November 15, 2017
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INSIDE
The
Week in Review
M ETRO
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Sponsored by:
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An artist’s rendering shows the future Blackburn Building with its health clinic and affordable housing
units coming to Northeast 122nd and Burnside.
Housing and Health
Integrated services will help residents stay housed
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
pages 7-11
A Portland nonprofit serving
people impacted by homelessness,
poverty and addictions, is cele-
brating the beginning of construc-
tion for the third of three buildings
for its Housing in Health initia-
tive, a pioneering commitment
from local hospitals and health
organization to supportive, afford-
able housing.
Central City Concern also an-
nounced that the building, at 25
N.E. 122nd Ave., will be named
the Blackburn Building in honor
d anny P eterson
t he P ortland o bserver
African American community
leaders are calling on Superinten-
dent Guadalupe Guerrero to “take
steps immediately” to allow Tub-
man Middle School to open next
fall, calling into question recent
concerns over the safety of the
building and grounds.
Guerrero is slated to address
the issues when he attends a news
conference on Thursday at Self
Enhancement Inc. organized by
leaders in the black community
who are calling the potential sec-
ond major delay on the re-opening
Tubman by the School Board a
“betrayal.”
“It is our hope that [Superin-
tendent Guerrero] will be able to
bring the school board to its sens-
es,” Albina Head Start Director
Ron Herndon told the Portland
Observer. Herndon helped orig-
inally open Tubman in the early
1980s.
Joining Herndon in atten-
by
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F OOD
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C ontinued on P age 5
Black Leaders: Open Tubman
School board
called out for
‘betrayal’
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
C ALENDAR
of their retired president and chief
executive officer, Ed Blackburn.
Blackburn, who recently retired
after 26 years at Central city Con-
cern, was instrumental in pulling
Ron Herndon
dance will be Self Enhancement
founder and chief executive
Tony Hopson, and Dr. Leroy
Haynes of the Albina Ministerial
Alliance.
“Harriet
Tubman
Middle
School is a very significant cultur-
al landmark for the black commu-
nity. Right now, this community
does not have a middle school.
There can’t be a delay in Tub-
man’s reopening. We just want to
make sure that PPS understands
how vitally important this is to
our community,” Hopson said in a
press release.
Last month, the school board
voted on an amendment that could
possibly delay the opening of Tub-
man until the 2019-20 school year,
an additional year from a proposed
opening that was already delayed
by a year. The reason was to give
the district more time to study en-
vironmental hazards such as air
pollution, due its proximity to I-5,
and any possible foundational in-
stability.
Tubman is a school with deep
ties to the African American com-
munity and would be the only
middle school serving kids in the
historic black neighborhoods of
inner north and northeast Portland
if it were to open as proposed.
Last week, Portland Public
Schools released on its website
records of air pollution testing at
Tubman, which was compiled in
preparation of the Faubion K-8
school that occupied the building
last year.
The records largely indicated
no harmful levels of pollutants
detected; a Department of En-
vironmental Quality fact sheet,
which summarized EPA moni-
toring of the school from 2009 to
2011, had air toxics measured as
“below EPSA’s level of concern.”
C ontinued on P age 5