News
Mayor drops campaign, calls housing and homelessness top priorities
Mayor Charlie Hales, fresh from announcing he will not seek reelection in 2016, says that housing and homelessness are “job one,” demanding “real time, real effort and real money.” In a call from Hales around 2:30 today, the mayor told Street Roots that a big part of his motivation was the work underway on homeless…
Emails show timber company knew Forest Service rules but broke them
FEATURED STORY: Is it logging or restoration? Take a trip into Mount Hood National Forest. 'Stay within the parameters' An email sent from the U.S. Forest Service in November 2013 to Canadian-based timber giant Interfor Corp. is telling. “This is a very, very high profile sale at this time,” wrote Dale Phelps, U.S. Forest…
Protections at risk as Forest Service revises regional plans
FEATURED STORY: Is it logging or restoration? Take a trip into Mount Hood National Forest. Regulation rewind Before the Northwest Forest Plan was unveiled in 1994, ending the timber wars, the 19 national forests within its jurisdiction already had forest plans, and some were more environmentally friendly than others. Wildlife protections among forests varied depending…
How today’s timber wars are playing out in Portland’s backyard
We’re deep in the west Cascade wilderness, standing among a few sparsely scattered trees in a clearing otherwise void of life. We climb over loosely packed piles of twigs and needles – the dried remains of Douglas and noble fir that once flourished in this recently logged patch of forest. We’re at ground zero, and…
FCC caps cost of inmate phone calls
The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 Thursday to cap local and in-state prison and jail phone rates and to cut its existing cap on long-distance calls by up to 50 percent. “While contact between inmates and their loved ones has been shown to reduce the rate of recidivism, high inmate calling rates have made that contact…
Opinion
Policing ‘vocal fry’ is another excuse to dismiss women’s voices
In daily life, everywhere we go we hear a lot of talk from all sorts of people. Turn your ear to the voices of those in power, however, and it’s likely that you’ll hear one kind of voice rising above the rest: the voice of white, heterosexual men. In recent months, much has been made…
A new camp in North Portland fights for survival
On Oct. 7, the city of Portland announced a housing state of emergency and took a few small steps toward addressing the housing crisis. There is perhaps no better illustration of this emergency than the tent encampment at the strip of land between Greeley and Interstate in North Portland. There, people with employment, with incomes,…
Director’s Desk: What you can do to help people on the streets
Everywhere I go, people ask me, “What can I do to help people experiencing homelessness? I feel helpless, and I’m not sure my voice actually matters.” What do I do when people ask me for money on the streets? It’s really up to you. The Oregonian asked me the same question this year and this…
Vendor Profiles
Street Roots vendor profile: Garret O’Malley
Garret O’Malley was born and raised in Portland. He is 25 years old, smart and hardworking. And he is homeless. While it is difficult for Garret to talk about his current situation, he easily talks about his past jobs: “I started working at 16. I worked in retail management for 10 years: nine years with…
