November 27, 2019
The
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INSIDE L O C A L N E W S
Week in Review
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A person sleeps next to a wheelchair on a park bench, downtown. (AP file photo)
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
M ETRO
New Approach to Homeless
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City Council approves
first street response team
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The city of Portland is trying a new approach to
helping the city’s homeless population by stressing
compassion and crisis prevention with designated
first responders instead of strictly law enforcement
by police. The Portland City Council last week ap-
proved the plan advocated by City Commissioner Jo
Ann Hardesty that outlines a pilot program called
Portland Street Response.
A two-person team will form the first Street Re-
sponse team and will respond to 911 calls in the
Lents neighborhood of southeast Portland that
don’t involved weapons or use of violence, and
will be qualified as trained crisis workers rather
than police officers. Examples of non-emergency
calls could be about someone lying in the street,
people making excess noise in city parks or sus-
pected drug use.
The council approved $500,000 in May for the
pilot program, which is set to start next spring, also
drawing support from Mayor Ted Wheeler.
“Historically, it’s been up to the police to shoul-
der most of the responsibility as first responders in
crisis calls, but in many cases, police are not the
right resources to respond,” Wheeler said.
Darren Golden of the Urban League of Portland
told Oregon Public Broadcasting the new Street
Response effort could help with the relationship be-
tween communities of color and the police.
“It’s no secret that the black communities in Port-
land have deep-seated, well-earned mistrust with
the Portland police and that is magnified for our
black houseless neighbors,” Golden said. “It’s time
for Portland, being the progressive city that it is, to
stop taking active steps to criminalize poverty and
instead adopt a public health approach to begin re-
pairing our community.”
New Leader for Black Parent Initiative
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O PINION
C LASSIFIED /B IDS
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F OOD
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Bahia Overton, a children’s ad-
vocate with deep experience in the
field of social work and serving
community-based organizations,
is the new executive director for
the Black Parent Initiative, a Port-
land nonprofit established in 2006
to help local African American
families achieve financial, educa-
tion and spiritual success.
The appointment was an-
nounced last week by the Black
Parent Initiative board of direc-
tors, a panel in which Overton has
also served.
Overton holds a Bachelors de-
gree in psychology and a Mas-
ters degree in social work. She
is completing her Ph.D. in social
work research, focusing on the
experiences of African American
female adolescents in foster care.
She most recently served as the di-
Bahia Overton
rector of Equity and Partnerships
at the Chalkboard Project. She is
also the Executive Consultant for
Joy DeGruy Publications, assist-
ing Dr. DeGruy in researching his-
torical trauma and developing new
models and methods for culturally
responsive service delivery.
With over 14 years of practi-
cal experience as a professional
in the field of social work, she
has served as Child and Family
Therapist, Curriculum Developer
and Culturally-Specific Treatment
Specialist in several states, with
various community based organi-
zations and government entities.
“As always, the staff and board
of directors at BPI are grateful for
our community’s support as we
continue to deliver high quality
programs and services to families
of black and multi-racial chil-
dren to break generational cycles,
achieving financial, educational,
health and spiritual success and
well- being,” BPI officials said.