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Merkley
lower rates. The trust would be financed through the sale
of government-backed bonds.
The only requirement is that homeowners are still cur-
rent with their payments and meet standard lending
requirements.
Anybody could apply for the refinanced mortgage
loans, but a key goal is to help underwater homeowners,
whose homes are worth less than their owners paid to
buy them. Those homeowners are now locked into high
interest rate loans, even as interest rates have dropped
dramatically.
“We have about 120,000 homeowners in Oregon who
‘We moved so boldly as a
nation to help out large Wall
Street institutions. We should
move equally boldly to help
out families across America’
are underwater,” Merkley said. “About 80,000 of them
are current on their payments and would benefit from this
type of refinancing opportunity.
“The opportunity exists to do this at no cost to the tax-
payer –in fact it will probably return a profit to the
taxpayer. It will help families; it will help communities
and it will help the broader economy.”
Merkley, who sits on the Banking Committee, com-
pares his trust proposal to the Depression-era Home
Owners’ Loan Corporation, and says it would have a sim-
ilar positive impact on the economy. When homes are
foreclosed, all the surrounding homes drop in value, he
said. The refinancing program would prevent that, and
would help free up money in the economy, to create jobs
and help the economy recover.
“The beauty of this arrangement is that not a single tax
dollar goes into it,” Merkley said. “And the key is that
over the life of this trust, and as the loans are paid off, it
eventually disappears.”
Almost 4 million homeowners have lost their homes to
foreclosure since 2008, when the housing market plum-
meted. Merkley envisages the trust offering several
options, including 4 percent loans on 15-year repayment
plans; 5 percent on 30-year loans; and a third choice that
includes a deferral period.
The Oregonian editorial board already has panned the
plan, saying it sets “a dangerous precedent to offer gov-
ernment-backed mortgages to 8 million people,” who
already are paying their mortgages without help. In an
editorial, the paper said that it would be unfair to help
underwater homeowners who are still able to pay, and not
people who are in arrears. It also suggested that the econ-
omy already is improving , so the plan may be
unnecessary.
Merkley says the Oregonian article mistakenly said the
plan would only be available to underwater homeowners
who are still current with their mortgages. In fact, home-
owners don’t have to be underwater to benefit. In
addition, Merkley says, the plan will benefit everyone by
making more money available to the local economy and
by preventing foreclosures, which drags down property
values in surrounding neighborhoods.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz sup-
ports the idea. So does the National Association of
Realtors and Mark Zandi, chief economist with bond rat-
ing agency, Moody’s Analytics.
Read the rest online at www.theskanner.com
As part of a partnership between the Portland
Police Bureau and Multnomah County Department
of Community Justice, new police hires learn about
county parole/probation by working alongside
juvenile offenders in the county’s “restitution
garden,” which grows food for the Oregon Food
Bank. Some of the produce is sold at local farmer’s
markets at the money is put into a restitution fund to
repay crime victims.
PHOTO BY LISA LOVING
Restitution
continued from page 1
Otis
continued from page 1
them when they get to that place. They’re so
not what they used to be.”
Signs along the way had pointed to
Keaton’s vulnerability to psychosis. He had
attention deficit disorder, which increased
his stress at school. At 14, he asked for help
because he realized he was depressed.
Depression, anxiety and mood instability
increase the risk of psychosis. Unfortunate-
ly, the doctor he saw had the mistaken idea
that adolescents don’t get depressed.
“Provider lack of knowledge is a whole
other issue,” Otis says.
Keaton eventually did see a psychiatric
nurse practitioner and agreed to try medica-
tions. But without health insurance, no other
services were available. He had to apply for
a “scholarship” to get medication and his
choices were limited to samples. The ones
he tried had unpleasant side effects and he
felt that they interfered with his ability to be
an artist.
“It turned him off to the medication,” Otis
said.
Otis says she wishes she had been able to
contact a program like EASA, which sup-
ports youth going through a first psychosis
and also works with families.
“You have might have one opportunity to
get it right so you want to make sure it’s the
best opportunity at the best time. To me, I
think EASA would have been the right thing
for Keaton.”
Support outside the family is essential,
Otis says, because a young adult won’t tell
his parents everything. And it is easier for a
professional to suggest treatment.
“They can take on that difficult
role of helping that young person
weigh out their choices,” she says.
“And if they get too ill, then they can
look at hospitalization. So that takes
the family out of that struggle and
allows them to be the loving support
they want to be.”
The mental health system is so
broken that families can’t get help,
Otis says, even when their loved ones are as
ill as Keaton was. When sufferers are so
caught up in their delusions that they don’t
realize they are ill, (a condition called ana-
sognosia) they can refuse treatment unless
they meet the criteria for involuntary com-
mitment.
Legally in Oregon, that means they must
be so ill they are dangerous to themselves or
others, or at imminent risk of death because
of their illness. In Multnomah County that
law is defined very strictly.
So when Keaton stopped eating and
dropped 50 lbs– at 6 foot 4 inches tall he
was 145 lbs – the family was told he still did
not meet commitment criteria.
Soon after, tragedy struck. On May 12,
They are creating a nonprofit,
Friends of Keaton, which will
offer support and education
to family members of people
with psychosis
2010, Keaton was stopped by police when
driving. A gang enforcement officer decided
he might be a gang member because he was
a young Black male wearing a hoodie on a
warm day.
Keaton’s father Fred Bryant challenges
the official story. What’s not under dispute
is that police shot and killed Keaton in his
car. In June 2011 the Department of Justice
launched a civil rights investigation into
Portland Police Department’s officer
involved shootings of people with mental
illness.
Keaton’s family was still trying to get
help for him when he died.
Felesia Otis and her husband Joseph Otis
are determined to push for change. They are
creating a nonprofit, Friends of Keaton,
which will offer support and education
to family members of people with psy-
chosis. The group also will advocate to
make sure Oregon’s healthcare
exchanges include prevention services
like the EASA program, that provides
support and wraparound services to
help people recover.
Psychiatrist Neil Falk, who works
with EASA in Multnomah County, says
three out of every hundred people will suf-
fer from a psychosis, but two of those three
will recover completely with support. Psy-
chosis generally strikes young people
between the ages of 15 and 25.
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
Mural
continued from page 1
“I have 57 signatures,” she says. “To go
ahead you have to have 80 percent agree-
ment from neighbors. I have 100 percent.
“It’s been wonderful meeting all these
people.”
The design Jeka envisages is a rainbow of
intersecting triangles that make up an ellip-
tical shape.
“The design represents Unity and Com-
munity,” Jeka says. “It represents diverse
neighbors coming together and working as
one.”
Some of the triangles are missing from the
circle. Instead they will be painted on the
‘The design represents Unity and
Community. It represents
diverse neighbors coming
together and working as one’
— Kymberly Jeka
surrounding streets. That represents people
coming into the circle of community, she
says.
Next step for the project is to get approval
from Portland Bureau of Transportation. If
approved, Jeka hopes donors will step up to
help her buy the paint.
Painting the mural will take about a week-
end, and the paint will dry within hours, she
says. She hopes that lots of people, includ-
ing some Jefferson High school students,
will want to take part in a big painting party.
“I feel people can become proud of it,”
she says. “What a great thing to be able to
say, ‘I was part of creating that.’”
August 1, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3