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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 2, 2018)
Page 4 Street Roots • March 2-8, 2018 New s Housing Rural Oregon -T 1 J j ! f I O W " lo cal DONATION DROP ' ■ llllg ■ ■ ~ 1 ' ■ ' Hi i ( f ! P H O T O B Y C ELESTE N O C H E Jim pushes a cart fu ll o f food out o f Junction City Local Aid's food pantry. For Jim and his wife, the pantry is offsetting the cost offixed expenses. The new normal Limited incomes, rising housing costs push families to food pantries to fill monthly budget gaps BY THACHER SCHMID A big m an w ith a long w h ite b e ard , Jim sm iled as h e d e sc rib e d h is love fo r super-spicy p e p p e rs. A n o th e r v o lu n te e r p laced a b o ttle of alking th ro u g h th e im m aculate, well- T abasco in h is b ask et. o rganized aisles of Ju n c tio n City Local B u rr an d Jim said th e y A id’s food pantry, felt no stig m a a cc essin g Je a n ie B u rr c h a tte d th e p an try , ev en in a happily w ith v o lu n te e r sm all tow n like Ju n c tio n Peggy Saltz ab o u t City, h o m e to a b o u t This article is part of Street Roots’ p ro d u ce. 6,000 re s id e n ts, in L ane Housing Rural Oregon series. “OK, so I g o t a County. I t’s a place Street Roots received funding cauliflow er,” B u rr said, w h e re “ev ery b o d y know s from Meyer Memorial Trust’s clutching th r e e bags. everybody, so ev ery b o d y “L ook a t th e size of th o se Affordable Housing Initiative to know s if yo u ’re having a p o tato es! O ne of th e s e will develop dedicated reporting on h a rd tim e ,” said th e rural housing issues. Read p a n try ’s executive "... m ake a m eal,” said previous articles from the series at d irecto r, K ori Rodley. Saltz, finishing his news.streetroots.org/ I t’s trip s like th e s e se n te n c e . “R aisins?” ruralhousing th a t have b e co m e n o rm al Jim , a n o th e r sh o p p e r for so m e fam ilies as a w ho declin ed to give his w ay to o ffset th e b u rd e n la st n am e, also se e m e d to of h o u sin g c o sts, ev en in ru ra l a re as. Food b e enjoying his trip to th e pantry. “I love b ru ss e ls sp ro u ts,” Jim said. “M y wife h a te s th e m .” See PANTRIES, page 5 S T A F F W R IT E R w About this series JUNCTION CITY Living in poverty: 17.1 percent* LANE COUNTY Living in poverty: 19.7 percent* Mean renter wage: $12.27** Renters paying more than half their income in rent: 1 out of 3** Homeless: 1,529*** Students (K-12) experiencing homeiessness: 2,373 at some point in the 2016-17 school year** Sources: *2012-16 American Community Survey five-year estimates, Census Bureau **Oregon Housing Alliance ***2017 Point in Time Homeless Count (although the numbers are widely considered an undercount)
