News
Etan Thomas and the intersection between athletes, activism
The 2018 NBA postseason is in full swing. This is the platform that has created historic basketball moments such as Damian Lillard’s game-winning 3-pointer that advanced the Portland Trail Blazers past the Houston Rockets in the opening round of the 2014 playoffs. It’s also the platform where the Trailblazers are in an opening-round duel with…
The life and death of Vanport, 70 years after the flood
It was a place of contradiction, at once utopian and Jim Crow, innovative and second rate. It was a town, they joked, with everything but a future. Vanport, the World War II-era federal housing project on the outskirts of North Portland, was never meant to outlast the war. It was built in a year. It was…
Inmates sue over treatment at Oregon State Penitentiary
Oregon Department of Corrections staff fabricated evidence and unlawfully used solitary confinement in order to punish two inmates without due process, claims a lawsuit filed Friday morning in federal court on the inmates’ behalf. Representing the inmates are Portland-based civil rights attorney Juan Chavez, who sits on the advisory committee to Oregon Justice Resource Center and on…
Housing
The master builder: Tackling Central Oregon’s housing shortage
If you ask anyone in Central Oregon who has been the most productive developer of affordable-housing units in the region, you will get the same name over and over again: Tom Kemper. Kemper retired as the executive director of Housing Works, Central Oregon’s public housing authority, this month after working in that position for five…
The fight for fair housing is far from over
I won’t try to define progress, but I know it when I see it – to paraphrase that famous Supreme Court case on obscenity – and when we look back 50 years to the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act and compare those times to today, I’m not sure that what we see is…
Fair Housing Act turns 50: Its impact and its hurdles
Fifty years ago, a national advisory body known as the Kerner Commission released its landmark report on the causes behind the rise in racially charged violence in America’s cities. The report became a scathing critique of a white-dominated society and its policies – around laws, employment and housing – that isolated and oppressed African-Americans. Among…
Director’s Desk: Ground-up inspiration, top-down response to homeless needs
Today only pigeons and geese wander among the low puddles of the gravel lot beneath the Broadway Bridge, but if organizers of Harbor of Hope realize their plans, this land will hold a structure for some homeless folks to sleep, connect to medical services, and, importantly, access shower and laundry services. After Harbor of Hope…
Opinion
The fight for fair housing is far from over
I won’t try to define progress, but I know it when I see it – to paraphrase that famous Supreme Court case on obscenity – and when we look back 50 years to the passage of the federal Fair Housing Act and compare those times to today, I’m not sure that what we see is…
Director’s Desk: Ground-up inspiration, top-down response to homeless needs
Today only pigeons and geese wander among the low puddles of the gravel lot beneath the Broadway Bridge, but if organizers of Harbor of Hope realize their plans, this land will hold a structure for some homeless folks to sleep, connect to medical services, and, importantly, access shower and laundry services. After Harbor of Hope…
Culture
Street Roots vendor collaborates with Oregon Symphony on song for baby
For all the uncertainty in Kate Fraser Daley’s life right now, her devotion to her family has remained steadfast and strong. Her family members include her 6-month-old daughter, Aurora; her 14-year old son, Tavis; her husband of 15 years; and their Chihuahua terrier. In February, Kate volunteered to be part of an innovative program called…
