Metro Failure. Oregonian Failure

The Oregonian, a sadly depreciated news source in our community, published a recent editorial on Public Housing which said, “The plan signals Vega Pederson’s recognition that the county’s tight control of the REGION’S homeless response … has failed to yield much success” *

Multnomah county does not have tight control of the region’s homelessness response. Why not? Because the Metro REGIONAL government has rightly declared Public Housing to be a REGIONAL problem over which it now claims authority. Metro voters agreed and gave it many millions of bond and tax dollars. However, Metro failed in its self-proclaimed responsibility to establish and execute a REGIONAL Public Housing policy. Nowhere does this editorial mention this essential fact. NOWHERE. This is a journalistic failure of the highest order. The Oregonian continues its slide into irrelevance.

“It lays out a new governance structure that more fairly splits power among the county, city and East Multnomah County communities while creating a separate implementation committee with nonprofits, health care partners, local agencies and others.”* Unbelievable. The Joint Office of Homeless Services is already a convenient bureaucratic fall guy for the leaders of Portland and Multnomah County so they can avoid responsibility for tough Public Housing choices. Now they propose, under cover of so-called fairness, many, many more targets to play in the blame game. And don’t forget, in less than 10 months the city of Portland will have 13 new players making decisions at city council meetings and Multnomah county will also have some new blood. The impending dysfunction, indeed, chaos among all the Public Housing policy players is predictable.

To resolve this conflict and move forward every elected official and candidate for public office within the jurisdiction of the Metro Regional Government MUST publicly demand that Metro immediately establish and execute a REGIONAL Public Housing Policy.

Elected officials and candidates for public office within the jurisdiction of the Metro Regional Government who will not step up to this challenge should not be considered qualified to hold public office.

Richard Ellmyer

Portland Voter and Citizen Activist since 1975

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.

Author of more stories on the politics, players and policies of Public Housing in Oregon over the last twenty-two 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...

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

RichardEllmyer - 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/...

LET KNOWLEDGE SERVE THE CITY

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

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.

*

https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2024/03/editorial-homelessness-response-strategy-must-be-a-plan-of-action-not-a-wish-list.html