Op Ed about the Portland Children’s Levy Process by EGC Executive director AJ McCreary
This Op-Ed was written by our executive Director in hopes to get more attention on this inequitable mess and prices that the PCL has been. Unfortunately due to “limited time” we were not able to get a local publication to pick up the piece and publish it. A reminder of the gate keeping, and silencing that happens when calling out racism, harm, and inequities in real time.
I am sounding the alarm. I am from Portland, one of the cofounders and Executive Director of Equitable Giving Circle, a local nonprofit that does robust food access work. I ran for city council a few years ago, so you might remember me from my 2022 campaign or my extensive community and advocacy work. My educational background is in Black History, and I have been an antiracist, equity educator, and consultant for over two decades. I must sound the alarm. Fascism, racism, and oppression are not just happening somewhere out in the world away from us. It is happening right here in Oregon, including in Portland's own City Hall. It is happening with your tax dollars, not just through the funding of endless war and policing, but also in quieter, softer ways. For many in the Black + Brown communities, this comes as no surprise, while it may be shocking or triggering for others.. Regardless of where you fall on that spectrum, we need to talk about it, and we must act.
The particular racism and harm I want to highlight at this moment is what is happening at City Hall with the Portland Children's Levy. The bond was created in 2002 to support and uplift Black + Brown marginalized children.
For those unfamiliar with a bond, it is a tax local residents pay for a specific issue or topic as opposed to the city’s general fund. Usually based on property value, Homeowners pay this tax directly. If your home is valued at $500K you pay around $200 a year into this fund. Renters also pay this tax, as property owners pass this fee onto tenants through their rent and deposit prices. To be clear, this is everyone's concern. This is your money. Money intended to fund services in six key areas:
Early Childhood – Supporting children's early development and readiness for kindergarten.
Child Abuse Prevention and Intervention – Preventing child abuse and neglect and supporting vulnerable families.
Hunger Relief – Expanding access to healthy, nutritious food for hungry children
Foster Care – Supporting the well-being and development of children and youth in foster care.
After School – Providing safe and constructive after-school and summer programming that supports children's well-being and school success.
Mentoring – Connecting children and youth with caring adult role models that support their well-being.
Annually, close to $25 million is pumped into the community through this bond. We should feel this impact in the Black and Brown communities. We should be seeing our children uplifted through programs and access to culturally specific services. We should see the community organizations doing this work get funding. Instead the city is disproportionately giving these dollars to white led organizations that serve less than 5% Black and Brown children. Organizations like The Oregon Food Bank, Meals for Wheels, and The Sunshine Division (a division of the Portland Police), to name a few, have continued to have their funding prioritized over Black+Brown-led and serving organizations. While two of the organizations named do useful work in our overall community, they have little presence with Black + Brown communities, and overwhelmingly do not serve Black + Brown folks. The bottom line is they have no business accessing equity dollars to serve communities they do not serve. Especially when there are organizations like EGC that exist, who consistently serve 100% Black+ Brown (POC) folks; more specifically, we serve 400 BIPOC households or about 2000 individuals each week.
Through this process with the PCL, I haven’t been surprised, but consistently appalled. Our city does a great job talking about equity, but we do not do a good job living through practices or making amends for past wrongs. We do a good job of engaging in theory, but our collective practice is weak, creating countless ripples of harm. We can do better.
Although I am deeply disappointed EGC was denied funding, and the weight of that alone is heavy, it’s the why that has revealed the biggest issue. I’m sounding the alarm because the problem is still systemic. Through this process, I have had first-hand experience of how inequitable and unserious our city government body is about systemic racism and supporting our most marginalized communities in real time. Our city is not seriously investing in our Black + Brown communities, not even with dollars earmarked for us.
The misuse and poor stewardship of these funds is devastating to the real support our local deeply marginalized communities need and deserve.
Our story is undoubtedly different than others, but the poor outcomes are the same. After being encouraged by multiple PCL staffers and city employees, EGC applied for the grant. Our scorecard from the scoring committee was concerning and problematic, with comments left like, "you all thought you were a shoo-in.” Biases in this stage were loud, not just on EGC’s application, but with many Black led orgs. Which is incredibly unnerving and concerning coming from a fund designed for orgs like ours.
I followed up with the PCL Director, and she said that our "application was great, but the city has to honor hundreds of versions of equity, not just EGC's version of equity.” We agree that many forms of equity work and deserving communities need help; however, this statement proves highly problematic reasoning and completely subjective practices for a fund with less subjective stated intentions.
From there, our only recourse was to submit testimony to the allotment committee. We created a petition and rallied 1,300 signatures from community members in support of us being funded by the PCL. We included this in our testimony video and tried to reexplain our work.
At the 4/23 allotment meeting, EGC cofounder Lillian Green was in attendance along with many other community members, where they witnessed two absurd moments:
The allotment committee ignored the testimonies and moved forward by saying the recommendations they already had were just fine.
They publicly stated they recognized some of the orgs selected would struggle with culturally specific work, but that was ok. It is not ok. It is problematic, inequitable, and out of step with the intended goals of the fund.
