Local coalition maps neighborhood equity issues

By Merry Mackinnon

The Bee, Jan 30, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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“There are economists who say that leaving a portion of the population behind hurts the whole economy,” said Co-Director Jill Fuglister, whose own neighborhood of Creston-Kenilworth, according to the atlas, has a high rate of child poverty, and a 16.8 percent overall poverty rate amongst its 8,130 residents.

The Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood extends north between Holgate and Powell, is just east of the Brooklyn neighborhood, and is just north of the Reed and Woodstock neighborhoods.

Besides the maps showing population dispersals by region from 1990 to 2000, the atlas also focuses on each neighborhood in the Portland metropolitan region and lists their boundaries, population, number of people in poverty, number of people of color, number of children in poverty, vehicle ownership by household, and percentage of upper-income households.

Then, it lists neighborhood access to such resources as affordable housing, schools, grocery stores, transit, parks, and natural habitat.

For example, according to the atlas, in the year 2000, the Sellwood-Westmoreland neighborhood had a population of 10,590. Almost ten percent of its residents lived in poverty. Over eleven percent of its children lived in poverty. Seventy-four percent of its population resided within a half mile of a grocery store, and 75 percent of residents lived within a quarter mile of a natural habitat.

Already, the coalition’s work has influenced a Metro decision on how to direct some of its Regional Bond Measure 2006 funds. The coalition brought to Metro’s attention the disparity between upper-income communities, with what it determined to be their higher number of parks and access to nature, vs. lower income areas, which have fewer parks and green spaces.

“They had this ‘Opportunity Fund’, explained Fuglister. “And we said opportunity could be about equity, too.”

The coalition convinced Metro, in this case, to give priority to lower-income communities, by directing funds toward “under-natured” areas of the region.

“So, $15 million will hopefully go to communities that have had the poorest access to natural areas and parks,” Fuglister observed.

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