Will Portland City Councilors’ Reelection Campaigns Support Illegal Camping And Housing Ignorance?

Portland City Councilors who are up for reelection in November 2026 were put on notice that their voters, financial contributors and other supporters now know that they all support allowing illegal camping on public property and have no idea how much of what kind of housing units exists in their own districts. Voters, potential political competitors, organization and business leaders in their districts and some journalists will surely take note.

Testimony Before Portland City Council 9-17-25*

My name is Richard Ellmyer. There is not enough money nor political will to provide permanent homeless public housing AND preventative homeless funding AND temporary homeless accommodations AND clear and clean ALL illegal campsites for ALL the currently unhoused population of Portland. Recent Federal and state actions will soon exacerbate the problem by guaranteeing an increase in the number of homeless.

A majority of voters in Portland and statewide have repeatedly listed their top priority as removing illegal camping from public property. The moment the Portland city council adopted their budget it officially took on the burden, responsibility and accountability for a policy that would resolve Portland’s homeless crisis while satisfying public demands.

These are the spending priorities to achieve Public Goals:

A. Remove all persons and their property from illegally camping on public property and then clean those sites.

B. Provide temporary housing of any type including tents with platforms on sanctioned public property along with humanitarian necessities.

C. Provide a detention facility.

To date, all members of the Council support allowing illegal camping on public property. This is in direct contravention of the will of a majority of Portland voters. And Who will do the counting on Dec. 1, 2025 to determine if ALL illegal camping on public property has ended in Portland? The mayor’s office? City Councilor’s offices? Police?

To date, all members of the Council have no idea what the makeup of the three classes of housing inventory are in their districts, nor how much they want to add in each category, nor what it will cost, nor how much of our public funds they are willing to spend to achieve their goals.

So the question arises: which of the councilors up for reelection on November 3, 2026, that is:

Olivia Clark, Mitchell Green, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo, Steve Novick and Eric Zimmerman will campaign on a platform of supporting illegal camping on public property AND a platform of self-inflicted ignorance, incompetence and fear with regard to their knowledge and decision credibility on housing matters?

It’s time for your constituents and contributors to know where you stand on these issues well before ballots reach their mailboxes.

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.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9areCJI0wtI

58:25 in for 3 minutes