February 17, 2016 The Skanner Page 3
News
cont’d from pg 1
sues in depth — and ag-
itated with the Oregon
State Department of En-
vironmental Quality —
to come clean with local
residents about what’s
going on and do some-
thing about it.
“There are other con-
cerning levels in other
areas of the city that are
more
disproportion-
ately representative of
“
school was one of 35 in
the Portland metro area
which ranked among the
worst 5 percent in the
nation, no Portland area
school ranked better
than the bottom 30 per-
cent.
And North Portland
schools ranked the worst.
Harriet Tubman school
specifically came onto
my radar, as my daughter
Our problem is a system
that allows toxic pollution
to put people at risk from all
sources
communities of color in
North Portland,” Peveto
said. “Is this really going
to be a popularity contest
for communities that can
assert the most outrage?”
The Skanner inter-
viewed Peveto about the
bigger picture of air pol-
lution and how it impacts
Portland families.
The Skanner News:
How long have you
personally
organized
around Portland air pol-
lution?
Mary Peveto: I first
became alarmed about
air toxics in Portland
in 2009. But that was
only about my daugh-
ter’s school, Chapman
Elementary. I quickly
learned that this wasn’t
isolated to in my family’s
neighborhood in North-
west Portland.
The same data used
for the study published
by USA TODAY in 2009
was an analysis that a
University of Massachu-
setts -Amherst research
team had done that cross
referenced Federal Toxic
Release (TRI) data, EPA’s
Risk-Screening Environ-
mental Indicators (RSEI),
and more than 127,000
schools in America. The
big picture was equal-
ly alarming. While my
Housing
was a student there when
it was the all girls lead-
ership academy. So I was
in the parent community
when the EPA chose Tub-
man as one of 66 schools
in 22 states to monitor
the air in response to the
USA Today report. The
EPA found, among other
things, high levels of cad-
mium.
This was significant
enough to be one of the
few things mentioned in
the USA Today story that
followed EPA’s national
monitoring effort.
I was already at the
time a member of the Or-
egon DEQ’s Portland Air
Toxics SOLUTIONS Ad-
visory Committee (PAT-
SAC). So I also knew that
the state had consistently
measured high levels of
cadmium and arsenic at
the air toxics monitoring
site at North Roselawn
(less than a mile from
Tubman) since 2005.
The DEQ staff told the
PATSAC that the agency
could not explain where
it was coming from,
though they considered
consulting a phone book
for possible sources. But
they hadn’t even done
that.
Read the full interview at
TheSkanner.com
Yerby Takes Helm
at Bradley Angle
Jackie Yerby will serve as the new executive director of
Bradley Angle House, the first domestic violence shelter
on the West Coast and the sixth in the nation, effective
February 22, 2016.Yerby’s first volunteer position upon
moving to Portland in 1999 was at Bradley Angle’s emergency
shelter for domestic violence survivors. She most recently
worked for Renew Oregon, a campaign to build broad-
based grassroots support for meaningful action on climate
change. Before joining Renew Oregon, Jackie spent many
years in the private sector, serving as the Sustainability
Program Manager for Cambia Health Solutions, a Portland,
Oregon-based health solutions company with operations
in Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah. Yerby holds an
undergraduate degree in History from Yale University, and
a Master of Public Policy degree from the John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University.
PSU
cont’d from pg 1
lecture focused on King’s legacy.
They were introduced by Car-
men Suarez, Vice President of
Global Diversity and Inclusion
at PSU, and the conversation was
moderated by African Ameri-
can Student Service Coordinator
Marlon Marion.
Shortly before the panel discus-
sion started, a group of students
seated in the bleachers near the
stage, chanted “Disarm PSU!” a
few times, and Garza mentioned
“
PHOTO COURTESY OF BRADLEY ANGLE HOUSE
Air
of Trustees’ recommendation
that campus security start carry-
ing arms, an audience member
cheered. Pagan reacted by saying
she and other students had re-
ceived multiple letters from the
university about their activism,
including letters of expulsion.
“I don’t need your congratula-
tions. I need your help,” Pagan
said.
