Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 17, 2016)
FEBRUARY 17, 2016 Portland and Seattle Volume XXXVIII No. 20 25 CENTS News ..........................3,9-10,12 A & E .....................................6-7 Opinion ...................................2 Bids/Classifieds ....................11 Calendars ........................... 4-5 Somali Refugees............ 12 CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW LEGISLATIVE DAY Opal Tometi (left) and Alicia Garza, co-founders of Black Lives Matter, spoke at PSU Tuesday. Activists Take Stage at PSU A Tuesday night discussion fea- turing two nationally prominent activists remained somewhat ab- stract until moments before the scheduled question and answer session — when a student activist was invited to the stage to call for the disarmament of Portland State University’s security. Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi, two of the three women credited with creating the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, who have since founded a national organi- zation bearing the same name, spoke at PSU’s Peter Stott Center Tuesday night at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. See PSU on page 3 Somali Refugees Former newcomers have gained respect in Maine community page 12 Celebrity Interview: Isaiah Washington page 7 Verleen Jones and Kristen Wilder from the A. Philip Randolph Institute joined the Washington Christian Leaders Coalition, the Seattle All City Black Student Union and the Black Law Students Association in chanting “Black Lives Matter” in the rotunda of the Legislative Building Feb. 15 on African American Legislative Day. NoAppFee Wins Technology Competition Service seeks to streamline the process of applying for rental housing By Arashi Young Of The Skanner News W hile working as a family advocate in a homeless shelter, Tyrone Poole would help homeless families find out if they qualify for rent assistance. He would find families vouchers and write award letters that would pay the cost of rent for a year. But again and again, these families would leave the shelter without hous- ing, because they could not find an apartment to rent. They would blindly apply to units to be disqualified for credit histories, crim- inal backgrounds or evic- tion records. All the while spending limited funds on housing application fees. Poole — who won this summer’s Pitch Black event for African Ameri- can entrepreneurs in the Portland area — said this was devastating to those who were trying to get their lives in order. “Housing is fundamen- tal. You can’t do anything before you are housed,” he said. “If you are homeless, that is like not having air, it’s like not having water.” One day, Poole had a rev- elation to build a system that would match renters with qualified housing. Out of this idea, NoAppFee was born. NoAppFee has grown from a local creation into a national database and has been getting attention from the tech industry. On Feb. 4, NoAppFee won the regional 1776 Challenge Cup in San Francisco. The Toxins Not Just Coming From Glass Mary Peveto, founder of Neighbors for Clean Air, says arsenic, chromium are in North Portland air By Lisa Loving Special To The Skanner P arents are turning out by the hundreds at public hearings about air toxics in Southeast Portland. But is that the whole story? Both the Bullseye Glass and Urob- oros Glass companies have stopped using the toxic substances cadmium and arsenic in response to recent re- ports of neighborhood pollution pos- sibly linked to their operations. But not only have those chemicals been tracked in Southeast Portland since at least 2009, but arsenic and chromium discharged into the air are among an array of cancer-caus- ing poisons in the air that have been watched in North Portland for more than a decade without any meaning- ful action by state regulators. Mary Peveto, founder of Neighbors for Clean Air, has studied these is- See AIR on page 3 1776 Challenge Cup seeks out promising and trans- formative technologies. NoAppFee also won the Portland Development Commission’s 2014 Startup PDX Challenge for diverse entrepreneurs and the lo- cal 1776 Challenge cup for Portland. The technology start-up will now advance to 1776 Challenge Global Cup, which will be decided in June in Washington D.C. The winner of the global cup will receive $ 1 million, See HOUSING on page 3 PHOTO COURTESY OF INTEL FREE PRESS (CC BY-SA2.0) VIA FLICKR Christen McCurdy Of The Skanner News PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED Scheduled Black Lives Matter speakers give stage to activist to address campus issues Mary Peveto, founder of Neighbors for Clean Air, says arsenic and chromium discharged into the air are among an array of cancer-causing poisons in the air that have been watched in North Portland for more than a decade without any meaningful action by state regulators.
