Testimony Before The Housing Authority of Portland 1/19/10
My name is Richard Ellmyer. I am a candidate for the North Portland House seat in the May Democratic Primary. On December 11 I sent you a request for Public Housing Statistical Data which I mentioned was intended to be used as a basis for discussion with voters during my campaign for public office. Despite my admonition that time was of the essence for 39 days of my campaign you have not provided me or the voters with any one of the four separate reports I requested.
Here are some facts for the record:
1. None of you were elected to the HAP board.
2. None of you were publicly vetted for your public housing policy views prior to your appointment.
3. All of you serve at the pleasure of the mayor of Portland.
4. All of you are supposed to serve the interests of the jurisdiction that recommended you.
5. All of you accept mayor Adams’ assertion that there is NO PUBLIC housing in Portland only affordable housing.
6. All of you oppose requiring public documents to use the term, "public housing" when the subject matter of the document refers to programs and policies where the following conditions are met: Public Housing = Means Test + Government Subsidy + Rental Agreement.
7. All of you support mayor Adams’ policy of UNLIMITED neighborhood concentration of public housing.
8. None of you have requested nor do you have an interest in statistical data that would inform you about the total number and the neighborhood location of every public housing client in Multnomah county.
9. All of you oppose a cap of 15% on the number of public housing clients per neighborhood.
10. All of you oppose a $30,000 maximum income for a one person household that should be set to enter and remain in any public housing program in Oregon and that priority for HAP housing should be given to people without homes or who have incomes under $30,000.
11. All of you oppose a regional policy of equitable distribution of public housing under the administrative control of Metro.
12. All of you are aware that HAP staff cannot produce authentic, accurate, complete and timely Public Housing Statistical Data records for every one of the 33,000 clients HAP claims.
13. All of you oppose giving the taxpayers that provide the eighty million or so dollars in HAP’s budget authentic, accurate, complete and timely Public Housing Statistical Data.
14. None of you are prepared to try and correct the imbalance between 77% qualified students for the free lunch program at the Roosevelt school cluster and 9% at the Lincoln school cluster which is primarily caused by deliberately overloading North Portland with public housing clients.
If any of these statements of fact are incorrect for individual HAP commissioners then please let me know in writing via email by January 24th.
I support a public policy of equitable distribution of public housing, a cap of 15% on the number of public housing clients per neighborhood, a $30,000 maximum income for a one person household to enter and remain in any public housing program in Oregon and the right of taxpayers to authentic, accurate, complete and timely Public Housing Statistical Data.