Mental Health Association of Portland – Oregon's impartial & Independent advocate
From the Portland Mercury, October 22, 2014 As expected, the Portland City Council tonight has agreed to pursue a narrowly framed, but potentially troublesome appeal of the city’s police reform agreement with the US Department of Justice—casting aside advocates’ and lawyers’ insistent concerns that doing so would shatter their sense of trust in city hall. […]
From the Portland Mercury, October 22, 2014 The legal drama over police reform in Portland—seemingly put to rest in August, when a federal judge finally approved the city’s nearly two-year-old settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice—has been revived. On Wednesday, October 22, Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Amanda Fritz will ask their colleagues […]
Over 3000 Portlanders are homeless tonight; despite promises and plans the number is increasing not decreasing. Stay the course or change policy and direction? We need a change in how we address homelessness in our community. One central problem is that for years the City and Multnomah County have taken responsibility for different populations. The […]
The Portland Mercury, March 26, 2014 Earlier this year, Police Chief Mike Reese began showing off a flashy PowerPoint presentation around town. To the district attorney’s office, to city commissioners and, most publicly, to the city and county officials gathered for a meeting of the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC), Reese introduced “Prosper Portland,” […]
The Portland Tribune, Jan. 9, 2014 Reports of drug dealing plague Old Town homeless experiment Bud Clark Commons Portland police are concerned that the city’s highest profile public housing project is becoming unmanageable. In early December, Portland Police Chief Mike Reese told the city’s Housing Commissioner Dan Saltzman that he was considering filing a chronic […]
The Portland Mercury, Dec. 9, 2013 See the end of this post for a list of available shelters. They were standing with a group of young people outside Union Gospel Mission. He was wearing snowpants and boots, two jackets and a hat. She was without a hat, in a jacket and gloves, and shivering as […]
By Evan Sernoffsky, KGW News, Nov. 2, 2013 After a summer of clashes between cops and street kids, a sweep of campers in front of Portland’s City Hall, and the contentious possible move of the Right to Dream Too camp, homelessness has taken center-stage as one of Portland’s hot-button issues. But many in the Rose […]
KGW News, Oct. 31, 2013 When her Greyhound bus pulled into town 6 months ago, Maria Castillo got off with two bags and dream. “Start over, start a new life,” said the 42-year-old. Castillo had been homeless in San Diego when a social worker offered her a one-way bus ticket to Portland. “They said come […]
Op Ed by Deborah Kafoury, Multnomah County Commissioner, published in Street Roots, September 23, 2013 Last week, a young, frightened woman phoned my Multnomah County office looking for help. She was a mother, with three children, who needed housing. The family had been doubling up with a relative, but now that relative was moving out […]
From The Portland Mercury, August 28, 2013 Commissioner Dan Saltzman‘s rapid education as the new overseer of the Portland Housing Bureau is continuing apace. After taking flak in a Mercury story this week for letting Mayor Charlie Hales drive a seemingly big-stick-tiny-carrot approach to homelessness—and talking up an idea, $250,000 for shelters, that better-versed advocates […]
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