News
Housing
continued from page 1
go out onto the streets or into a shelter. They’ll be with fam-
ily or friends,” Brooks said.
“The hopes with this [initiative] is to start having a con-
versation about the importance of contracting directly with
culturally specific providers.”
Before this partnership was announced, The Skanner re-
ported that despite the $30 million Hales was promising to-
ward the “most vulnerable” populations, the pledge includ-
ed no culturally specific language.
The Urban League’s State of Black Oregon report this
year also found that the average African American house-
hold cannot afford to rent or buy anywhere in Portland.
“That means generation after generation of unchecked
gentrification and displacement and the results of recent
Fair Housing discrimination for short-term rental assistance
is not a significant solution to the crisis and I feel like we
can do more,” Carter said.
The Urban League of Portland has several other programs
addressing Black homelessness, including its partnership
with Cascadia Behavioral Health and Native American Re-
habilitation Association which will house 50 people of color
living with mental illness and drug-addiction.
Locally other initiatives like city-led the N/NE Housing
strategy which has some culturally specific elements to it
and the Portland African American Leadership Forum’s
efforts to create the People’s Plan meant to be a compre-
hensive list of demands of what the local Black population
wants and needs to thrive in the city have sprung up in re-
cent years.
Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives also got its
first grant over the summer to begin work on its Pathway
1000 program that aims to build 100 homes a year over the
next decade through North and Northeast neighborhoods for
150th
Birthday
Vocalist Eric Clausell sings
excerpts from “Slave Songs of
the United States” published in
1867 by The Nation. Mr. Clausell
joined noted Nation journalists
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Dave
Zirin, Naomi Klein and John
Nichols, along with other guests
to celebrate The Nation maga-
zine’s 150th birthday Oct. 15 at
Town Hall.
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
The average African American
household cannot afford to rent
or buy anywhere in Portland
displaced families.
Katrina Hollands, deputy director of the Community Alli-
ance of Tenants, has been active around local housing issues
for years now.
She mirrored Carter’s cautious optimism on the plan, re-
calling past difficulties between the city and African Amer-
icans.
“The City has made promises before that is has not kept
[to African Americans],” Hollands said, referring 1993 Albi-
na Community Plan which forecasted a number of land use
projects in what were then majority Black neighborhoods.
As Portland’s population continues to explode, Hollands
says the City has a unique opportunity to implement equita-
ble practices in housing as well as other avenues.
“How we handle this housing crisis has the potential to
determine our reputation on an international scale. Are we
going to continue to be racist or move forward and become
a truly equitable city?” she asked.
Convention
continued from page 1
“The achievement gap is no different than
police shootings. The only difference is the
weapon,” Grimes said during his presen-
tation. “There is no difference in the death
of the mind — that happens as a result of
miseducation that manifests as the achieve-
ment gap — than Amadou Diallo, Trayvon
Martin, or Eric Garner.”
Grimes put forth a call to action: “Black
male achievement has to happen in cities
whether we are 4 percent of the population
or 86 percent of the population and every-
thing in between.”
Despite the relatively small Black popula-
tions in both Portland and the state of Ore-
gon, conditions for African Americans tend
to follow national statistics.
Grimes compared Oregon’s founding —
as a state intended to exclude Blacks —
with a mentality reflected in the country as
and the poor. It requires hip-hop and Jazz.
And it might require to the extent that the
consciousness is true and the intent is poor,
Nearly one-third of Black Portlanders live in poverty
a whole.
“The moment you talk about Black male
achievement in the context of a White uto-
pia, which is what this nation was created to
do, then we’re having a whole new conver-
sation,” Grimes said. “Brand new conver-
sation requires brand new ideas. It requires
the elders and the young. It requires the
brothers and the sisters. It requires the rich,
Black and other.”
Nearly one-third Black Portlanders live
in poverty. The graduation rate for African
Americans is 60 to 75 percent, and statistics
show a disproportionate rate of discipline
and skewed discipline rates for Black pupils
in Portland Public Schools. African Ameri-
cans are also disproportionately represented
in Oregon’s corrections system.
overwhelming?
KC: It was great for them to understand
the vision and accept the offer to come
speak, that was a great feeling. Just being
I’m working on getting to a level where we
actually see it take place in the classroom,
having these culturally relevant practices
being measured and evaluated would be
The adoption of the Black Male Achieve-
ment program in Portland came in part as a
response to a resolution passed by the 2013
US Conference of Mayors in Washington
D.C., in which they stated every city should
strive to promote achievement among black
men and boys through both opportunity,
policy, programs and strategies.
Locally, the program is helmed by a host
of representatives who’ve been involved in
Afro-centric civic work years for decades
and different city and educational entities
including, the Urban League, NAACP, Port-
land African American Leadership Forum,
Self Enhancement Inc., Portland Police Bu-
reau, The City of Portland and others.
Crews
continued from page 1
TSN: What workshops did your attendees
seek out?
KC: Dr. Chris Emdin, his work around
hip hop pedagogy and reality pedagogy,
he was a huge draw. Tim Wise was a huge
draw, just in terms of the keynote speaker.
We had a dynamic speaker from New Jer-
sey, named Principal Kafele; he did a dy-
namic workshop around his 50 principles of
leadership. Yeah, I think those were pretty
much the draw. Pedro Noguera’s workshop
drew people too. Basically, the workshops
are about how to reach kids in different
ways and to be more culturally relevant in
your practice.
TSN: Some influential people contributed
to the conference — Tim Wise and GZA [a
rapper best known as a founding member of
the Wu-Tang Clan], to name a few. Was this
The workshops are about how to reach kids in
different ways and to be more culturally relevant
able to build with them when they arrived,
especially Tim Wise. He understands the vi-
sion of the conference, we’re definitely go-
ing to continue working with him and bring
him back.
TSN: What has the response been from
people who have been to conference?
KC: We have tons of testimonies. So many
people have come up to me and shared the
story of what the conference meant. Now,
ideal.
TSN: I saw that you had tons of sponsors
like local school districts, PSU and the Ore-
gon Education Association. Do you feel like
this is an endorsement of equity in educa-
tion?
KC: It’s a step in the right direction and
they all have different levels of sponsor-
ship which means they can bring a certain
amount of people to the conference.
So I definitely think it’s great to have them
as sponsors, but I’m interested a lot more
in comprehensive partnerships where they
can bring more of their administrators and
more of their teachers as a collective group
to come and to learn and to build around the
work and to develop plans on implemen-
tation.
TSN: What is the Teaching with Purpose
Leadership Institute?
KC: The leadership Institute basically
was started through a grant from the Oregon
Department of Education last year. We were
able to get seven school districts to develop
teams that looked at different educational
policies that Oregon has in place.
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
October 21, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3