Pagan also made mention of the
introductory speech, which fo-
It has never been a plea to non-Black
people to make our lives matter. It was
always a demand
being aware of a “big fight” over
the recent decision to arm cam-
pus police during her discussion
with Tometi and Marion.
“The work is local,” Tometi said.
Then she and Garza said they
would like to bring someone to
the stage.
“You will notice my name is not
in the program,” said Alyssa Pa-
gan, an activist with the Disarm
PSU movement, after walking up
to the stage.
After explaining that activists
with the PSU Student Union had
been fighting against the Board
cused on different kinds of priv-
ilege, including White privilege,
light-skinned privilege and the
fact that the event took place on
lands that had belonged to indig-
enous people. She said while she
appreciated Suarez’s intentions,
she was offended by the implica-
tion that the problem is a lack of
diversity at PSU, or that people
don’t check their privilege.
Much bigger than the problem
of “individuals with bad attitudes
not checking their privilege,” she
said, are the systemic issues that
affect students of color. In ad-
dition to armed security, Pagan
noted the failure of the universi-
ty to pay a living wage to on-cam-
pus workers. A video of Pagan’s
speech is viewable on her Face-
book page.
Students associated with PSU-
SU handed out flyers at the door
as the event let out, advertising
a Wednesday afternoon demon-
stration calling for the disarma-
ment of campus security, broken
ties with Armark, a $15-per-hour
wage for all campus workers and
that tuition be lowered by reduc-
ing administrative salaries.
The preceding discussion fo-
cused on broad issues of move-
ment-building, developing a
better understanding of Black
history and how social change
movements are contextualized in
media.
Garza and Tometi, along with
Patrisse Cullors (who was not
able to attend the event), said they
are often credited for starting a
movement, but they didn’t.
“When we talk about how move-
ments, we focus on one or two
people who catalyze it, and that’s
a bad habit,” Garza said.
Read the whole story at
TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
global brand exposure and support
from a business incubator, according
to Poole.
Housing is a very personal issue for
Poole, who experienced homelessness
after a work accident ended his career.
During his training to be a firefighter,
Poole suffered a fall which caused a de-
bilitating injury. At a homeless shelter
he discovered how difficult it was for
people to find housing, even if the rent
was being subsidized.
“I lived at the YWCA homeless shelter
and I couldn’t find a place to live -- even
though I got a voucher from the YWCA
to pay my rent for a year, I couldn’t do
it,” Poole said.
Poole developed NoAppFee to stream-
line the housing application process.
Renters often have had to fill out appli-
cations for housing, and then pay for a
new background check for each appli-
cation. With NoAppFee applicants pay
for a single background check, then the
site matches renters with the proper-
ties they qualify for.
Poole said getting housing quickly
is especially important for those re-
ceiving rental assistance. Transitional
housing time limits and rent voucher
“
application and background check for
renters and landlords.
“Portland entrepreneurs are already
lending their talents to affordable hous-
ing and tenants’ issues. Tyrone Poole
recently won
the 1776 Chal-
lenge
Cup
Regional in
San Francis-
co for his site
No A p p Fe e .
com, which
utilizes data and technology to pro-
mote equal access to housing. The city
should be capitalizing on these innova-
tions,” Wheeler wrote.
Poole has plans to expand NoAppFee
into the single-family home rentals.
Currently, the database covers only
property management companies.
NoAppFee pays to prescreen these
companies to qualify to list on the site.
Poole said this is to protect the data of
their renters.
Housing is fundamental. You can’t
do anything before you are housed.
If you are homeless, that is like not
having air, it’s like not having water
expirations necessitate a faster rental
process. Poole would like to see needy
renters matched up with apartments
the same day they got their award let-
ters.
On Feb. 11, Portland mayoral candi-
date Ted Wheeler issued a Tenants’ Bill
of Rights as part of his campaign plat-
form. In the text, Wheeler endorsed
NoAppFee as a tool to promote fair
rental practices. Wheeler also support-
ed the creation of a standardized rental
Tyrone Poole, founder of NoAppFee.com
“Sixty percent of the national rental
market is actually single-family own-
ers — Mom and Pop-owned. Even if we
got every single management compa-
ny in the United States, we would only
have forty percent of the rental market,
so we have to get them on there,” Poole
said.