local news
Seniors
continued from page 1
years, the IRS came calling.
She also had a problem with the
septic tank on her toilet. She had a
portable toilet outside briefly.
Then her doctor issued her a potty
chair. When guests came over she
would have to clean up their waste
by dumping it in a bag and putting
it in the garbage.
Williams says The Free
Homeownership
Retention
Program has worked with her on
paperwork and talking with the
IRS. It also helped her get her
bathroom fixed.
“I’m really grateful,” she says.
“Now company can come over.”
According to the Urban League
of Portland’s “State of Black
Oregon”, Black homeowners are
twice as likely as white homeown-
ers to receive high cost, high inter-
full time worker as well as the
help of partnering agencies.
Nonetheless, clients say it has
had a positive impact on their
lives.
“The program was god sent,”
says Kathleen Hampton.
The senior, who has lived in her
current home for 15 years, didn’t
have heat upstairs and had lead
paint contamination in her win-
dows – as a result her granddaugh-
ter had to go through two months
of treatment for lead exposure and
her husband developed respiratory
issues.
Hampton didn’t qualify for the
traditional home modification pro-
gram based on income. She was
receiving Social Security disabili-
ty benefits and her husband had
been laid off right before he was to
have cancer surgery.
Hampton
was
referred to the Free
Homeownership
Retention Program.
She says it gave her
access to a number of
resources and helped
her get heat upstairs,
her windows replaced
and her house paint-
ed.
Reverend Dr. Fredi
Jackson was also saddled by home
repair needs and predatory lend-
ing.
“Mortgage payments were too
high,” says Jackson. “I’d make
‘There are a lot of good
programs the
government offers but
we need to find more
ways to get people to
them’
est loans and are more likely to be
foreclosed upon in the current eco-
nomic climate.
Currently, the retention program
has a staff of three, with only one
Shalonda Menefee, left, and the MHAC help seniors with home repairs, foreclosure prevention
and a whole range of services. If you are a senior homeowner over the age of 55 years of
age or know a senior who needs support, go to www.mhacportland.org or contact Menefee at
503-288-2923 extension 123. Photo courtesy of MHAC
payments but I wouldn’t eat.”
She says she was given the
option of a tax deferment but was-
n’t told that she didn’t qualify
because she hadn’t lived in her
home for five years. Also, she was
told she didn’t qualify for repairs
because she lived in Gresham
even though she has been getting
her mail through the city of
Portland.
Jackson says Menefee helped
connect her with agencies and
local advocacy groups. Unlimited
Choices helped provide safety
rails for her bathroom.
She also became involved with
Economic Fairness Oregon. Now
she regularly contacts her repre-
sentatives and advocates for other
homeowners.
“If you’re not in a certain tax
bracket or neighborhood you don’t
qualify for services,” says
Jackson.
The traditional home modifica-
tion program can take up to a year
and often excludes people based
on income, according to Carol
Berger of AAAH. Many seniors
live on a fixed income and don’t
qualify.
Berger, who serves as a full time
foreclosure counselor, says the
homeownership retention program
helps clients deal with these com-
plicated issues.
“There are a lot of good pro-
grams the government offers but
we need to find more ways to get
people to them,” she says.
Athlete
continued from page 1
Thompson’s young life, we do know the
most common causes of heart deaths in ath-
letes. About one-third of deadly heart
attacks among young athletes are due to a
heart problem called hypertrophic car-
diomyopathy, or HCM. HCM is the most
common cause of sudden cardiac death in
people under 30. A part of the heart muscle
thickens, preventing blood from leaving the
heart so it has to work harder and harder to
pump blood to the body. Many other causes
of sudden cardiac death in young people
exist, including problems with a genetic
cause and heart defects present at birth.
Young men account for 90 percent of
deaths caused by HCM, and a higher pro-
portion are African American. HCM was
what took the life of 16-year-old Grant High
School student, Eddie Barnett Jr. in 2005.
In fact, 10 percent of all heart attacks occur
in men younger than age 45. One of them
was Rob Ingram, the director of Portland’s
Office of Youth Violence Prevention who
died Nov. 27 at 38.
So why are more Black athletes affected?
