Opinion
It’s time to turn the urgency around housing into action
The Home For Everyone board recently submitted recommendations to the City of Portland and Multnomah County. Home For Everyone is a plan to bring the community together to oversee an array of complex services to deliver the best outcomes for ending individual and family homelessness in our region. “The strength of the Home for Everyone…
The responsibility to speak up belongs to all of us who can
Most homeless people don’t care about politics. They just think that everything is "how it’s going to be.” This was my friend Mike, a grizzled veteran of Vietnam, and years on the streets, talking. “They’re too busy or something, you know.” We were on a chartered bus, heading back to Portland after having spent a…
Portland police training audit fails basic task on truth
The city auditor’s March 2015 appraisal of the Portland Police Training Division is devastatingly precise — and damning. City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero and her colleagues flayed and finely chopped the PPB’s excuse for a training program, revealing a shocking practice of starting strong, but losing interest after a year or two; a frail, uninformative…
The legacy of Barney Frank
I remember the first time I met Barney Frank. It was the summer of 1980, during his first campaign for Congress. I was a 21-year-old college student. Barney was different: a smart, funny, principled, disheveled and fearless liberal. There was a big and noisy fight going on in our country — between a Reagan vision…
Gretchen Kafoury’s legacy one of action, change
Gretchen Kafoury passed away of natural causes on Friday, March 13 at the age of 72. Like others, Street Roots was sad to hear the news, and overcome with emotion to not only honor, but to carry on her work. To say that Oregon lost a great leader seems inadequate. It is difficult to find…
News
Curious Comedy Theater: Colorful language
It was nearing 9:30 p.m. on a Friday and Jeremy Eli’s brainchild, monthly comedy show Minority Retort, was about to debut at Curious Comedy Theater on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Eli and co-founder Jason Lamb were afraid to steal a glance from backstage and find a sea of empty seats. Or a sea of…
Human investment: the politics of trying to keep people out of prison
Carole Hinojosa didn’t expect a second chance. She grew up in a drug house in deep Southeast Portland in the 1970s, where, she says, she began her long affair with alcohol and methamphetamine as a little girl — she was only 8 years old when she started using. At 28, she was sentenced to 13…
A frank discussion with Barney Frank
When Grace Badik answered the phone at the Street Roots front desk, the caller wasted no time with pleasantries. “Barney Frank.” Nothing more. Nothing less. With that voice, you almost don’t need the name. The former congressman from Massachusetts has adopted the habit of omitting small talk such as “hello” and “goodbye” from his phone…
Vendor Profiles
Vendor profile: Kim Etherton
Kim began selling Street Roots again this year after a few years’ hiatus. In early February, she brought her son into the office to go through orientation. She said it would give him some extra spending money while he found his footing after a lengthy hospital stay last November. The paper has been something of…
