Keizertimes., May 31, 2019, Image 1

SINCE 1979 • VOLUME 40, NO. 35
SECTION A
MAY 31, 2019
$1.00
HOMELESSNESS
Race walking
Olympian?
PAGE A14
KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald
Jimmy Jones, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, and Ashley Hamilton, program manager, connect with one of the area’s
homeless residents as part of their fi eld work with ARCHES. “I wish I could spend the next year taking groups of 10 people out with me every day, that would be
the best use of time I could make. Just to humanize the problem,” Jones said
HOW TO SEE A CRISIS
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
STEP 1
FIND A REASON
TO SEE HOMELESSNESS
K
en Houghton is one of the
hardest people to fi nd around
the ARCHES offi ce in Northeast
Salem.
Houghton is the fi rst full-time
outreach specialist at ARCHES, a
provider of a wide range of services
to the area’s homeless population.
He spends most of his time fi nding
out what homeless people need to
make their experience survivable and
then fi gures out how to meet those
needs. He might be in the fi eld or an
offi ce around the corner, but no one
ever knows where he is at any given
moment. Even co-workers have to
call him regularly to fi gure out where
he is. Houghton once got locked
inside the building one evening
because he does the work so quietly
and effi ciently. It seems like a harried
existence, but it’s a step up as far as
Houghton is concerned. He used to
work with only homeless veterans,
but the toll it took was too much.
“It was heartbreaking because I
would have to tell people, ‘I can’t do
anything for you because you’re not a
veteran,’” Houghton said. “Everyone
deserves to be seen and be heard and
the dignity that comes with that. My
heart goes out to every single one of
them.”
Houghton’s own experiences
with homelessness inform how he
approaches the people he serves now.
“These are people who have
experienced a life-long history of
trauma. They’ve had their hope
“ They’ve had their
hope crushed so
many times that
they don’t want
to engage in that
chance of it
happening again.”
— Ken Houghton, ARCHES
crushed so many times that they don’t
want to engage in that chance of it
happening again,” he said.
Ashley
Hamilton, ARCHES
program manager, feels the universe
yanking at her heartstrings when
she asks what someone needs to
keep going and prompts another
potential client opens up and become
vulnerable.
“I see the imperfections in myself
refl ected in them. It’s the realization
that any one of a number of mistakes
could have put me on the path to
homelessness – that could happen to
any one of us and not everyone has
the support they need,” Hamilton said.
The fi ght ARCHES is embroiled
in on a hyperlocal level is a personal
matter for Jimmy Jones, executive
director of the Mid-Willamette
Valley Community Action Agency
(MWVCAA). ARCHES is one of
many programs that operate under
the MWVCAA umbrella.
“I got into this work because my
father had been homeless and I don’t
feel like I did enough when he was
alive to address that problem. I have a
personal drive in this,” Jones said. “If
I had my way, I would walk into the
woods with a bucket of keys and say,
‘Come follow me,’ because those are
the people that aren’t being reached
by this system. We are focusing on all
the wrong outcomes and it’s a tragedy
of just Biblical proportions in my
view.”
The very need to explain anyone’s
motivation for pursuing help of the
homeless would frustrate ARCHES
Community Resource Program
Coordinator Breezy Aguirre from the
moment the question was asked – and
she’s not wrong.
Stories of unrecognized or
overlooked talent among homeless
people or unpredictable failures that
ended with them on the streets tend
to draw the most attention to the
problem and fl ood media streams on a
daily basis. Such stories might resolve
issues for the individual at the heart of
the story, and maybe just until the next
stumble from grace, but they do little
to move the needle for the people still
on the streets. Requiring someone to
open a vein of pain and anguish in
exchange for assistance might just as
easily be considered offensive.
“They shouldn’t have to tell us
their story to be treated like human
beings. They have the same hopes and
dreams,” Aguirre said. ■
STEP 2
ABANDON WHAT YOU
THINK YOU KNOW
F
or Jones, one of the fascinating-
frustrating things about his work is
that everyone seems to have an expert
opinion on where homelessness stems
from and how to solve it.
Depending on one’s leanings, the
origins fall into a couple of overly-
simplistic possibilities.
For many, the source of
homelessness is a crisis of morality,
Please see CRISIS, Page A2
Thatcher rep: ‘No reason this bill should have been killed’
Shooting range legislation disappears after gaining early approval
By ERIC A. HOWALD
Of the Keizertimes
A bill that might have
addressed a shooting range
across from Keizer in Polk
County appears to have
died with barely a whimper
last week in the Oregon
Legislature.
The bill (Senate Bill 1040)
would have allowed the
owner, operator, lessee of the
property to be held liable
for injuries resulting from
K. Thatcher
B. Post
bullets leaving the range. The
individual discharging the
fi rearm might also have been
held liable if the fi nal bill had
gone to the governor’s desk.
Jonathan
Lockwood,
spokesperson for Sen. Kim
Thatcher,
didn’t
mince
words when it came to the
disappointment over its death.
“Sen. Thatcher worked very
hard to get this public safety
bill passed, but the Democrat
supermajority is prioritizing
tax scams and trampling on the
Constitution, so her renewed
effort to revive this needed bill
is a long-shot,” said Lockwood.
“There is no reason this bill
should have been killed, it was
a constituent bill.”
Thatcher co-sponsored the
bill with Rep. Bill Post.
After passing a vote during
the third reading of the bill with
a whopping 24-4 majority,
the Senate Committee on
Judiciary held a public hearing
on the bill Monday, May 20.
The Committee opted to
deliberate on it the following
day, but never did. SB 1040
appeared on the committee’s
agenda on May 21 and 22 and
then disappeared the following
day without explanation.
“Real simply ... this bill has
to do with, call it a recalcitrant
property owner, refusing to
satisfy the city that had a safety
situation. This bill creates
another layer of protection,”
said Thatcher during the May
20 public hearing.
Keizer
City Attorney
Shannon Johnson said the
city is taking the position
that the shooting on the
Please see BILL, Page A6
What it
takes to be a
principal
NO ADULTS
PAGE A3
Black student
unions
take root
PAGE A4
McNary
softball
ousted from
playoffs
PAGE A10