‘City
of
Roses’
Merry Christmas
Happy Holidays!
Volume XLVII • Number 48
&
Established in 1970
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • December 19, 2018
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
Paul Susi (left), the manager of the newly opened homeless shelter at the Walnut Park complex at 5939 N.E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Killingworth Street,
accepts the delivery of a home-cooked meal for shelter guests from D. Bora Harris, a community volunteer. Harris is working with others to make the free distribution of
hot meals at the county-run shelter a weekly event.
Expanding
Volunteer makes hot meals
for kitchen-less shelter
by D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
A community volunteer is giving back and recruiting
others to do the same by distributing hot meals to guests
at a new temporary homeless shelter in the heart of Port-
the
Impact
land’s historic African-American community.
D. Bora Harris, an independent consultant and commu-
nity leader, cooked a hot breakfast of grits with butter last
week for guests at the Walnut Park shelter and followed
that up with cooking a pasta dinner for the shelter’s home-
less a couple of days later.
Located inside a county-run facility at 5329 N.E. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and Killingsworth Street, the
shelter was first opened for overnight stays on Nov. 19 and
is managed by the Portland non-profit Transitions Project.
Housing up to 80 people nightly, it offers basic accom-
modations like a bunk bed, a place to store belongings, a
bathroom and hygiene supplies. Regular meals, however,
are not offered, as the limited accommodations at the shel-
ter do not include the wiring and infrastructure to hook up
a kitchen stove.
C ontinueD on p age 4