Local News
Housing
Anti Bullying Pledge
age of 55 years of age or know senior home-
owners that need support and resources to
maintain homeownership, this is the
resource for you.
Menefee works with the MHAC program
hands-on, and says it’s a lifeline for elders
who are themselves especially vulnerable to
home repair.
A phone conversation may be followed up
by a home visit and a referral to a local
group or agency that can help with home
improvements or troubleshooting with
banks.
“We take a holistic approach,” she says.
“This is a place where they can come to
be heard and feel supported.”
The African American Alliance for
Homeownership and Hacienda CDC
both provide free counseling and sup-
port services, and both take all comers
regardless
of
race.
“A lot of our seniors have been in their
home for a long time and need a roof on
or repairs done,” Menefee says.
“They leave relieved knowing they
have an advocate and some support, know-
ing they have someone on their behalf.”
Find more information at www.mhacport-
land.org or contact Menefee or Andrea Irby
at 503-288-2923 or by email at Shalon-
da@pcrihome.org
‘We take a holistic
approach. This is a place
where they can come
and feel supported’
foreclosure prevention scams as well as just
plain confusion when faced with the crisis
of potentially losing their home
Menefee says the typical client often first
calls looking for someone who can advocate
for them with a bank or other large institu-
tions around foreclosure prevention and
Bullying took center stage
at Grant High School on
Sep. 19 in its “Just Delete
It” assembly. Multnomah
County Commissioner
Loretta Smith welcomed
the students to a panel
discussion featuring Grant
staff, students and a
representative from the Q
Center.
KGW’s Laural Porter
moderated the
discussion, which sought
to define bullying, its
origins and how it affects
people. The ceremony
closed with Smith and a
number of Grant students
signing an anti-bullying
pledge. As students
dispersed for lunch, there
were some who were
visibly emotional from the
stories shared on the
panel.
PHOTO BY BRUCE POINSETTE
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Emanuel
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100TH ANNIVERSARY
Saturday, Oct. 6 is Legacy
Emanuel Medical Center’s 100th
Anniversary Community Celebra-
tion in and around the atrium from
1 to 4 p.m.
There will be hands on demonstra-
tions including the virtual reality
pain management system used in
the Legacy Oregon Burn Center,
and the da Vinci surgical robotic
system used in the operating room;
free cupcakes and entertainment;
and a discount bike/skate helmet
sale.
There will be a Red Cross Blood
Drive and Bone Marrow Donor
Registry Drive. For more informa-
tion go to
www.legacyhealth.org/emanuel100
Health’s President and Chief Executive
Officer, closed out the discussion with an
impromptu presentation of his own.
Citing a recent trip to Cuba as well as his
recent reading of Isabel Wilkerson’s book,
“The Warmth of Other Suns,” he spoke
about the Black diaspora that has seen
African descendents forced out of the home
continent, and away from deeply-rooted
communities in the United States.
He also mentioned what Legacy Emanuel
currently does to bolster its surrounding
neighborhood as well as communities of
color and minority-run institutions – includ-
ing providing more charity care to local
residents than any other hospital in the state.
“Yes, we do have to atone for our sins,”
Dr. Brown said. “We’re not perfect but we
do have an enduring commitment and part
of that commitment is to communicate with
you in the community to see what it is we
can do together to make a better communi-
ty — and to try to make this community
again the epicenter of African American
culture.”
Woolley commented in her presenta-
tion that the historical memory of
the Emanuel relocation displacing families
without compensating them for their prop-
erty – is not entirely accurate, and that the
details of how that collective memory has
formed are important for policymakers and
local families alike.
In an interview Monday afternoon, Wool-
ley said that her research, conducted in the
City of Portland Archives, showed that the
City of Portland and the Portland Develop-
ment Commission essentially offered
Emanuel an opportunity to expand their
campus with the use of urban renewal, and
that Emanuel saw this offer as a way
to grow their institution in its existing loca-
tion for the future.
When it was instituted in the late 1960s,
the federal Model Cities Program – run by
former City Commissioner Charles Jordan,
his reason for moving to Portland in the first
place – helped provide local groups with a
voice in the process, because community
involvement was required by federal law for
all activities in a Model Cities area.
Each homeowner was paid a fixed
price for their property by the Portland
Development Commission — but because
federal law required them to be relocated
into a replacement home comparable to
what they lost, each homeowner also
received a supplemental payment, called a
Replacement Housing Payment, to make up
the difference needed to pay for their new
home.
“Every homeowner who owned their
property was made whole financially – not
necessarily emotionally or spiritually –
because many became the only Black
homeowners in white neighborhoods,” she
said Monday.
Woolley located the individual relocation
files in the City archives, listing each fami-
ly by name, their old home address, the
total compensation they were paid for their
relocation, and their new address.
“There is so much confusion about what
happened because so much of the informa-
tion people got was through rumors or
hearsay—it wasn’t from anything official
they got in their hands,” Woolley said this
week.
Local residents have passed decades feel-
ing rage against Emanuel as the driver of
the gentrification process.
“But you really have to bring the City and
the PDC to the table as co-partners in this
event – they shouldn’t be out of the picture
and never mentioned when you talk about
this history,” Woolley says. “It isn’t fair to
Emanuel when in fact this was an event that
the other partners really drove.”
Tubman Leadership Academy for Young
Women is a good example. How do you
make an announcement that you are closing
a school before the board has voted?
“Martin Gonzalez was the only board
through the Urban League. Fifty high
school student tutors and 10 staff worked
with 150 elementary students in a program
that combined academics, culture and
career skills.
ministry, was a tutor.”
This summer, Leonard helped create the
three-week “Girls Lead Summer Camp” for
former students of the Harriet Tubman
Leadership Academy for Young Women.
The school district closed Tubman as part of
budget cutbacks, officials said, despite
anguished protests from hundreds of stu-
dents, their parents and supporters.
“We need this generation of children to
see that math and science and media are
important,” she says. “So we had a three-
week program focused on math, media,
leadership and public speaking with the
help of a volunteer from Toastmasters. We
hope they will go on to be leaders who show
that girls can do math and science.”
Read the rest of this story online at
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Leonard
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“I grew up in Southeast Portland, and my
family has been attending Portland schools
for five generations,” she says.
“My father was a math major and my
mother went to college for two years, so
that love of learning was part of my house-
hold.
“I have great grandsons who are in the
school system right now. The schools are in
desperate need of people who understand
and care about public education.”
Leonard is considering a run for school
board, but she says board seats won’t open
up until either 2013 or 2015. So that’s still
just a possibility, she says. She also would
be willing to offer support to another candi-
date who will go to bat for all students.
“They have really difficult challenges,”
she says of the school board. “Sometimes it
seems that the district is driving the board
rather than the other way around. I don’t see
the courage that needs to be there. The dis-
trict’s decision to shut down The Harriet
‘I have great grandsons who are in the school
system right now. The schools are in desperate
need of people who understand and care
about public education’
—Carolyn Leonard
member who even asked questions,”
Leonard says.
For 30 years, Leonard worked to improve
our schools, as a teacher, supervisor and
consultant.
For about seven years, in the late 1970s-
1980s, Leonard ran a summer school
“Kids learn best from those just ahead of
them,” Leonard says, adding that some of
those students are now doing great work.
“I believe Karanja Crews was one of our
tutors,” she says. “And Pastor Mark
Strong was a team leader. And Lorraine
Graham, who started the Voices in Praise
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
September 26, 2012
The Portland Skanner Page 3