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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 14, 2018)
November 14, 2018 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 3 News cont’d from pg 1 Protests Beatrice Morrow- Cannady Building Opens Building will offer 80 affordable housing units and community-serving retail space Mardica Hicks became CEO of the Children’s Community Clinic 10 years ago. easier for people from around the metropolitan area to get to, due to its proximity to the freeway, increased parking and proximity to more public transit lines, Hicks said. Hicks said the clinic has a “three-pronged fo- cus” on care: getting kids healthy, helping kids stay healthy and teaching families and kids how to stay healthy. It’s the last item — the focus on education — that Hicks sees as crucial. Children leave health fairs with an individual health plan. The clinic is also engaged in out- reach projects like a stu- dent group for young women that started last year at Roosevelt High School and that it hopes to expand to other high schools in the Portland area. Funded partially by the Children’s Clinic and partly by Multnomah County, it’s part of teach- er S. Renee Mitchell’s Black Girl Magic pro- gram and focuses on sexual and reproductive health. The clinic’s patient mix is more diverse than that of the Portland area – Hicks said about one-third of its patients are White, one-third are Black and one-third identify as Hispanic or Latino, and a large num- ber of patients speak languages other than En- glish and need language assistance. Of the clinic’s seven medical doctors, some are paid and some are volunteers, and all also practice at other fa- cilities. On Nov. 8, Portland Community Reinvestment Initiative held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Beatrice Morrow- Cannady Building, a mixed-use commercial and residential building that will provide 80 residential homes prioritized for residents displaced from North and Northeast Portland and for community-serving commercial retail space. Pictured here, from left to right: Hermann Colas, founder of Colas Construction, Inc.; Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman; Maxine Fitzpatrick, executive director of PCRI; Chelsea Bunch, housing integrator, Oregon Housing and Community Services; former Oregon legislator Avel Gordly; Stacy Dodson, U.S. Bank president for Portland and Southwest Washington; former Oregon legislator Margaret Carter; Mayor Ted Wheeler; Dr. Bishop Steven Holt, N/NE Affordable Housing Oversight Chair. PHOTO BY JERRY FOSTER Now the clinic finds itself in another time of transition – this time due to the unexpected bankruptcy of one of two umbrella organizations coordinating Medicaid plans in the Portland area. Last December, FamilyCare announced it would be closing its doors at the end of Janu- ary. While the Children’s Community Clinic is open to all children — from birth to age 21 — its focus is to serve low- er-income patients and more than 90 percent of its patients are covered by Medicaid, Hicks said, meaning in recent years the clinic has relied on Medicaid reimburse- ment funds to operate. The abrupt transition — Hicks said clinics were given no more notice than the general public — threw into question how the clinic would be funded. “We had already planned our year with the expectation that those funds would be there,” Hicks told The Skanner. Health insurance pro- viders like Care Oregon have been working to ensure Medicaid-eligible patients continue to get care, and the Children’s Clinic was able to raise funds to replace some of the missing revenue. The clinic is registered as a public benefit corpo- ration with the Oregon Secretary of State’s office and is able to accept do- nations. But fundraising has not been its focus, Hicks said, and after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 its focus was on compliance and providing care. In addition to the other changes, the clinic has a new home: it’s located on the third floor of Lloyd Center Mall, in a part of the shopping center increasingly devoted to medical and dental offic- es. Previously, the clinic was situated on North- east Killingsworth Street just east of North Van- couver. The new loca- tion is more central and PHOTO BY CHRISTEN MCCURDY Children Legal cont’d from pg 1 their lives. In a recent press release from the organization, attorney Ja- son Kafoury cited a 2017 Orego- nian report that showed 52 per- cent of arrests by Portland Police were of homeless people – a pop- ulation that represents less than five percent of the city. Eighty- four percent of those arrests were for non-violent crimes. The New Avenues for Youth Legal Clinic is hoping to better those outcomes through a part- nership with the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School. Among several projects that fo- cus on parole, clemency, and com- plex