Metro/Oregon Public Housing LOCATION Maps - Now Available To All

Hi Fellow Oregonians:

On behalf of the Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps team*1 at Portland Sate University I am proud to announce the Public Housing Location Maps, the first of its kind in Oregon and the United States of America. It is a set of interactive maps showing the types, numbers, percentages and locations of Public Housing Units in every county in Oregon. Click here to access.

The purpose of this map is to provide a common touchstone of Public Housing Location Data. Elected officials and all Oregonians can use these maps to discuss, debate and decide on the best, reasoned, defensible, equitable policy decisions related to Public Housing locations in Oregon.

We can NOT have a credible, fact based public debate with defensible arguments for or against any Public Housing Policy without credible data. Now we Oregonians, all of us, have it. In fact, it gets better than that. We also have easy to understand interactive maps that visually tell us the story of Public Housing Locations within every county in our Oregon.

The Oregon Housing and Community Services department and other county housing authorities have identified approximately 107,385 Public Housing households connected to Public Housing Authorities and related agencies in the state of Oregon. All of these households meet the following criteria: PUBLIC HOUSING i.e. a class of housing defined as, Means Test (<=80%MFI) + Government Subsidy (any government any type) + Rental Agreement.

There is no publicly available evidence that any of these 107,385 Public Housing households are currently occupied by households that meet the following criteria: AFFORDABLE HOUSING is a mathematical construct defined as, Rent/Mortgage + Insurance + Taxes + Utilities <=30% Household Income.

Research has revealed that most Public Housing is NOT Affordable Housing.

Government is in the Public Housing business NOT the Affordable Housing business.

Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps Enable Equity, Parity, NIMBY Debate

Equity. Parity. NIMBY. These terms can and should be considered with every decision to spend public funds on Public Housing throughout Oregon. Where Public Housing is located has not been a consideration in the placement of Public Housing because there was no authoritative source that all parties could use as a common factual basis. The Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps will make conversations and decisions possible.

We hope that after examining the Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps and the included data files you will ask these questions:

A. Which policy is more dominant among and within Oregon counties, Equitable Distribution of Public Housing or Targeted, UNLIMITED neighborhood/city/county concentration of Public Housing?

B. Do you see parity of Public Housing locations among Oregon’s counties, the Metro Regional Government counties and Multnomah county neighborhoods?

a. How do we explain/justify the percentage range of Public Housing units to total housing units within Multnomah county neighborhoods from zero to 100%?

b. How do we explain/justify the percentage range of Public Housing units to total housing units within Metro’s three counties from 3.25 to 10.91%?

c. How do we explain/justify the percentage range of Public Housing units to total housing units within all Oregon counties from 0.11 to 10.91%?

C. Is your county/city/neighborhood overloaded or underserved with Public Housing?

Please feel free to copy and past the map image above or this URL, https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/m..., to public jurisdiction web sites or other places where interested citizens can easily find it.

Thank you for your interest. Enjoy the exploration.

Send comments to Richard Ellmyer<ellmyer@pdx.edu>

Richard Ellmyer

Portland State University Senior Adult Learner, Project Champion and Data Wrangler

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.

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 . Opinion contributor to Patch.com news.

*1 Who’s Responsible And Deserves Credit For This Public Service? The Metro/Oregon Public Housing Location Maps Team

Taylor Allen - Portland State University graduate, Project Primary GIS Analyst and Cartographer

Richard Ellmyer - Portland State University Senior Adult Learner, Project Champion and Data Wrangler

Randy Morris - Community GIS Project Leader Population Research Center Portland State University, Project Coordinator

https://www.goodgrowthnw.org/maps