Past Issues :: 2007 June 15 :: Contents
Cover Story
Mindful of trouble
Lt. Sara Westbrook’s badge says Portland Police Bureau, not mental-health service provider. But in her 22 years on the force, she has seen her job change as funds and services for the mentally ill declined. Today, she is the coordinator for the bureau’s Crisis Intervention Team, or CIT, which trains officers to work with the growing population of people living with mental illness and without proper care.
Editorial
The devil in the details
Horoscope
Astro logic
Street Poetry
Poems
Letters
Street Roots part of what makes Portland great
Refreshing to see Clackamas County covered in newspaper
Families vs. single adults: mean-spirited
Columns
Director’s Desk
Street Roots’ managing editor, Joanne Zuhl, recently got back from the International Network of Street Papers conference in Poland. The INSP’s focus this year is to bring knowledge of poverty to a wider audience and create a sustainable network.
John Meyers
Point: We can end homelessness in the USA
Working with the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, HUD took the lead in bringing together federal agencies to support the development of local plans. In the Pacific Northwest, we hired a Regional Homelessness Coordinator to visit mayors and county commissions and make the case.
Paul Boden
Counterpoint: What is it going to take to end homelessness in the USA?
The Bush administration has invested millions of tax dollars promoting local plans to end "chronic" homelessness in 10 years; meanwhile, a 25-year trend continues of defunding federal programs desperately needed to end homelessness.
Marvin Mitchell
Giving a little of your time can stretch a long
way for others
Every week at the food box pantry where I sometimes volunteer, a middle-aged man brings two or three sacks of food to give to people getting food boxes. He has done this for years now. Why? Because at one time he was homeless, and received help from this place.
Street Culture
Hello
Loyal readers and long-time supporters — some go back to the Burnside Cadillac, Baloney Joe's and other icons of a previous generation of Portland's street people and culture — your eyes light up at just having “found” a vendor.
Raymond, the gunsmith from New Sharon, Maine, Part II
Meet new people while hitchiking! Ruminate by the side of the highway! Have new thoughts full of depth and indelibility! Forget same thoughts of incredible indelibility!
News
China’s blood money contributes to AIDS epidemic
March 14, Gao Yaojie, a doctor from China, received a Human Rights Award for her help in exposing an AIDS epidemic in Henan province. An estimated 300,000 people were infected there after taking part in government-sponsored blood-selling schemes in the 1990s.
Palm oil puts squeeze on Asia’s endangered orangutans
Bound hand and foot, dishevelled orangutans caught raiding Borneo's oil palm crops silently await their fate as a small crowd of plantation workers gather to watch.
