4 • The Southwest Portland Post
NEIGhboRhooD NEwS
By Lee Perlman
The Southwest Portland Post
OHSU nursing students
study Hillsdale community
For the second straight year a
class from the Oregon Health and
Sciences University School of Nurs-
ing has been studying southwest
Portland for the mutual benefit of
itself and the community.
Last year the class, under Launa
Rae Mathews, studied institutions
in Multnomah Village. This year
they worked with low-income
families in the Hillsdale Terrace
and Ruth Haefner Plaza, as well as
Loaves and Fishes.
As one student told the Southwest
Neighborhoods, Inc. board at their
May meeting, “The best interven-
tion is the services that people are
asking for.”
For families in southwest, the
issues are as follows: Most are low-
income families in this part of town
are “hiding or hidden.” They need
access to preventative health care,
dental care, and case management.
A second group studied and
worked mainly with seniors. Their
main issues, spokesperson Ryiah
Nero told the SWNI board, are nu-
trition and hunger, social isolation,
and lack of physical exercise. “One
of the myths is that seniors in this
part of town don’t have needs that
July 2008
NEwS
aren’t met,” she said.
According to Nero, “When social
and health needs aren’t met, seniors
rely on emergency health care. Na-
tionwide, they generate 1 million
ambulance calls a year.”
As in previous years, students
conducted free clinics for the com-
munities they studied.
Hillsdale neighborhood repre-
sentative Janet Hawkins gave the
OHSU nursing program enthusi-
astic praise. “I complement you on
an excellent job,” she told the class.
“People are really drawn to services
that they identify.”
Environmental issues
dominate Southwest
planning meeting
Perhaps remembering their ex-
perience with the South Portland
Community Plan, and wary of
city intentions, area community
activists were well-represented at
early meetings of the Portland Plan
process.
An early “listening post” meet-
ing at St. Barnabas Church drew 50
people where similar gatherings in
other parts of town attracted 10 or
fewer.
At a kickoff meeting during the
day on June 6, (a Friday), those in
attendance included Southwest
Neighborhoods Inc. land use spe-
cialist Leonard Gard, SWNI land
use chair John Gibbon, Don Baack
of Hillsdale, Bill Danneman of
South Portland, and Susan Egnor
of Homestead.
The process is an update of the
Portland Comprehensive Plan,
which sets city policy, and the zon-
ing and other regulations to carry it
out, for public and private activities
and projects. Completed in 1980, the
plan was intended to be updated or
superceded after 20 years.
Environmental issues dominated
the discussion at the June 6 meet-
ing. Sven Auken of Denmark, the
keynote speaker, discussed the poli-
cies discussed the policies that have
turned his country from being de-
pendent on foreign oil to an energy
and energy technology exporter.
Other speakers discussed the
concept of the “20 minute neighbor-
hood, in which most resources and
commercial services are available
via a 20-minute walk, or at least such
a walk and a transit ride.
Dennis Wilde of the Gerding-
Edlen development company, a
former senior city planner under
the administration of former mayor
Neil Goldschmidt, said that the hu-
man race had at most seven more
years to transform its ways of do-
ing business before the harm to the
environment becomes irreparable.
Bridger steps down as SWNI
chair, Russell elected
Glenn Bridger of Hillsdale stepped
down after five years as chair of
Southwest Neighborhoods, Inc.
and Brian Russell of Multnomah
was elected to replace him, at the
May meeting of the neighborhood
coalition.
In assessing his five years as
president, Bridger mentioned as
highlights a well-attended rally at
Multnomah Arts Center to counter
an expected push by racist orga-
nizations to publicize their brand
of bigotry; resolving issues with
the independent Southwest Hills
Residential League, and welcoming
them into the coalition; expansion
of and improvements to the coali-
tion newsletter; and the burgeoning
of a new community in the South
Waterfront.
The biggest unmet need, he said,
was transportation improvements,
particularly those related to pedes-
trian safety, and particularly in the
face of the apparent failure of the
“halo” local improvement district
experiment.
“When we ask for things, we’re
told ‘We don’t have the money,’”
Bridger said. “My biggest complaint
is our form of government. We elect
administrators, but there’s no one
to go to bat for us. We need more
people like (SWNI board members)
Don Baack and Dorothy Gage to get
on the city’s case.”
Bridger said he had enjoyed his
time as chair, but that it was time
to give another volunteer a chance
to exercise leadership. He told the
board, “Support your new president
as well as you did me.”
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