“We are not sure why,” said Dr. Williams.
“It may have something to do with the high-
er presence of African Americans in sports,
but it may have some underlying causes that
are genetic. We know its incidence is way
out of proportion to the proportion of
African Americans in the general popula-
tion.”
Prevention is not easy, he says.
“Athletes going out for sports need to
have an excellent physical exam, but even
so it’s very difficult to detect a predisposi-
tion toward this disorder. There is no physi-
cal profile that a doctor can look at. So it’s
a hidden disorder to a large extent.
“We depend principally on individual and
family histories.”
A test called an echocardiogram can
detect the disease, but it is not a routine test
that can be given to all young athletes.
Athletes with blood relatives who have died
at an early age of a heart condition, should
always tell their doctors, Williams says.
Another big red flag is when an athlete has
fainted or passed out during physical activ-
ity.
Warning signs of HCM include:
--A family history of sudden death from
heart problems
--Fainting spells or passing out during
exercise
--Chest pain
--Dizziness or light-headedness
--Heart palpitations
“Things like that should alert doctors,
coaches and the individual athletes them-
selves,” he says.
Williams says we don’t have an accurate
the machines can save lives.
“Had I known about these when Eddie
was still here, I would have strapped one to
my back and taken it to every game,” she
says.
Johnson is in the process of reactivating
the foundation. She let it lapse for a while
because she needed time to focus on her
daughter and grieve, she says. But she feels
far more can be done to save lives.
She wants athletes to know they should
talk to their coaches and doctors if they feel
any unusual fluttering or pain in their chest,
she says. She’d also like to see more ath-
letes get echocardiograms, although she
knows they can’t always predict a problem.
“Eddie went for a follow up echocardio-
gram every 3 to 6 months,” she says. “He
had an echo on Jan 31 and he died three
weeks later.”
‘...it’s a hidden disorder to a large extent’
--Dr. Richard Allen Williams
count for how many young people die from
HCM. A registry at the University of North
Carolina keeps data, he said, but not every
case is reported.
“We don’t know what the real numbers
are.”
Teena Johnson, Eddie Barnett’s mother,
launched the Eddie Barnett Jr. Foundation
after her son died, and campaigned to bring
awareness to the problem. The foundation
was instrumental in persuading legislators
to require schools and large buildings to
have automatic external defibrillator
machines. Johnson says she has learned that
In Johnson’s view, fewer athletes would
be lost if students and coaches were alert to
the warning signs; if athletes had to have
echocardiograms; and if automatic defibril-
lators were deployed whenever an athlete
passes out.
“I don’t want another parent to go through
what I went through.”
Other forms of heart disease too are more
common among African Americans. But
killer diseases, such as coronary artery dis-
ease, develop over time and are far more
preventable than HCM and the other prob-
lems that tend to kill fit young people,
According to figures from the Centers for
Disease Control, around 40 percent of
African American men and women have
some form of heart disease, compared to 30
percent of White men and 24 percent of
White women. And African Africans have
the highest death rate from heart disease at
308.4 deaths in every 100,000, followed by
White non-Hispanics at 239.2 in every
100,000.
Elijah Saunders MD, a clinical professor
at the University of Maryland, says there
are numerous risk factors that increase the
risk of heart problems. The good news is
that many of those factors can be reduces or
eliminated through eating well, exercising,
and quitting cigarettes.
“High blood pressure is a very definite
problem that’s more common in African
American men than in others,” Saunders
says. “Lack of exercise, being overweight, a
sedentary lifestyle and cigarette smoking
are some of the things that bring on high
blood pressure.
“That doesn’t explain entirely why more
African Americans are affected. We think
some genetics may be responsible.”
Saunders, who has studied Afro
Caribbeans living in Britain, points to some
evidence that people with African ancestry
may have a unique hormone profile. Stress
too plays a part, because people in low-
income communities are more likely to
develop heart problems. And, he says the
evidence suggests that salt is a problem for
Black people.
“It seems that people of African origin are
more sensitive to salt,” he says. “It’s hard to
prove, but I think that most people in cardi-
ology would say so.”
december 14, 2011 The Portland Skanner Page 3