cases within the criminal justice system, the Reform Clinic also runs the Community Law Di- vision, based out of the Metropol- itan Public Defenders office. Through the work of lawyers and law students, Community Law partners with local organiza- tions – including Home Forward and Veterans’ Project – to help reduce legal barriers for people living in poverty. It was through such a collaboration that the New Avenues for Youth Legal Clinic was born. “For people who live in poverty, or on the edge, one of the things that keeps them there are legal issues,” said Aliza Kaplan, law professor at Lewis and Clark Law School, director of its Criminal Justice Reform Clinic, and co-cre- ator of the Community Law Divi- sion. “Poverty and criminal justice go hand in hand,” she continued. “And when I say criminal justice, I mean it in the broadest sense. “ Poverty and criminal justice go hand in hand Someone could have a traffic fine, which could end up being thou- sands of dollars, so we can work with that person to get rid of the fines and fees.” Other common legal hurdles young people face include re- cord clearing and expungements, name and gender marker chang- es, restraining orders, accessing benefits and housing and fami- ly-related issues. While other legal services exist for at-risk youth in Portland, Ka- plan said they’re likely piecemeal and not accessible through an es- tablished clinic. That said, the New Avenues project is a first-of-its-kind for the city. “There is definitely no other way for New Avenues’ clients to receive legal services in any meaningful way in Portland,” said Kaplan. “This is why we needed to act when we learned of the tre- mendous need.” Since its pilot phase, the clinic has assisted 153 youth experienc- ing homelessness and currently has over 90 active cases of youth facing a number of legal challeng- es. “Without the people at the New Avenues Legal Clinic, I do not know if I would be here today,” said Kat, a youth served by New Avenues. “They believed me and helped me get the protection I needed to get stable, feel safe, and see myself as the strong person that I know I am today.” A youth can connect to the legal clinic through a referral from a New Avenues case manager or so- cial worker. The clinic – made up of a full-time lawyer from Com- munity Law, alongside law stu- dents and a handful of lawyers at the Metropolitan Public Defend- er office — can then work directly with the youth on his or her legal issues. “Whatever it is that is prevent- ing the person from moving for- ward in their lives – getting into housing, finding a better job and getting off the streets – the case manager at New Avenues and the Community Law (team) can all work together to advance this person and remove the barrier,” said Kaplan. The New Avenues for Youth Legal Clinic also offers drop-in hours at the organization’s head- quarters in downtown Portland, where a youth without a referral can ask for legal advice. Read more at TheSkanner.com cont’d from pg 1 response to a grow- ing number of violent demonstrations in Port- land since 2016, where right-wing and left-wing protesters clash. Outlaw has said those protests are difficult to police. She and the mayor con- tend new so-called “time, place and manner” re- strictions on public gath- erings would keep the public safer. Eudaly said she be- lieves Wheeler and Out- law are well-intentioned and want to curtail polit- ical extremism. Yet Euda- ly said she cannot “vote to expand their powers” in light of her view that significant police re- forms are necessary. Wheeler on Wednes- day called his proposal legal, reasonable and necessary and criticized news coverage that called into question whether his proposal was consti- tutional. “ land by making public pleas. And he noted that the federal government I’ve been firm because I be- lieve that this ordinance was a step in the right direction The mayor also ex- pressed exasperation and weariness. He said he tried unsuccessfully to keep right-wing agi- tators away from Port- declined his request to deny the right-wing Patriot Prayer group a protest permit, a request that drew condemnation of Wheeler because it was seen as an effort to curtail free expression. “While I am disap- pointed that City Council did not pass our Protest Safety Ordinance, I am encouraged that this has sparked a necessary and hard look at protest safety in our city. I want to thank our vocal crit- ics, who made us better - through the engagement of rigorous debate. I’ve been firm because I be- lieve that this ordinance was a step in the right direction,” Wheeler said in an emailed statement Wednesday afternoon. “Our administration will continue to look for ways to prevent protest vio- lence, while supporting and upholding the First Amendment. We will also continue to talk with community leaders, to look for alternative ways to tackle this very issue.”
