www . THESkANNER . COM
D ECEMBER 14, 2011
P ORTlAND , O REgON
V OlUME XXXIII, N O . 59
25
CENTS
i nSide
Death with Dignity
page 4
Vanport Survivor
page 6
Healthy Holidays
C hallenging P eoPle to S haPe a B etter F uture n ow
Wilhoite Defends
Outgoing President
Marcus Mundy
By helen Silvis
of The Skanner News
T
he Urban League of Portland has
taken two painful blows in the last
month. First came the sudden death of
Rob Ingram, inspirational leader of the
Urban League’s Young Professionals. Now,
the league has lost its president, Marcus
Mundy, after a succession of audits found
$44,000 in undocumented expenses.
What’s next? Multnomah County has
threatened to withdraw funding if the league
doesn’t demonstrate tightened financial
control of its funds. The Department of
Justice has opened an investigation into the
league’s fiscal management. And questions
have been raised about $320,000 in City of
Portland funding that supports job training
and other workforce development activities.
“What they have to show is that they have
fiscal controls in place and the money spent
was in support of the Urban League’s mis-
sion,” said Dave Austin, communications
specialist with the county. “If we don’t see
that controls are in place the funding is in
jeopardy.”
Austin said the county has granted the
league a total of $729,000, or roughly
$250,000 a year. The majority of the money
supports the Urban League’s senior servic-
es. Some other contracts support health
work the league has undertaken. That
money is not paid to the league until after
the work has been done, Austin said.
“We have a long relationship with the
Urban League and we would like to see
them succeed,” he said.
The Urban League has a 66-year history
of advocating for Portland’s African
American and minority communities. With
Mundy at the helm, the league has arguably
been more influential than at any time in its
past.
In 2008, it produced the State of Black
Oregon report, which sounded an alarm
about deep poverty in Portland’s African
HoLIDAY
BIKE
DRIVE
kids from all over Multnomah County
were matched up with brand-new bikes
courtesy of the Community Cycling
Center. More than 400 kids and their
parents got bikes, helmets and safety
training Sunday afternoon at legacy
Emanuel Hospital’s grand atrium. Since
the Holiday Bike Drive’s inception in
1995, the Community Cycling Center
has provided over 4,500 children in
Portland with the gift of a first bicycle.
PCRI’s Foreclosure Help - for Free
Homeownership retention program helps seniors stay in homes
Bruce Poinsette
of The Skanner News
T
here were years when
Wendy Williams thought
she would be on the
street. She was under fire from
the IRS and she didn’t have a
working bathroom for three
years.
Williams’ fortunes changed
when she got involved with
Portland
Community
Reinvestment Initiatives (PCRI)
and their Free Homeownership
Retention Program for seniors.
See Mundy on page 13
indeX
News ...........2,3,6,9-11
Opinion ..................4,5
A & E ......................6,7
Healthy Food..........8,9
Bids/Classifieds ........11
Photo By rohith Gunawardena
Mistakes
But Not
Misuse
page 10
“Without the program, my
house probably would’ve been
foreclosed by now,” she says.
The program provides cultur-
ally specific home ownership
retention and counseling. It con-
nects clients with resources for
such services as home repair,
tax deferment, legal assistance
and utility and energy assis-
tance.
The program is a part of the
Minority
Homeowner
Assistance
Collaborative
(MHAC), which includes the
African American Alliance for
Homeownership
(AAAH),
Hacienda CDC, NAYA Family
and PCRI.
MHAC will be holding an
informational session on the
Oregon State Property Tax
Deferral Program on Tuesday,
Dec. 21 at the Oregon
Association
of
Minority
Entrepreneurs.
The homeownership retention
program is funded by the
Portland Housing Bureau but
PCRI’s
Homeownership
Retention Coordinator Shalonda
Menefee says it needs more sup-
port to provide more services.
“It’s important for black sen-
ior home owners because we
connect them to agencies and
provide access to resources,”
says Menefee. “It also helps
agencies because it helps them
tap into an under served popula-
tion.”
Williams has lived in her
home for fourteen years. She
says the sellers told her she
wouldn’t have to pay taxes on
the property after ten years;
after not paying taxes for a few
See SeniorS on page 3
OSU Football Tackle Fred Thompson
Why do too many young black athletes die of heart problems?
F
red Thompson a freshman football
player at Oregon State University sud-
denly collapsed and died during a
pickup basketball game Nov. 7. He was
rushed to Good Samaritan hospital in
Corvallis, but it was too late to save his life.
It was just four days before his 20th birth-
day.
Thompson was from Richmond, Calif.,
said in his bio that he chose Oregon State
because of its “family vibe, nice campus
and great academics.” The Oregonian
reports that the 6 foot 4”, 317 lb defensive
tackle, who graduated from Oakland Tech
died of an apparent heart attack.
Sadly, Thompson’s too-early death is not a
uniquely rare occurrence, according to
Richard Allen Williams MD, a fellow of the
American College of Cardiology, a founder
of the Association of Black Cardiologists
and author of “The Athlete and Heart
Disease: Diagnosis, Evaluation and
Management.”
“It’s not that common but it’s not uncom-
mon; it’s not rare,” Williams said. “It occurs
in one out of every 500,000 athletes. There
is a death.”
While we don’t yet know what took
See athlete on page 3