Increase In Oregon’s Housing Crisis Looms - New Thinking Required, NOW

The Boy Scout Motto is especially relevant here: BE PREPARED.

If you are an elected official in Oregon, including elected School Board Members, your jurisdiction will almost certainly face a dramatically increased housing crisis in the very near future. Here’s are a few reasons why.

HUD - 50% CUTS in employees. Section 8 funding also likely on the chopping block.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/23/hud-cuts-doge-housing/

Portland - >$100 Million budget shortfall - Homelessness still NOT on the Council agenda.

https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2025/01/17/citys-budget-gap-may-widen-to-100-million-city-administrator-says/

Multnomah County - $104 Million Homeless services gap - Begs for money from other public jurisdictions.

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/21/multnomah-county-homelessness-budget/

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/02/24/elected-officials-multnomah-county-homeless-budget-shortfall/

Metro, long eschewing Publicly Vetted Public Housing Goals, Policies and Plans, remains unmoored, flailing about enmeshed in its deliberate self-inflicted ignorance and malignant stupidity within its self-serving ineffective political bubble. And yet, it has the hutzpah to want more tax money in virtual perpetuity from the voters to spend willy nilly without direction, purpose or agreement of all the parties involved. Political challenges and oversight from LCDC and every elected official in every public jurisdiction under Metro’s authority must be the order of the day.

Legislature, Housing Bills - Senate and House Housing committees refuse to publicly analyze how much money embedded within each Bill is destined for which Senate and House districts and how much is aimed at each of the newly created regional housing zones in the recent revisions of LCDC Goal 10. Neither a transparent nor accountable nor defensible policy.

Governor - Land Conservation and Development Commission

Overarching authority on housing in Oregon is held by the Land Conservation and Development Commission as recently rewritten in the Oregon Housing Needs Analysis Methodology December 2024, which includes a revision of Housing Goal 10. Jurisdictional compliance and enforcement are yet to be determined.

https://www.oregon.gov/das/oea/Documents/OHNA-Methodology-Report-2024.pdf

The consequences of all these governmental dire circumstances in housing support, just over the horizon, will be a huge increase in visible Homelessness and then justifiable citizen backlash. When faced with dramatically reduced resources the ONLY choice is to focus on the most important priorities, FIRST.

FOCUS on the TOP Priorities, Homelessness, FIRST:

#1 Get all those illegally camping on public property removed from those properties.

#2 Provide immediate temporary shelter followed eventually by permanent Public Housing for the homeless as resources and the public mood and values will allow.

All housing funding, governments’ policies and political energy from all elected officials needs to be moving together in this direction.

Richard Ellmyer

Portland resident since 1975.

Oregon Voter since 1971. NAV, Non Affiliated Voter. Citizen Activist.

Campaign manager and legislative assistant to state senator Bill McCoy 1980-1981.

Campaign manager and senior staff to Multnomah county commissioner Gladys McCoy 1981-1984.

Celebrate North Portland award 2016 for Volunteer Work and Service with Political and Social Issues Impacting North Portland.

Certified Oregon Change Agent by Governor John Kitzhaber 2011.

PSU Senior Adult Learner, Spring 2021 - Public Participation GiS, 500 level class

PSU Senior Adult Learner, Spring 2024 - Planning and Housing Markets, 500 level class

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

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

GIS for Activism conference, May 23, 2022, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon

Richard Ellmyer - How I, A Citizen Activist, Used GIS To Effectively Tell A Necessary Yet Unavailable Truth About Public Housing

30 minute Video https://media.pdx.edu/media/t/1_2vrzokta

Lifelong Learning at PSU by Jennifer Jordan-Wong.

LET KNOWLEDGE SERVE THE CITY [Section] “Richard used a course he audited at PSU to create a citizen activist mapping tool to benefit Oregon residents, stakeholders, and policy makers…His interest in mapping as a tool for change began when he noticed that public housing was not being distributed equitably”

https://psucollegeofed.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/lifelong-learning-at-psu/?fbclid=IwAR3S9Pff0mBGeT6Ha8dQeAqL0nAqU7QzZ-0pJC_oTQJxBWlAb2fdXzdE0w4

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