NEWS
BY AMY SCHNEIDER
POLLUTION UPDATE
COMMUNITY SUPPORTS
UNHOUSED KIDS
I
n December of 2015, Eileen Chanti’s pre-
school program for unhoused children, First
Place Kids, looked in danger of closing. The
program had recently lost a staff member, and
Chanti only had six months to find funding
before she ran out of money.
Since then, Chanti says, an outpouring of do-
nations from the Eugene community has saved
First Place Kids from having to close.
After the program received some publicity in
local papers, “there was a pretty intense stream of
support,” Chanti says. First Place Kids received
donations from $100 to $5,000, and with a yearly
budget of $32,000, Chanti says the donations
have allowed her to hire an assistant teacher.
First Place Kids is unique in the area — it
serves around 200 children a year through drop-in
classes three times a week at First Place Family
Center. Because the program does not have man-
datory enrollment, First Place Kids can accommo-
NEWS
date the difficulties and unpredictable schedules
often faced by unhoused parents.
Chanti says that in the past few months, First
Place Kids has developed a gardening program
and reimagined its classroom, replacing plastic
toys with wooden toys donated from the Eugene
community. The program continues to perform de-
velopmental screening for kids and connect fami-
lies with resources across town that can help out.
Now, Chanti says, she would love to see First
Place Kids expand to five days a week. The pro-
gram will hold its first fundraiser June 24 with a
paella dinner at Claim 52 Brewing.
“Our goal is to make enough money to be able
to be there for families every day,” Chanti says.
“It’s clear to me that the community cares.”
First Place Kids’ Paella Dinner Fundraiser is
6 to 9 pm Friday, June 24, at Claim 52 Brewing,
1030 Tyinn Street, Suite 1. Tickets are $50. Call
541-743-7144 for more info.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) fined
Junction City $1,000 last week for discharging elevated levels of
ammonia to Flat Creek from its wastewater treatment plant in
December, January, February and April. The city’s discharges take
place pursuant to an expired Clean Water Act permit issued by DEQ in
2007. The permit expired in June of 2011, and includes a monthly
average ammonia limit of 1.6 milligrams per liter; however, DEQ
entered into an agreement with Junction City in 2013 under which
DEQ will fine the city only when monthly ammonia discharges exceed
6.0 milligrams per liter (i.e., DEQ has essentially agreed to ignore
violations unless the amount of ammonia discharged is almost four
times what the city’s Clean Water Act permit requires). The agreement
between DEQ and the city does not protect the city from a third party
Clean Water Act citizen suit.
Doug Quirke/Oregon Clean Water Action Project
B Y A L E X V. C I P O L L E
SVDP LOOKS TO CONVERT CAS-
CADE PRESBYTERIAN INTO
HOUSING FOR HOMELESS YOUTH
T
here’s no question that the crisis of the
unhoused, the homeless, people on the
street — however we want to designate
those in need — has reached a critical
moment in Eugene and Lane County.
And when it comes to the unhoused, kids and
teens are the most vulnerable.
St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) wants to begin
tackling this pervasive issue, says Paul Neville,
SVdP’s communications director. The nonprofit
human services organization announced that it
has a four-month option to buy the property at
3350 Willamette Street, the former home to the
Cascade Presbyterian Church, which has moved
its congregation to meet on Sunday mornings at
Hi-Fi Music Hall.
The four-month option means that St. Vinnies,
exclusively, has four months to raise the money
to buy the property.
SVdP would use the property as residential
facility for homeless youth with the main goal
being, Neville says, keeping teens safe and in
school.
“It’s something we’ve been thinking about
for a long time,” Neville says. “This would be a
facility that would serve homeless youth that are
still in high school.”
Nevile says the target demographic is un-
emancipated homeless youth ages 16 to 18, a
population he says is very vulnerable.
The idea stems from St. Vincent’s job pro-
gram for youth, the brainchild of SVdP’s execu-
tive director Terry McDonald. Neville says there
are 40 kids currently in the program, which em-
ploys teens in SVdP and works together with the
kids’ schools.
“We provide a steady presence in their lives,”
Neville says. “We have a foundational base in
this that helped inspire the idea for an actual resi-
dential facility.”
The proposed facility would house anywhere
from 15 to 20 teens at a time; each resident would
have an individual room and bathroom. There
will be an on-site residency manager and social
services.
“The idea is to keep them in school and pro-
tect them,” Neville says.
He adds that SVdP will continue to work
closely with schools, as well as the city of Eu-
gene, Springfield and the county.
“We have met with city planning officials,
we have met with reps from both the Bethel and
Eugene school districts — there is very strong
support in the school districts for this project,”
Neville says, adding that Mayor Kitty Piercy and
Mayor-elect Lucy Vinis both support the project.
He also says that the Council of South Eugene
Neighborhoods has expressed its support for the
project.
Neville says the next four months will be a
“mad scramble” to raise the money to purchase
the property, but the organization is optimistic.
“We’ve got the experience and the contacts to
pull this off,” he says. “I think there’s going to
be strong community support for something like
this.”
HAPPENING PEOPLE
BY PAUL NEEVEL
SAMANTHA WISE
In the spring of 2015, Samantha Wise took a job delivering The
Register-Guard newspaper. She had a 5-mile route that took four hours
to walk in the early morning. “I had painful knees from jogging,” she
says. “I learned about barefooting, and I went without shoes around
the house and doing errands.”
Within three weeks of beginning her paper route, Wise had
become a 24/7 barefooter, and she no longer had pain in her knees.
“It’s one of the most enriching things I’ve done,” she says. Wise
became a barefooting activist after she was told by a manager at
Market of Choice that she couldn’t be in the store without shoes. She
joined the online group Barefoot is Legal and returned with a packet a
few days later. “If a store is open to the public,” she told the manager,
“it shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of a dress code.”
She points out that no shoes, no shirt, no service policies began in
the ’60s as a way to discriminate against anti-war hippies. An
American citizen born in Mexico, Wise moved to White Salmon,
Washington, her father’s hometown, at age 3, then to Eugene, where
her mother entered the UO, when she was 8. She graduated with
honors from Northwest Youth Corps’ OutDoor School in 2004. She
started having children at age 21 and now has five: Simone, Sylas,
Ayasha, Rylee and Sadie, ages 10 to 3. She lives with them and her
husband-to-be Phillip, a wildland firefighter, in South Eugene. Her two
online stores, Modern Zenobia and DIY Nails Direct, can be found on
Facebook.
eugeneweekly.com • June 16, 2016
11