August 3, 2016
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INSIDE
The
Week in Review
O PINION
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L OCAL N EWS
Photo by M ark W ashington J r ./t he P ortland o bserver
Tyrone ( left), defends his camping space with others on the Springwater Corridor in southeast Portland.
The City of Portland has given the hundreds of homeless campers along the trail a month to move out.
Holding Ground
Springwater Corridor residents fight eviction
by C ervante P oPe
t he P ortland o bserver
Residents along the Spring-
water Corridor in southeast
Portland have received a month
long extension to move out as
Mayor Hales has set a new date
of a forced eviction of homeless
camps to Sept. 1.
The extension comes after a
threat of a lawsuit and a court
injunction filed by the Oregon
Law Center on behalf of 11
Springwater campers who have
disabilities.
Hales acknowledged that his
first notice to vacate the corridor
over a few days was a bit unrea-
pages
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Arts &
said Gabriel Erbs of Portland
Tenants United, a group that
has been closely tied with the
Springwater inhabitants.
Erbs blames chronic state,
city, and county underfunding
for homeless services as a partial
cause of the present crisis.
“Our elected officials’ refusal
to pass tenant protections like
rent control and just-cause evic-
tion reform are another cause,”
Erbs said. ““If Mayor Hales
decides to go through with his
forced eviction of Springwater
residents, we know the safety
C ontinued on P age 4
Workplace Charged with Racism
ENTERTAINMENT
C LASSIFIEDS
O BITUARY
C ALENDAR
sonable because the city doesn’t
yet have good options to find
other places to sleep for all the
people living there.
“That continues to be true.
Recognizing that, I want to en-
sure this cleanup is as humane
and compassionate as possible.
Adjusting to social service pro-
viders’ requests is part of that,”
Hales said.
Social service providers will
work with the corridor’s resi-
dents and other advocates to find
other places for the homeless to
move.
“Services for the houseless
have been insufficient for years,”
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Precision Castparts, the found-
ry already publicized for leaking
toxins into the air surrounding its
southeast Portland location, has
more issues coming its way due to
a discrimination lawsuit.
Carvin Glover, an Afri-
can-American employed by
the company, has filed a law-
suit against the foundry claim-
ing he endured racist comments
from coworkers and supervisors
throughout his 19 years of work-
ing there.
He said other employees would
ridicule him by calling him “dark-
ness” for having the darkest skin
of all the employees and not be-
ing visible during a power outage;
was attacked with the n-word by
a coworker who told him he was
assigned certain jobs because of
his race; and was fronted with
stereotypical discussions of black
people not being able to swim be-
cause of false beliefs they had dif-
ferent bone structure.
Complaining about the inci-
dents and other actions of discrim-
ination impacting other workers
at the plant eventually led to him
being fired, Glover claims.
His lawsuit asks for $600,000
for emotional distress and
$300,000 for loss of wages and
benefits.