government Subsidy + Rental Agreement), you are seeking information on all properties that have received federal, state and local subsidy."

Ellmyer - Correct

Fulton - "Please be advised that BHCD is not the body mandated to create, maintain, care for or control the records you are requesting."

Ellmyer - This is a preposterous statement. The agency that distributes the peoples' money had better have access to these records. What you are telling me is that the Bureau of Housing and Community Development does in fact administer Public Housing programs but does not keep any computerized records of the disposition of these public funds which would include to whom the funds are distributed, how much is distributed to each organization, the total number of clients served per organization and location, the income level of clients served under these programs, the person responsible for verifying client eligibility, the last date on which client eligibility was confirmed, the age and gender of those served under these programs and the location by address or neighborhood of every location served by these programs. Your answer clarifies the role of BHCD in its disposition of public housing dollars. However, it is not possible to believe that BHCD can responsibly distribute tens of millions of dollars of public funds for public housing without keeping a computer database of such transactions.

5. Despite the fact that he knows that the Portsmouth neighborhood has the highest total and the second highest percentage of public housing clients of any neighborhood in Multnomah county, Sten has voted for and supported efforts time and time again to overload the Portsmouth neighborhood with public housing clients e.g. Columbia Villa, the notorious give away of surplus city property known as the John Ball School site for public housing, Hacienda CDC public housing project on N. Newell Street, PDC 30% public housing set aside.

6. Has refused to acknowledge that any plan to use the recently decommissioned Sharff Army Reserve Center, which is located in the Portsmouth neighborhood, for public housing would violate widely held public support for equitable distribution of public housing and the Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development's published public housing location policy (see above) and would deliberately continue the discredited and abhorrent practice of unlimited concentration of public housing in the demonstrably overburdened Portsmouth neighborhood.

Erik Sten has been more successful than any other professional politician in conning the public and the press into believing that he has a "progressive" view on the location policy of public housing clients. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

Erik Sten has done more that any other professional politician to make sure that public housing clients stay in their assigned neighborhoods.

Erik Sten has done more that any other professional politician to make sure that public housing clients do not have the housing location choices that he enjoys.