Youth & Youth of Color are uniquely impacted by COVID and underrepresented: Youth are uniquely and disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and are vastly underrepresented in government decisions made on their behalf. Funding Youth Voice, Youth Vote PB will specifically enlist East Portland’s diverse youth population in exercising their power to develop, propose and select COVID relief and recovery projects in their communities.   

1% by and for Youth. The City of Portland received $208 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Allocating $2 million to Youth Voice Youth Vote PB and giving youth direct voice and vote over roughly 1% of these funds, is the least the City Council should do to ensure youth have a direct say in investments made on their behalf. 

Smarter Budgeting: Youth Voice Youth Vote PB is not a competing investment for the City's existing priorities (homeliness, gun violence, community safety, etc) but a smarter way of making investments in those priorities, one that of taps the lived experience of young people to make public investments that reflect their needs and creativity in solving problems. 

Building Leadership & Recovering from COVID through Civic Participation. COVID has isolated youth and disconnected them from each other and their communities. By enlisting them to exercise their power and drive solutions grounded in their lived experience,  Youth Voice Youth Vote PB will expand their civic leadership and organizing skills while enhancing and rebuilding community, relationships, and mental health outcomes.

Reimagining Budgeting: Budgets matter; they are the primary way governments exercise power. Access to that power is uneven. We can’t reimagine public safety until we reimagine the budget process with new mechanisms of power sharing like participatory budgeting.

Time Bring PB to Portland: Portlanders have been calling for participatory budgeting since at least 2018 and the City has had multiple false starts and reversals in trying to launch PB. Now is the time to get real and share real power over real money. By starting with East Portland youth, we put them in the driver seat of launching PB in Oregon. 

Grow Power by sharing it! Power grows when we share it, not when we hoard it. Please ask the Portland City Council to share a little of their power with East Portland youth and let them decide how to spend a small portion of Portland's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds.