Drug impact areas 240 people lighter after six months

By Joanne Zuhl, Staff Writer

Six months into operation, the city’s drug impact area program has excluded 240 defendants from the city’s downtown and inner eastside neighborhoods — nearly one in four of all arrests for heroin, cocaine and marijuana in the county during that period.

The $250,000 program, implemented in June, allows the courts to exclude people from three geographical areas for up to two years, based upon their conviction. The three DIAs – assigned for heroin, cocaine and marijuana convictions – largely overlap covering the Downtown, Old Town, and Holladay Park neighborhoods.

The period ended in November, and the city released the report just this month.

“When you look at the amount of crime and the types of crime — it’s working,” said Billy Prince, DIA prosecutor with the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office. Prince was speaking today to members of the Old Town/Chinatown Livability Committee, which led the cry last year to bring back exclusions to the neighborhood.

Altogether, the report references 1,064 arrests involving heroin, cocaine and marijuana throughout the county – 824 of them outside of the three DIAs. Regardless of where the arrest took place, a convicted offender could be excluded from one or all of the three areas downtown.

City Council candidates weigh in on housing, homeless issues

Candidates for City Commissioner (left to right) incumbent Amanda Fritz, State Rep. Mary Nolan, Teressa Raiford, Jeri Sundvall-Williams and Steve Novick. Photo by Israel Bayer.

By Joanne Zuhl
Staff writer

New and familiar faces among the candidates for City Council addressed an invested audience on issues of affordable housing and homelessness this afternoon.

The City Commissioner Candidates’ Forum on Housing brought together the leading contenders for the two council seats on the ballot next Spring. Candidates Amanda Fritz, Mary Nolan and Teressa Raiford are contending for the Commissioner 1 position, currently held by Fritz. And candidates Jeri Sundvall-Williams and Steve Novick were there for the Commissioner 4 position, which is being vacated by Randy Leonard.

The panel fielded questions prepared by the event sponsors on issues of gentrification, job creation, funding for affordable housing, civil rights for the poor and streamlining bureaucracy. Oregon Opportunity Network, JOIN, 211info and Street Roots sponsored the event, which was held at the First Unitarian Church in Downtown Portland.

One underlying theme through several of the queries had to deal with preserving what we have, and finding new resources for what we need.

Extra! Extra!

Winter in Portland has finally caught up with us, especially the hard-working men and women out selling Street Roots. Remember to keep a dollar or two dry when you head out this weekend and pick up the latest edition of Street Roots from your friendly neighborhood vendor. Here’s what’s rolling on the press right now:

Another political casualty: Needle exchange programs rely on local support after the feds bail on funding. Amanda Waldroupe reports on how the policy reversal in Washington D.C. makes local funding even more critical.

Corporations aren’t people — except in politics: Janice Thompson with Common Cause looks at the impact of the Citizens United case one year on, with a reflection on the city’s own resolution condemning the Supreme Court decision on corporate personhood.

Barred for life: An interview with Harvard professor Bruce Western on inequality in America and the consequences we’re all paying as a result.

Patient Physician Cooperative seeks to remodel health care: A new, non-insurance way of paying for health care in Portland.

Plus, news, poetry, artwork and commentaries by economist Robin Hahnel, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and a review of a new book that investigates the student loan industry. Remember to bring a little sunshine into your weekend with a smile for your neighborhood vendor and a new edition of Street Roots. Thank you!

A long way from home: Soldiers return from the battlefields

A soldier from the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division carries his bag to begin his trip back to the United States at Camp Virginia, Kuwait. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Sarah Edmonds, Contributing Writer

Ryan McNabb was a medic in the Marine Corps for six years. He deployed twice to Iraq and worked on the front lines, experiencing, he says, what you’d expect to experience on a battlefield. He returned home in February 2006.

A few months later, he got in a fight and assaulted two police officers. He chalked it up to normal drunken sailor stuff — just blowing off steam.

When he blacked out in rage, while driving 65 miles per hour with his wife and five-month old son in the back seat, he realized it wasn’t normal any more.

“I know I’m an intelligent human being. I know why babies cry, and they’re trying to inform me of something,” McNabb said. “But with PTSD, I don’t like large sharp sounds. It reminds me of gunshots and explosions. My son had wet himself. He started to cry. I was driving. While he’s screaming at the back of my head, he’s screaming at my soul, which set me off. So I start screaming at my wife, while going 65 miles per hour down the freeway. She shouts back at me. I rip the rearview mirror off and threw it at the floorboard. I grabbed the GPS and threw it at the windshield and it spiderwebbed going 65 mph with my wife and child in back seat. I blacked out in rage. I don’t remember pulling to the side of the road at all.”

SR Editorial: There is still time to make the right choice for veterans

Abraham Flexner, an American educator, said decades ago, “Nations have recently been led to borrow billions (now trillions) for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education.  Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization.  We must make our choice; we cannot have both.”

Having made the choice, we must be prepared to deal with the consequences. The military industrial complex speaks volumes to the choices our government has made, and so do the 135,000 American veterans who are homeless. It’s hard to comprehend the magnitude of money and lives our country has sacrificed in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. We have lost so much.

From the director: No time to rest on our laurels, 2012 is here!

By Israel Bayer

Individuals selling the newspaper reported back to the organization that readers were more than generous, and your support meant the world. Thank you.

We would also like to thank the many individuals and families who have already taken the time and effort to give to the organization during the holidays. Street Roots raised more than $17,000 through the Willamette Week Give!Guide and $25,000 through the mail and through our own website. We can’t thank you enough. Your support means Street Roots will remain strong going into 2012.

This year is an exciting time for the organization. In February, Street Roots will be unveiling a new web platform that will help the organization compete in a changing media landscape. We have been working over the past year with open source developers to build a fantastic website for the general public. The new website will allow us to be more transparent as an organization, while highlighting the content of the newspaper, the vendor program and our advocacy work.

In the next year, we will also be expanding our physical space. For as long as Street Roots has existed, we have been operating in a shotgun office with editorial and vendor services. We will be staying in the same building, but creating editorial and development offices around the corner, in addition to our current space. The additional space will give us street side access on both Northwest Second Avenue and Northwest Davis Street. The move will allow for both the editorial and vendor program to grow over time.

Also in 2012, Street Roots will be working to expand sales locations and working with local businesses and organizations to serve the vendor program. We will also continue to publish more than 100,000 SR Rose City Resource guides and work with more than 200 organizations and institutions to distribute the guide.

All of this is a part of a larger strategy to go weekly in 2013-14. Over the next two years the organization is working to build capacity for such a venture. Going weekly would allow us to increase the income for people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Portland, and allow Street Roots to deliver more timely and important news that can’t be found anywhere else.

Again, we appreciate the love. Your support is going directly to supporting social and individual change. Cheers and Happy New Year!

Bankers, Politicians, and the Most Audacious Power Grab in American History

By Thomas Vincent, Contributing Writer

There are lots of reasons to like Matt Taibbi. His writing is witty and entertaining, his points skewer their target with the uncanny precision of Robin Hood’s arrows, and despite his somewhat lofty perch as a contributing editor for Rolling Stone Magazine, he retains a truly remarkable level of humility. But the main reason I find Taibbi’s writing appealing is because he is so successful at making complicated things understandable. “Griftopia” is a perfect example.

“Our world isn’t about ideology anymore. It’s about complexity. We live in a complex bureaucratic state with complex laws and complex business practices, and the few organizations with the corporate willpower to master these complexities will inevitably own the political power.” In other words, Taibbi is saying that even though many modern political movements like the Tea Party “reflect a widespread longing for simpler times and solutions,” ultimately, power will go not to those who desire simplicity, but rather to those who become adept at dealing with the world’s increasing complexity.

One day in the life of a Russian vendor

Russian vendor of street paper Put Domoi Vitaly Petrovich Shashlov on the streets of St. Petersburg. Credit Aleksey Talipov

By Aleksey Talipov, Street News Service

One of four million homeless people in Russia, Vitaly Petrovich Shashlov is a vendor of street paper Put Domoi in St. Petersburg. He is 67 years old and has been selling the magazine for 12 years.

To know what a day in the life of a Russian street paper vendor is all about, I am spending a day with Vitaly in St. Petersburg. We meet at the Put Domoi distribution center, where Vitaly arrives with his iron cart and a rucksack. He looks at me suspiciously and is thinking for a long time before answering each question. He says he wants to make sure he says the right things. When I ask whether I can take pictures of him, he appears somewhat shy at first.

Thankfully, I manage to break the ice a few minutes later. Vitaly picks up several heavy packs of newspapers and realizes that he can’t manage to put them all in his cart and rucksack. I offer to help, which he seems to appreciate. On our way to a tramway stop, he brightens up, but still does not want to speak much about himself. After a while, he opens up and tells me about his previous job as a street cleaner. He says he was proud of that job because he could do it regardless of his age. I see him off to go selling, and we agree to meet later at the Nevskiy Prospect tube station. While saying goodbye, he looks at me for a while and offers me a handshake.

Vendor Profile: Northwest’s Shaman in training

By Cole Merkel, Staff Writer

Saul Cortes watches over the community around him. During our interview at his sales location, the Whole Foods at Northwest 13th Avenue and Couch Street, he had conversations with many passersby. It was a cold day and he asked a friend who passed, “You need some handwarmers?”  She was fine, but the offer opened five minutes of conversation between the two. A few minutes later he yelled, “Hey! Check your bag!” to a mail carrier up the block who had dropped a few letters from his pack.

