Street Roots • Oct. 28-Nov. 3, 2016
EMMONS, from page 9
ago, former Portland City Commissioner
Gretchen Kafoury - herself a formidable
advocate for affordable housing and the
needs and rights of senior citizens - said of
Paulson: “He just never wavered from his
purpose, which was to give dignity and
meaning to every person’s life.”
Gretchen Kafoury, whom we lost last
year, likewise lived to see a building named
Kafoury Commons.
Meanwhile, in 1994, NWPP published the
first annual Downtown Affordable Housing
Inventory, an indispensable handbook for
social workers trying to help clients locate
housing, as well as a political tool for
documenting the loss of low-rent housing
downtown. Susan’s forward to the 1997
edition begins: “There is a desperate
shortage of affordable housing in downtown
Portland.” She went on to remind readers:
“In 1988, City Council adopted, as part of
the Central City Plan, a Downtown Housing
Policy ... that commits the city to guarantee
that 5,183 units (an amount equal to our
1978 affordable housing stock) be kept
affordable for low income people in
downtown Portland.”
We were then 1,162 units short of that
commitment.
Ten years later, her forward to the 2007
edition calculates the shortage at 1,853
units.
And this raises the question: When you
score a victory, a promise from one City
Council, how do you oblige the next
generation of council members to keep that
promise? How do you get them to even
notice?
Yet today, Bobby Weinstock points to
Susan’s impact on the housing that we have
managed to retain or produce.
Page 13
Commentary
“She saved the Oak and the Taft,” he
says, counting on his fingers. “And she is
responsible for new buildings that didn’t
exist: St Francis, Hamilton West, Kafoury
Commons, Peter Paulson, Twelfth Avenue
Terrace, The Morrison and Ritzdorf Court”
This housing represents a win in the
debate over whether we should be spending
on temporary shelters or permanent
housing; Susan has never wavered in her
insistence that it is housing that we need.
In her role as our leading advocate for
affordable housing, Susan has received much
acclaim, among which is the President’s
Volunteer Action Award, which she accepted
in 1990 from President George H.W. Bush;
and she was the first recipient, in 1998, of
the Gretchen Miller Kafoury Award for
Outstanding Community Development.
Yet when I ask her to single out one
accomplishment that has made her the most
proud, without hesitation she speaks of the
NWPP staff and the office culture of
kindness and respect
“I would say, as I’ve gotten older, day-to-
day kindness has been one of the things I
value most. We are a group of people who
try to exhibit kindness to each other all the
time. I mean, obviously, I’m proud of the
housing that’s been built and preserved.”
She quotes as her “watchword” a saying
attributed to Maya Angelou: “People will
forget the things you said, people will forget
the things you do, but people will never
forget how you made them feel.”
Her staff tells the same story. Bobby
Weinstock, Susan’s indispensable co-worker
whose job description has been honed to
“listening to. what other staff members
identify as their barriers and figuring out
ways to overcome them,” says of Susan:
“She lovingly takes care of everyone in her
orbit - board members, staff, volunteers and
clients. For low-income seniors, homeless
folks, and disabled people, she protects the
places where they live and she creates new
places.”
Rebecca Jones-Childs, program director
for the housing team, emphasizes Susan’s
policy that the focus always be on the
people coming through our door. “All staff
members mention some version of the same
attribute,” Rebecca explains, “plus
overwhelmingly, the care afforded to staff.”
Susan’s way of expressing that care can
range from baking birthday cakes,
babysitting when a staff member needs to
finish a quarterly report, hospital visits and
home care when once a staff member
suffered a bout with breast cancer, and
observing - or inventing! - at least one paid
holiday every single month.
“It was to me important that the staff felt
as valued as the people we serve,” Susan
says. “We’re all here to really do a strong
service, and I wanted the staff to feel valued
in that same way.”
“For me,” Rebecca says, “Susan was the
first person who gracefully demonstrated
how you take care of people individually,
while at the same time working on the
bigger-picture issues.”
usan had one time thought about retiring
when she turned 60, but tells me frankly,
“I would say I never actually thought of
myself as good retirement material. I really
love the job.”
Her husband, David, retired four years
ago. After 17 years at Powell’s, and after the
age of 40, he had gone back to school to get
his master’s in social work and worked with
Project Respond, a mobile mental-health
S
crisis response team, and at two other jobs
in the field, work that put him even closer
to the realities NWPP staff see on a daily
basis. David’s last job was at Kaiser, working
a mental health crisis triage telephone line.
In retirement, David enjoyed having the
time to return to his writing and spent many
hours in the Columbia River Gorge, making
photographs of rocks and trees and water,
meditative images of beauty and
appreciation.
Then, in the summer issue of “Piloting
Change,” the agency’s newsletter, Susan
informed readers that David had been
diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
“While he has done pretty well from day
to day,” Susan wrote, “I can see that he is
losing ground, and I want to be able to
spend time with him while he is still able to
enjoy it.”
On Oct. 22, a reception at Trinity
Cathedral’s Kempton Hall was attended by a
large crowd of friends and admirers. It was
Susan’s goodbye party.
A new director has been hired, and Bobby
Weinstock will stay on, continuing to break
trail for the rest of the staff.
Susan has spent three decades dreaming
up new ways to save us from our own
indifference, never quite losing faith that
those of us who are comfortable will one
day wake up and stretch out a hand to the
poor.
Now she looks forward to the best going-
away present ever: For the first time in her
31 years of advocacy, we have finally on the
ballot a measure that will create more than
1,300 permanently affordable apartments,
for families, seniors and people with
disabilities. Susan expects every one of us
to vote for Measure 26-179.
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