Portland City Council Passes Historic Budget. Now IT OWNS Homeless Policy Destined To FAIL

With Historic Budget Passage The Portland City Council* Is NOW ACCOUNTABLE For Deliveries Of ALL City Services

Five Most Consequential Outcomes Of The Budget Process:

1. Our New Form Of Government

Portland’s new weak mayor form of government renders the mayor merely a conduit functionary with neither a vote nor a veto. The City Administrator is a bureaucrat. With the historic passage of its first budget the Portland City Council - Candace Avalos, Olivia Clark, Jamie Dunphy, Mitchell Green, Sameer Kanal, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo, Steve Novick, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Dan Ryan, Loretta Smith and Eric Zimmerman - are now fully responsible and accountable for all policies, plans and the delivery of services to the citizens of Portland. They now own ALL the policies and plans paid for in our city’s budget. This is unlike the old system where ownership was only tied to the commissioner in charge of a Bureau.

2. Police Bureau And Its Budget Are No Longer Sacrosanct

An HISTORICALLY HUGE change lead by Councilor Morillo who clearly relishes the role. Public Safety Services is now “replacing” the singular police focus with the all inclusive police, fire, 911, Portland Street Response and emergency management.

3. Not Even Mentioned

The undebatable top service priority of the Portland City Council is to provide Portland’s population with Affordable Clean Water. Not a single member of the Portland City Council ever acknowledged its most important duty. The Council’s obligation to provide Affordable Clean Water was never acknowledged during the budget process. Water rates have been high and blithely rising for years. Soon the Council will have to explain to ratepayers the enormous rate increases necessary to pay for a $2.134 billion Bull Run water filtration plant.

4. Need A Job Consultant?

Recent published reports say several Councilors are interested in hiring consultants** to tell them what their job is, how to do it and how to get along with one another. There was no budget amendment to add funds for this purpose. Nevertheless, we may see an ask for funds in the near future which begs the questions:

1. How many Councilors ran for a job for which they were unprepared expecting on-the-job training to fill their knowledge void?

2. How many Councilors told voters that they did not know how to play well with others and would need on-the-job training to teach them?

Outstanding Performance

Council President, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, has earned and deserves a great deal of credit for doing a not only competent but professional job of steering the SS Portland City Council through some turbulent budget waters with an often recalcitrant and undisciplined crew. We passengers applaud Captain Pirtle-Guiney .

5. Homelessness And Housing The #1 Priority Issue

We voters chose twelve of our fellow citizens to make OUR top priority, homelessness and housing, the council’s top priority. There is no evidence that they* have now or will ever have in the future any interest in paying attention or the ability to carry out the PUBLIC’S TOP PRIORITY.

1. The Portland City Council now owns the housing and homelessness crisis.

2. The Portland City Council has millions of dollars to remove homeless from public property and provide shelter.

3. The Portland City Council has Supreme Court legal authority to remove and detain citizens who illegally camp on public property.

4. The Portland City Council has a mandate from voters to:

#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.

5. To keep faith with the voters the Portland City Council, not the mayor, is now obliged to remove all illegal camping on public property by December 1, 2025.

There are No More Excuses. Success or Failure on and after December 1, 2025 will be immediately observable by Portland Voters.

With the passing of the budget Mayor Wilson’s Homeless Policy became the Portland City Council’s Homeless Policy, which includes the following:****

1. “City officials would not seek out or “apprehend” people living in working and registered vehicles, or even sleeping on the street, and force them into shelter.” [You don’t need to force illegal campers into shelters but you must get them off public property. The Supreme Court has ruled that local governments CAN incarcerate illegal camping on public property.]

2. “Am I going to go and apprehend them? No, that’s their personal autonomy,” Mayor Wilson said. “What we’re going to do is when that person does have that moment of clarity, whether there’s addiction involved or behavioral, when they’re ready, we’re going to be ready.”

This approach is NOT what voters in Portland, indeed, throughout Oregon have told every elected official in our state, Get all those illegally camping on public property removed from those properties.

Councilor Avalos, having lost a vote for her budget amendment, became angry and shouted racism as the motivation for those voting against her motion. This is not the first time this kind of personal motive accusation has arisen in Council deliberations. This is not allowed in most if not all legislative bodies.

Councilor Kanal believes that every renter in Portland who claims that they need help paying their rent should be supplied with rental assistance funds from our Portland city treasury. Councilor Novick forcefully and correctly informed Kanal that to do so would cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars.