We understand the fund is not exclusively for BIPOC children and families, however, the PCL is supposed to focus on addressing systemic inequities by prioritizing funding for programs serving; Black, Indigenous, children and families of color, children with disabilities, youth who identify as LGBTQ2SIA+, immigrant and refugee children and families, families earning low incomes, children and families residing in East and North Portland.
This approach aims to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in children's well-being and school success, and it’s with that understanding of the fund that makes it nearly impossible to wrap our minds around non BIPOC community-serving orgs being prioritized for funding, while the orgs doing the exact work the levy is intended for are being denied.
Through our disappointment, we continued to get the word out, and community members contacted the city council and mayor. Unfortunately, the process continued to get worse.
At the 5/21 Budget hearing, various harmful and problematic things happened:
In introducing this agenda line item, Councilman Dan Ryan, while looking directly at me with a smirk, called the PCL a “giving fund.” We should all find issue with any councilperson calling public dollars something they are not, and this was also a vicious jab to belittle and rattle me when I was about to speak. Make no mistake, this is what racism looks like in motion. Racism (as well as bigotry and misogyny for that matter) is a spectrum. On one end is extreme violence like a lynching, and on the other end are softer slights and microaggressions; somewhere in the middle are power plays, purposefully harmful policies and practices. This is where we are.
Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney welcomed a presentation about the PCL that shouldn't have been allowed and wasn't supposed to happen. This presentation was an attempt by PCL to reshape the narrative of what they are doing.
Councilor Loretta Smith asked how or why orgs could put in 5-6 applications, and called out the double dipping that is happening here. Excellent questions.
Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney cut off a Black Elder, Dr. Carmen Thompson, while she was testifying about racism and the inequities she is seeing. Dr Carmen wrote The Making of American Whiteness. She is an expert on this topic. This was wild to witness. No one should be hollering at our Elders, even if they go overtime. Full stop.
I spoke third and was also cut off. Councilman Ryan was successful in rattling me. I was nervous and trying to stay calm as I read through my prepared statement. I was cut off, and Councilor President Pirtle-Guiney fussed at me for taking too long, and they had to keep time. As much as I appreciate and respect others’ time, I also understand and have witnessed time accommodations made when the testimony is found to be important enough. Beyond the bad optics, and how nasty this felt, this was another loud reminder that her words and actions don’t align when it comes to actually prioritizing equity. I hollered something along the lines of, "Here is another example of how racism and inequity live in city hall," and stormed out. Council can’t demand respect while not giving respect, and even more, if you care about racism and progress, it's probably not a great idea to yell at people calling out racism that is happening on your watch.
Later in the meeting, when they were discussing decreasing councilor office budgets, Black Elder, and Councilor Loretta Smith was saying no and why, speaking up on behalf of Black Portlanders, Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney laughed at her. It was wild to witness. Regardless of them not agreeing, publicly laughing at a Black woman like that was racist and harmful. As well as publicly treating a fellow councilperson that way is certainly a successful power play, as no one spoke up when any of these blatant racist things happened.
Additional community members spoke on behalf of the Black community and the decision on PCL has been pushed back to June 4th. Allegedly, Councilors Morillo, Koyama- Lane, Avalos, Kanal, and Green are looking into sending this back (via remand) and are trying to figure out what they can do to fix this. I have requested an audit of PCL from the auditor's office; no word on that yet, but if you are concerned about anything I am writing, you can contact the city council and the auditor directly to request an audit of the PCL.
In addition to these PCL funds that are supposed to support Black + Brown kids, not actually going to the Black + Brown communities, the long term impacts are that when this bond goes back to the ballot, voters will be reluctant to vote yes again due to the poor stewardship of these dollars. We just witnessed the PPS bond barely pass, not because voters don't want improved schools, but because voters don't trust how these dollars are being managed. This PCL fund roughly puts $25mil into the community annually. As most of that money is not trickling down to the Black + Brown communities, what we do get matters greatly, and we need to make sure all of these dollars are going to the communities they’ve promised.
The other important part of this, the PCL fund via the Hunger Relief grant, is the only line item in the Portland City Budget for emergency food systems.
Food is still not a human right due to the imperial, violent goals of our federal government and its deadly relationship with Israel. Due to this unhinged policy, we have no ongoing support, dollars, or infrastructure designated to food systems or emergency food at the city, or county level. The state helps fund some Snap and WIC, and we know that's not enough. Especially as the Trump administration is actively working to cut over a $400 billion dollars of food subsidies. Programs like ours, Feedem Freedom, and Black Futures Farm (to name a few) deserve these dollars. We are actually doing the work of feeding our community. We need our larger community to pay attention, get involved, and help advocate for actual progress, for actual investments in the Black community, and all marginalized communities, and we need our elected officials to stop talking out of both sides of their necks and to do the work that actually uplifts our communities.
I hope those who read this get riled up. I hope you respond to the alarm. I hope you demand our city councilors and PCL do better by our community, not off in the distance, but right here, right now. I hope you start speaking up about inequities and calling people in. We can not be silent, we must act. We must lean in and actively work towards progress and liberation. None of us are free until we’re all free. Reach out to the City Council and the stewards of the PCL on behalf of our most marginalized communities by June 3rd, 2025.
