WWW.
MAY 29, 2009
BN| HHI
A SITE OF THE
TIMES
HR
E fH H K
posf city
The Rose City Resource goes online
with expanded resources a n d
inform ation
.org
CELEBRATING
a decade o p
Page 3
Education ♦ Dialogue ♦ Independence
Shock wave
I
The number o f veterans falling into
homelessness is on the rise, with
older veterans arriving on the streets
for the first time in their lives.
■ si
BY MARA GRUNBAUM
i
M
STAFF W R ITE R
‘ t’s a warm, still May afternoon as people mill
around the curb, outside a downtown shelter,
.and Tyrone Brown, a fiery Vietnam veteran •
with a baseball cap and greying goatee; i^pissed
off.
“We got this country free,” he says, gesturing
toward other veterans who are staying in the
Glisan Street Shelter or, like him, waiting for a
space in it. “What are we doing being homeless?” g
Veterans have long been a large segment of the .
U.S. homeless population. There are no perfect
estimates of how many veterans are on thé
streets, but by several accounts, the number is on
the rise — especially for older veterans like
Brown.
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs estimates
that there are 2,042 veterans' e^ e n e n c ihjgi a
homelessness on any given nightin thê Portland
service area, which includes Vancouver. That’s up
from 1,790 in 2006. ,
Portland’s One Night Street Count, which
surveys people who were homeless on a given
night in January, found 192 veteran^ thisyear
compared with 108 in 2007. The jump far
outpaces the increase in the overall street count,
which only grew by about 10 percent.
Though some of those new to the streets are
See SHOCK WAVES, p a g e 13
B
Rick Stoller, who directs the Harbor Light shelter, says its
veterans “because everyone’s looking for it. ”
Community's heart for Vision in Action beats loud and clear
City bails on funding the program
to empower minority communities
- PS U picks up the slack
BY REBECCA ROBINSON
C O N T R IB U T IN G W RITER
ie City, Council hearing on* the evening of
May 20was best summarized by Sisters of.
the Road co-founder Genny Nelson: “It is
not business as usual in Portland.”
Indeed, the individuals giving testimony about
the VisionPDX public engagement process and its
progeny, the Vision Into Action coalition (VIA),
stood indirect contrast to the city’s
overwhelmingly white majority. Africans,
Cambodians, Iraqis, Latinos and other immigrant
and ethnic minority populations packed the seats
in council chambers and stepped up to the
microphone, detailing in voices alternately shaky
and forceful how VIA had empowered their
communities - and why the' city should not go ,
forward with its planned elimination of VIA’s
$339,416 budget.
“Through VisionPDX, I felt like I had access to
" the city in a way I never had,” said Evelyne Ello-
Hart, the interim director of the African Women’s
Coalition. “It was a clear message that we really
mattered.” Before concluding her testimony, she
urged City Council “not to kill the vision.”
Romeo Sosa with the VOZ Workers’ Rights
i uT?nna”) Performs outside City Council Chambers as audience members file in to testify on behalf o f the Visions m
month’ ™ c m M t0 8 iw m in o ri^
and c u itu m a stnmger
platform in the city.
See V IS IO N S , p a g e 11