Councilor Smith said that she and fellow members of her Home Owners Association “did not like” homeless persons camping on their property or on nearby public property. She also said that homeless folks were harassing her grandchildren on their way to school. This was a bombshell statement. Smith was the first, and so far the only, Councilor to acknowledge and support the well publicized view of the majority of citizens in Portland and Oregon.

Councilor Smith, on no fewer than three occasions, suggested taking money away from an Intergovernmental Agreement with Multnomah county to pay for unfunded or underfunded Portland budget items. There are obviously many burned bridges and lots of bad blood between former Multnomah county commissioner Loretta Smith and the Multnomah County Commission.

Nowhere during the arduous hunt for funds did anyone on the Council mention Metro or its self-defined, voter approved role in providing a Regional Solution to Homelessness and Housing. All Councilors were unable to provide evidence that Metro has Publicly Vetted REGIONAL Homeless and Housing Policies and Plans which they will execute and pay for. Nevertheless, the Portland City Councilors seem willing to take Metro’s money, no questions asked, when they can.

Council deliberations remained oblivious to the widening stream of news forecasting dramatic increases in homelessness in the near future. Here is an example of the latest.

Oregon governor’s $217M homeless shelter bill faces uncertain future as budget woes mount

Housing advocates say the funds in recent years have helped stave off Oregon housing problems, but haven’t solved them. Now, they say significant cuts to those programs could undermine shelter and housing services at a critical moment, propelling thousands of Oregonians into homelessness and increasing the strain on the social safety net.*****

Councilor Morillo is the leader among her band of six, Councilors Avalos, Dunphy, Green, Kanal, Lane and Morillo. All of them voted for her budget amendment which would reduce the number of already reduced Sweeps Teams to 15. Fortunately it failed. These teams remove campers, their tents, paraphernalia and garbage from public property and then clean up the sites. These teams are the most essential part of fulling the voters’ will to, Get all those illegally camping on public property removed from those properties.

Morillo’s band, Councilors Avalos, Dunphy, Green, Kanal, Lane and Morillo stands in direct opposition to the will of the majority of voters in Portland and Oregon.

Several members of the Portland City Council are in positions of leadership. Some of them have demonstrated adequacy even proficiency in those jobs. However, to date, none of the councilors have shown leadership in the hardest, most complicated, top of the public’s agenda, facing the dual, overlapping issues of homelessness and housing.

There was No talk of Public Housing or the Common Good.

The ability of Portland’s City Council to even come remotely close to understanding much less successfully dealing with our city’s homelessness and housing crisis ranges from bleak to nonexistent. Successfully dealing with the homelessness and housing crisis is the touchstone of Council competence. Public judgement will be pronounced and persistent beginning on December 1, 2025.

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/m...

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/...

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

Author of The Ellmyer Report, a newsletter that informs, educates and influences on public policy. Its target audiences are elected officials, journalists and civically engaged citizens. Facebook, Portland Politics Plus. Contributor: Patch news.

*

District 1- Candace Avalos, Jamie Dunphy, Loretta Smith

District 2- Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal, Dan Ryan

District 3- Tiffany Koyama Lane, Steve Novick, Angelita Morillo,

District 4- Eric Zimmerman, Olivia Clark, Mitchell Green

**

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/06/portlands-brand-new-city-council-considers-bringing-in-outside-consultant-to-create-government-reset-plan.html

***

Homeless Shelters: (AI)

• Congregate Shelters: These shelters house multiple adults in shared spaces, often in large rooms with mats, cots, or bunk beds. The Arbor Lodge Shelter in Portland is an example of a congregate shelter. They may also include access to resources like case management, restrooms, showers, laundry, and meals.
• Residential Shelters: Similar to congregate shelters, but often emphasize stricter rules like sobriety requirements.
• Alternative Shelter Communities (Pod Villages): These use structures like tiny houses or pods within a larger space. Examples in Portland include Dignity Village and the Clinton Triangle Temporary Alternative Shelter Site.
• Motel Shelters: Utilize motels to house individuals, prioritizing the medically vulnerable. The Roseway motel shelter in Multnomah County is an example, providing individual rooms and amenities like a food pantry and pet areas.

The specific term used can also depend on the nature of the temporary housing and the services offered. For example:

• Emergency Housing: This term is used for shelters like Emergency Shelters (ES), Safe Havens (SH), and Transitional Housing (TH).
• Permanent Housing: This refers to spaces like Rapid Rehousing, Permanent Supportive Housing, and Other Permanent Housing options. .

****

https://www.oregonlive.com/pol...

*****

https://www.opb.org/article/2025/06/04/oregon-kotek-homeless-shelter-bill-headwinds/