City council candidates forum on housing and homelessness

Join Street Roots, the Oregon Opportunity Network, JOIN and 211info and referral for a city council housing and homelessness forum. The event will be this up and coming Monday, Jan. 23 at 11:30am until 1pm at the First Unitarian Church at 1011 SW 12th Ave. in downtown Portland.

Be there!

Candidate interview: Mark White

by Jake Thomas, Staff Writer

Mark White isn’t quite sure how many city boards, committees and commissions he’s served on over the  years (he estimates that it’s a couple dozen), but is hoping to add one more to his resume: City Council.

For the past seven years, White has been a full-time volunteer, working on a number of community projects, as well as serving on city boards set up to get input from the public on issues that span housing, urban renewal and many others. Most notably, White serves as the co-chair of the Charter Commission, which recommends changes to what is essentially the city’s constitution.

White, 52, moved to Portland 20 years ago from California and eventually made East Portland home. He has served as president of the Powellhurst-Gilbert Neighborhood Association for the last three and a half years. He is challenging Steve Novick, a well-connected and popular candidate, for the seat being vacated by Commissioner Randy Leonard.

Jake Thomas: You’ve served on a lot of city boards and commissions. What lessons have you learned from serving on them that you would bring to City Hall?

Mark White: Well for one, I bring an understanding of how City Hall works and what the real deal is behind how decisions are made. I’m not deluded to think that what happens in a committee is something that City Hall is going to take seriously. I’ve had numerous times when the city folks hear what they don’t want to hear, and their usual refrain is, you’re just an advisory committee. I have a true respect for folks who serve on committees and commissions and boards because I’ve done so many of them, and the folks who sit on them are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly passionate about what they do.

Let’s not go blindly on housing into the next session

Alison McIntosh, Contributing Columnist

Too many Oregonians today are forced to choose between paying rent or buying groceries or medicine.  Too many of us are busy looking for work, holding down two or three jobs, hunting for an apartment or affordable day care, or trying to hold off a foreclosure. Many others of us are trying hard to sleep through the night while worrying, or while sharing shelter space with dozens of other people.

In February, the Oregon Legislature will convene for a short, one-month session.  This makes us anxious for yet another reason, holding our breath nervously in anticipation of what might occur in February. It is almost certain that we’ll hear more grim news about the budget, and we’re worried that the Legislature will act to do even more damage to our community’s system of support for people facing hard times. During the last legislative session, there were cuts to emergency housing assistance and other housing programs, severe cuts to child care and work support programs, and more. There’s nowhere left to cut, and many of these cuts have already gone too far.

Groups march for human rights on MLK Jr. Day

Photos from today’s 19th Annual MKL Jr. march in Portland, Oregon. The march was put together by Sisters Of The Road. The group says nearly 500 people marched today with a message of human rights through nonviolence and grass roots community organizing. The group made stops at Right 2 Dream Too, the Justice Center and City Hall where the group says, “policies continue to be created and enforced that criminalize people for surviving homelessness and having nowhere to go.”

Photos by Sue Zalokar

19th annual MLK march at Sisters Of The Road today

Sisters Of The Road is hosting a longstanding community march today to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

Join people experiencing homelessness, faith, labor and social justice organizations as we march throughout Portland to call attention to the local movement for economic human rights.

This is the 19^th annual MLK Day March at Sisters of the Road. Speakers include Ibrahim Mubarak, co-founder of Dignity Village and Right 2 Survive, Claudia “Mama Chewy” Long, “dreamer” at Right 2 Dream Too, and Paul Boden, the Organizing Director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project in San Francisco.

The group says, “We will take our message of human rights through nonviolence and grass roots community organizing to Right 2 Dream Too, financial institutions that continue to profit off of massive home foreclosure, the Justice Center and City Hall where policies continue to be created and enforced that criminalize people for surviving homelessness and having nowhere to go.”

The gathering begins at Sisters Of The Road, 133 NW 6^th Ave, for a rally at noon  and begins marching at 12:30 p.m.

No relief? Park bathrooms on the city’s chopping block

Money saver? This could be the best option for park goers this summer

Among the items caught in the squeeze of City Hall’s budget crunch are nearly 200 public restrooms in Portland parks that could be shuttered this summer during peak season.

Portland Parks and Recreation’s Budget Advisory Committee says the city could save $771,910 by closing most of the city’s public park restrooms and replacing them with half as many portable toilets. In all, 189 toilets would be closed.

Not all toilets are included in the proposal. Those toilets not affected would be those at Hoyt Arboretum and Lower Macleay Park, as well as all restrooms that are already closed or maintained by contracted services, including most of those in the downtown area and Pioneer Courthouse Square.

This is one of numerous cuts proposed for the Parks and Recreation Bureau to reach the 4 to 8 percent spending reductions Mayor Sam Adams has asked of all city departments. Other cuts include reducing daily trash removal from the parks and discontinuing the elm program to fight Dutch elm disease.