Mayor Charlie Hales has shuffled the deck at the city by reassigning bureaus to each commissioner saying, “This will allow commissioners to interact, and to share their passion and knowledge for the various bureaus.”
From the outside looking in, it’s too early to determine what the implications might be for the city and its residents.
The optimist side of me wants to think that by reassigning bureaus, each commissioner will be able to tackle a range of issues, while being able to understand at a deeper level how the city can work in unison to come to grips with important problems today and in the decade to come.
The pessimist in me thinks that this might be just a reshuffling of the deck chairs with no clear vision for the future.
I’ll be the first to admit that change can be a good thing, and that by changing some of the assignments we can combat cronyism. Saying that, it’s hard to believe that the city will not struggle in some areas due to such a radical changeover.
The city is coming off back-to-back one-term mayors. This has a major impact on citywide systems and the residents served. Possibly, Charlie is at the beginning of a long run as mayor and this is one small strategic step in a much grander plan. If not, it might well as be more busy work, and change for the sake of change. Time will tell.
While we’ve accomplished many great things on the housing front, and continue to work towards providing people with a safe and stable home, revenue for affordable housing and homelessness has declined. Most of this has occurred because of the recession, the decline of revenue from the state and bad federal housing policy.
Locally, we’ve collectively held the line. While many urban communities have experienced dire shortfalls for housing resources, Portland has found a way to prioritize our most vulnerable residents despite having a hole in the bucket. Part of this is having great leadership, the other part is having an innovative public and private sector that prioritizes housing and homeless services.
Saying that, the writing is on the wall. We need leadership to generate more resources for the many culturally diverse communities that need access to an affordable and safe place to call home. Without additional resources, we are spinning our wheels, and the gap between the rich and the poor, both fiscal and cultural, will only grow.
I believe that we have a range of housing champions at City Hall, including Dan Saltzman, who has a proven track record of getting things done and supporting Portland’s most vulnerable citizens.
The question becomes this: can we turn having great champions for housing into new resources? Advocates, the business community and Portland’s residents are ready. It’s a matter of leveraging all of these partnerships into something of value and not getting bogged down in dealing with homelessness, specifically downtown, when there are greater challenges in housing in our city and state.
