Street roots
M ay 24, 2013
Street Roots’ journalism takes home top honors
!W
S
We should all enjoy the fruits
o f our cultural diversity
id you know around one out of five Portlanders are
foreign born, and that nearly 50 percent of school
children in Portland Public Schools are ethnic
minorities? You should.
It’s estimated that nearly 100 new refugees and
hundreds more immigrants arrive monthly to the City of
Roses. They are future doctors, engineers, community
leaders and elected officials.
While white Portlanders rule the day in Portland’s
urban core — something special is happening in
neighborhoods around the city, especially in places such
as North and East Portland.
Depending on the neighborhood, up to 80 percent of
the community could be made up of individuals and
families from around the globe. It’s not uncommon to be
on public transportation or at the neighborhood grocery
store and hear a range
of languages spoken.
We must ensure that hard
“If 8 percent of
working immigrant
Portlanders count
communities have the
themselves as bike
same opportunities lor
commuters, and they
decent housing, jobs,
can shape our city into
education and health care
a national model of
that we all pursue.
progressive urban
planning, imagine what
our unabashedly ambitious 18 percent can do to build a
bigger and better Portland,” Ronault Catalani with the
Office of Equity and Human Rights recently told Street
Roots. “I can’t think of an urban problem we can’t solve if
we blend settled Portland’s political, financial, and
technological capital with new Portlanders’ vast accounts
of social, cultural, and spiritual capital.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Cultural and immigrant communities have made great
strides this year through legislative efforts in Salem,
including tuition equity and restoring to ability to obtain
driver’s licenses. Roughly 90,000 migrant and seasonal
farmworkers help maintain Oregon’s food supply and
work to beautify our state, but they are too often
excluded from the bounty. We must ensure that hard
working immigrant communities have the same
opportunities for decent housing, jobs, education and
health care that we all pursue.
Federally, we’re hoping that legislatures will take the
necessary steps that will give millions of people a
pathway to citizenship.
“This country still represents opportunity, even in face
of the obstacles that immigrants far too often encounter,”
says Roberto Jim enez with the Farmworker Housing
Development Corporation (See the complete interview
on page 7) “And that says something really positive about
us as a country. And the other side is that we can’t live in
isolation. It’s a global world and we should learn to
embrace that. Immigrants bring a lot of commitment,
energy, and enthusiasm to their futures and the future of
the communities that they live in. Ultimately, it’s all
local.”
Both in Portland and around Oregon, our culture is
growing richer and more complex with every passing
year. We should celebrate this fact at every turn. We
should work to embrace one another, regardless of where
we come from or what language we speak. It’s these
values that will help guide us to a better tomorrow.
treet Roots received three first place,
and one, second place award this
weekend from Oregon/Southwest
Washington Society of Professional
Journalists. That’s amazing.
Hard working
managing editor Joanne
Zuhl took home first
place for investigative
reporting, for her
reporting on homeless
deaths with, “Domicile
By Israel Bayer
Unknown.” Street Roots
has help lead the
conversation on
homeless deaths in Multnomah County for
more than four years through our reporting
and advocacy. The coverage Street Roots
has provided on homeless deaths and
health care are something we’re proud of
and we hope will lead to educating the
broader public on the subject matter and
will have some lasting change in our
approach to housing people who are
experiencing homelessness.
Zuhl also took home first place for social
issues reporting, for the story, “Holding the
line: a day inside the 211Info’s call center.”
The story looks at life for 211Info and gives
a snapshot into some of the lives of the
more than 120,000 people who call every
year in crisis.
D
Israel Bayer is the
executive director o f
Street Roots. You can
reach him at
israel@streetroots. org
or follow him on
Twitter @israelbayer.
Music reporter Sue Zalokar took first
place for arts reporting for her interview
with Grateful Dead member Mickey Hart.
The interview explored Hart’s views on
mental health, arts in the schools, the
history of music and the mysteries of the
universe.
Reporter Alex Zielinski won second place
for her reporting on sexual abuse among
the homeless with the story, “Sex, lies and
homelessness.” The story outlines sexual
assault on the streets and what advocates
are working to do about it.
“Street Roots provides timely and
insightful news on housing and other issues
from a wider variety of voices than
traditional media,” says Janet Byrd,
Executive Director of Neighborhood
Partnerships. “We rely on Street Roots for
depth of coverage and unique perspectives.
The newspaper is a huge asset to our
community.”
Winning these awards is no small feat for
Street Roots, knowing that we are a small
news organization in the same category
with much larger newspapers around the
region and state. In a changing media
landscape, Street Roots is doing everything
in its power to deliver news and
commentary on issues that effect our entire
community.
We hope you enjoy.
LETTER
A few additional facts about those bed bug beds
WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
Letters to the editor
are welcome at the
Street Roots office,
211 NW Davis St.,
Portland, OR 97209,
or e-mailed to
joanne@streetroots.
org.
ast week, Street Roots did a great story
on the Central City Bed™. We are
of this product and are working to
increase its visibility. Three small points I’d
like to add:
The article quoted our communications
manager saying that, “the beds are encased in
blue medical-grade vinyl that is sealed
internally.” This actually refers to the mattress,
not the bed frame.
A compelling feature of the Central City
Bed™ is that it can be easily cleaned and put
back into use if linens ever get infested. This
represents huge cost savings, especially for
organizations that purchase many bed frames.
When a more traditional, wooden bed frame
gets infested, one can never eradicate the bugs
with 100 percent certainty and the frames
must be discarded.
Profits from our Central City Bed™ frames
and mattresses go back into Central City
Concern programs. This social enterprise will
C entral C ity C oncern’s bed-bug-
help us continue such programs as the
resistent bed
Community Volunteer Corps, mentored service
projects in the community with 10-plus other
non-profit organizations.
ED BLACKBURN
Executive Director
Central City Concerns
L
Program Assistant Kara Dimitruk,
Street Roots
211 NW Davis St.
Portland, OR 97209
503-228-5657
Fax: 503-227-3117
wvyw.streetroots.org
www.news.streetroots.org
Volunteer AmeriCorps Member
kara@streetroots.org
Development Director Sarah Cloud
Development Assistant Cynthia Kiehl
Reporters Jake Thomas, Alex Zielinski, Nathan
Gilles, Robert Britt, Sue Zalokar, Erin Fenner
Photographers Leah Nash, Ken Hawkins, Kristina
Wright, Christopher Onstott
Stay connected with us online
through Facebook and Twitter
Street Roots Rose City Resource
Street Roots publishes the Rose City Resource, a
comprehensive booklet of services for people
experiencing homelessness and poverty.
To inquire about getting an order of the Rose City
Resource for distribution, please write to
pdxrosecityresource@gmail.com. Resources are also
available online at www.rosecityresource.org.
Vendor orientations are at 1 p.m. every Monday,
Wednesday and Friday at the Street Roots office.