Local News
Housing
Safety Net Campaign Launch
variety of reasons. The value of the proper-
ties is sometimes greatly depleted.”
For example, he says, “One property
that’s not in our inventory but has potential
to come into our inventory, has city liens for
well over $100,000 and to date owes
$12,000 in taxes.”
The city drops its liens when the proper-
ties are donated. Disability nonprofit Com-
Jessup Street end up in foreclosure? Built in
1960 with insurance money that came from
a road accident that killed Johnson’s grand-
father, Arthur Cox, and injured his grand-
mother Etolia Cox, Johnson’s mother
inherited the home. But by 2006, she had
lost her sight and become mentally dis-
abled.
A payee appointed to manage her finances
stole her disability checks,
drained her bank account, and
sold off a second family home,
putting the proceeds – $145,000
– into her own pocket. The thief
was prosecuted and convicted
of embezzlement, but the family
couldn’t recover the money.
Johnson was left to deal with a
huge tax bill and a mountain of
repairs.
“I was in Salem at the time at the blind
school,” Johnson said. “I was learning
Braille and how to cope with being blind.”
Unable to continue his work as an
accountant, Johnson sank $13,000 — his
entire savings — into paying off part of the
unpaid tax bill. He also tried to make
repairs. But the bills kept mounting. In
August 2010, Multnomah County finally
foreclosed.
“I was so upset I didn’t even go down
there, so I just prayed and asked God for
help,” he says. “I’d done all I could do.”
Help came in the form of Portland Dis-
ability Commissioner Amy Anderson, who
knew Johnson’s story. She spoke to county
commissioners, and they decided the home
Once the home is sold it
goes back on the tax roll and
they return at a much higher
tax rate
munity
Vision
takes
possession,
rehabilitates the property and makes sure
the residents are housed. Most move to
alternative housing. But under the agree-
ment, the property must be kept as afford-
able housing for at least 30 years.
“Once the home is sold it goes back on the
tax roll and they return at a much higher tax
rate,” Walruff says. “So when all that is
totaled, there’s a much greater benefit to
donate the property.”
Walruff stresses that the donations are not
a program, but just a better choice in the
small number of cases where people with
disabilities are still living in the foreclosed
property.
So how did Johnson’s home on Northeast
PHOTO COURTESY OF STREET ROOTS
continued from page 1
Community housing activists last week re-launched the “Safety Net”
campaign to persuade Portland City Council to save funding for an array
of programs that help local residents at every point in the housing system.
Here, the vendor staff of Street Roots newspaper kicked off the 2013 effort,
which last year included people from all walks of life circulating snapshots
of themselves holding up the signature sign that reads, “I support the
Portland Safety Net.” For more information on the Safety Net campaign, go
to www.wearethesafetynet.org.
should become one of the handful of prop-
erties donated to Community Vision. The
nonprofit helps people with disabilities live
independently, work and find affordable
housing.
It also works to help people with disabili-
ties build financial stability and buy homes
– long out of reach for most people facing
these challenges.
Using donated materials and volunteer
labor, the nonprofit restores or rebuilds the
donated properties.
branch out to Southern Oregon’s west Med-
ford neighborhoods during its second year
and come to SE Portland
for its third year. The SE
Portland I-CAN will focus
on
immigrants
and
refugees.
According to project
manager Launa Mathews, if
an individual or family
wants to utilize I-CAN,
they need to get a referral
from one of the program’s
collaborative
academic
partners. In the case of Old Town, these
institutions are Macdonald Center, Neigh-
borhood House and Central City Concern in
downtown Portland. Mathews encourages
those who live outside of this area but know
someone that might be interested to pass the
information along.
Students at these institutions will be pro-
viding services like health evaluations and
screenings. During this process, people
interested in I-CAN can inform the students
on what they feel is their most primary con-
cern and then determine if the organiza-
tion’s plan is a good match.
Mathews says it will be a shared learning
process.
“Our intent is we’ll learn things from
working with them that will be useful to
benefitting a larger population,” she says.
“We’re hoping to learn as we benefit the
individuals that are referred and they bene-
fit us.”
rights groups. Among those at the White
House ceremony Monday were AFL-CIO
President Richard Trumka, and Benjamin
Jealous, the president of the NAACP, the
working people,’’ Trumka said in a state-
ment.
At the Justice Department, Perez has
played a leading role in the agency’s deci-
sion to challenge voter ID
laws in Texas and South Car-
olina that could restrict
minority voting rights. A fed-
eral court later struck down
the Texas law and delayed
implementation of the law in
South Carolina until after the
2012 election.
Perez also has Republican
congressional critics who can
be expected to oppose his confirmation,
such as Sen. Jeff Sessions, who called the
nomination “unfortunate and needlessly
divisive.’’
Today thanks to the program, Nicholas
Johnson and his ailing mother – he takes
care of her — are still able to live in their
family home. And the nonprofit is working
with Johnson to build financial security.
“The goal is to buy the home back,” John-
son says. “That’s the goal.”
For more info on Community Vision, go
to www.cvision.org.
Health
continued from page 1
the program is to improve what the health-
care community terms “Triple Aim.” This
refers to reducing the per capita
cost of healthcare, improving
quality and improving patients’
experiences so they feel included,
have their needs met and feel that
the service is culturally respon-
sive.
“We focus so much of our care
on the healthcare system, on hos-
pitals and clinics and specialists,
and not on how people are faring
out in the world in their daily
lives,” says Solotaroff. “I think this idea of
I-CAN being out there in the community
and actually working with folks and not just
being inside a clinic, it really leverages our
ability to be able to get better information
and best care coordination for people, tak-
We focus so much of our care on the
healthcare system, on hospitals and
clinics and specialists, and not on how
people are faring out in the world in
their daily lives
ing into account their environment and real-
ly meeting them where they are.”
I-CAN will be focused in Old Town for
its first year of operation. The program will
Perez
continued from page 1
“While our investigation has revealed that
inadequate systems of supervision and
oversight and the absence of specialized
training have permitted particular use of
force violations to persist at the Portland
Police Bureau, we are confident that the
steps already taken and those contained in
our tentative agreement will provide mean-
ingful and sustainable reform,” he said in
September.
In choosing Perez, the son of immigrants
from the Dominican Republic, Obama
would be nominating his first second-term
Latino Cabinet member. Perez, a lawyer
with a degree from Harvard Law School,
would replace Hilda Solis, a former Califor-
nia congresswoman and the nation’s first
Hispanic labor secretary.
He has strong support from Latino and
labor groups, but could face opposition
from Republicans who say his tenure at Jus-
tice has been guided too much by political
ideology.
If confirmed by the Senate, Perez, who
has been head of the Justice Department’s
Civil Rights Division since
2009, would take over the Labor
Department as Obama under-
takes several worker-oriented
initiatives, including an over-
haul of immigration laws and an
increase in the minimum wage.
Before taking the job as assis-
tant attorney general, the 51-
year-old Perez was secretary of
Maryland’s Department of
Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which
enforces state consumer rights, workplace
safety and wage and hour laws.
Perez’s nomination has been expected for
weeks, and comes with vigorous support
from labor unions and Latino and civil
Perez has played a leading role in the
agency’s decision to challenge voter
ID laws in Texas and South Carolina
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People.
“At a time when our politics tilts so heav-
ily toward corporations and the very
wealthy, our country needs leaders like Tom
Perez to champion the cause of ordinary
March 20, 2103
The Portland Skanner Page 3