MEET ANGELITA

I'm Angelita Morillo, your Portland City Councilor for District 3. I am running for reelection because I believe in Portland. I know what we are capable of and I know how much farther we have to go.

I moved from Paraguay to the United States as a young child and grew up in Portland. I went to Lincoln High School, was part of the 2014 National Champion Constitution Team, and went on to study Political Science and Legal Studies at Portland State University. During that time, unbeknownst to anyone, I became homeless. I slept in parks and stairwells. I couch surfed. I stayed invisible because as a South American immigrant I did not trust that the government would show up for me. It was not the government that saved me. It was my community. Teachers from Lincoln reached out and gave me a place to stay so I could safely and peacefully finish my degree. That experience changed everything about how and why I do this work.

After graduating I worked in community organizing and served in constituent services at City Hall, where I spent every day hearing from Portlanders who needed help and could not get it. Not because the resources didn’t exist but because the government did not know how to reach them. I left that work with what felt like secret knowledge of how this city actually runs. A wealth of information I knew I had to share. So I launched Instagram & TikTok accounts @pnwpolicyangel. I met my community where they were online and now more than 50,000 Portlanders regularly engage together as we talk about our city in blunt, plain language, without the wonky jargon and red tape barriers that keep people from being better informed and educated on the systems, decision makers and issues we face everyday.

I ride the city bus. I have never owned a car. I have been houseless. I have faced housing discrimination. I have been the person the government failed to reach and I have been the person inside government watching it happen to someone else. I have lived on both sides of that wall and I know exactly how to tear it down.