Old Town And Its Neighbors Deserve Better

The residents, businesses and other institutions that are within or adjacent to the Old Town Public Housing Compound deserve the same protection as those of us who live in and around the New Columbia Public Housing Compound.

New Columbia has four dedicated, full-time, uninformed, armed Portland police officers to keep the peace. New Columbia is Oregon’s second largest Public Housing Compound. It is located in my Portsmouth neighborhood which has 42% Public Housing units plus a growing homeless population.*1

Old Town, nominally considered a Portland neighborhood, is actually Oregon’s largest Public Housing Compound with 100% of its housing units qualifying as Public Housing, not including the homeless on the streets.*1

When governments deliberately overload neighborhoods with Public Housing, which includes the homeless, they must compensate those residents, businesses and institutions that are within or adjacent to those neighborhoods with additional protections and services. A preventative solution would be to abandon the current indefensible government policy of Targeted, UNLIMITED Neighborhood concentration of Public Housing which allows governments to load the neighborhoods of their choosing with up to 100% Public Housing Units, which is the case in Old Town. It should be replaced with Equitable Distribution of Public Housing which is the only defensible Public Housing location policy.

With good cause, several cultural institutions in Portland that are in or adjacent to the Old Town Public Housing Compound, have asked the Portland government to take action to mitigate the inherent and inevitable consequences of converting a neighborhood into a 100% Public Housing Unit Compound.*2 They must not be ignored.

Our Portland city government needs to do the following:

1. Reevaluate and change its Public Housing location policy.

2. Dedicate a substantial portion of the revenue windfall the city is about to receive to correcting the public to market rate housing imbalance and alleviate the distress to those residents, businesses and other institutions that are within or adjacent to the Old Town Public Housing Compound.

It is our government that created this problem. It is our government that must fix it.

Richard Ellmyer

Author of more stories on the politics, players and policies of Public Housing in Oregon over the last twenty years than all other journalists and elected officials combined.

Project Champion and Data Wrangler - Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/m...

Author of The Ellmyer Report, a newsletter that informs, educates and influences on public policy. Occasionally distributed to more than a quarter of million readers in Oregon and beyond. Facebook, Portland Politics Plus . Contributor: Patch news

*1

Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/m...

*2

'It's a tragedy that it's gotten this bad': Portland city leaders respond to complaints over crime in Old Town

Portland City Commissioner Mingus Mapps met with directors of cultural institutions in Old Town at their request to develop solutions.

https://www.kgw.com/article/ne...

On Thursday, Portland City Commissioner Mingus Mapps and members of his team met with Nye and directors of three other cultural institutions in Old Town: The American Japanese Museum of Oregon, the Oregon Jewish Museum and the Center for Holocaust Education and the Portland Chinatown Museum. The meeting was in response to a joint letter from all the directors, asking for help. They sent the letter to Mapps and other city and county leaders asking each to meet with them by Oct. 22.

“This is a citywide problem, it's a tragedy that it's gotten this bad,” said Mapps. “I will have succeeded in helping them when we actually change the reality that is on the ground; when I get that trash picked up, when I get people who are currently sleeping on the streets and in need of mental health care inside and in shelters and connected with mental health service providers.”

Mapps said his office has already asked police to increase patrols in Old Town. He's also looking ahead to the city's regular budget adjustment process known as the “fall bump." He plans to ask for public safety reforms including hiring more police officers.

“We literally do not have enough police officers to respond to all the 911 calls that we have,” said Mapps.