WEEKEND EDITION
REVIVING THE UNION CLUB ELK HOOF DISEASE 6C
LIFESTYLES/1C
UMATILLA BEATS IRRIGON
SPORTS/1B
JANUARY 13-14, 2018
142nd Year, No. 63
$1.50
WINNER OF THE 2017 ONPA GENERAL EXCELLENCE AWARD
GOBHI: Lifeways crisis services below standards
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Umatilla County’s mental
health provider has been given
until Feb. 20 to make key changes
to its crisis services or risk losing
its contract.
Lifeways Inc., the community
mental health program in Umatilla
County, was put on notice by its
administrative
organization,
Greater
Oregon
Behavioral
Health, Inc.
In a statement, GOBHI CEO
Kevin Campbell said Lifeways
will likely need to hire an outside
consultant to oversee the program.
“It has become quite clear
that things are not improving fast
enough,” he said in the release.
“We believe that it’s time for
“It has become quite clear that
things are not improving fast
enough. We believe that it’s
time for Lifeways, Inc. to get
some outside help.”
— Kevin Campbell, GOBHI CEO
Lifeways, Inc. to get some outside
help.”
Campbell said he could not say
who the consultant would be, but
that it would be someone from
within Oregon. He said the goal of
the new position would be to listen
to community partners, meet the
needs of law enforcement and get
a mobile crisis service completely
functional.
“We think that will happen
quicker if [...] the outside party
is accountable to both Lifeways
and GOBHI,” he said. “We’re
not talking about taking over the
program — we’re talking about
bringing in professional help.”
Campbell said Lifeways had
been trying to improve their crisis
See LIFEWAYS/12A
EO fi le photo
Lifeways Inc., the community mental health program in Umatilla
County, has been given until Feb. 20 to make key changes to its
crisis services or risk losing its contract.
PENDLETON
Kathy
Aney
Comment
A dark
and
stormy
night
I
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Pendleton High School freshman Daniel Lamont was homeless for about four months last year living in a tent with his mother in the
backyard of a family member’s house. During that time, Lamont said he spent a lot of his time at the Pendleton Public Library.
Homeless in high school
3 percent of Pendleton students in impermanent housing
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
According to state statistics, nearly
3 percent of Pendleton students get up,
go to school and then fi nd themselves
sleeping in a tent or crashing on a
couch for the night.
For Pendleton’s homeless student
population, high school life is about
enduring impermanent housing while
balancing their lives at school.
For the Lamonts, the difference
between having a roof over their head
was a missed deadline.
Tasha Lamont and her 15-year-old
son Daniel were kicked out of their
subsidized housing when she didn’t
turn in her recertifi cation paperwork to
the U.S. Department of Housing and
Urban Development in time.
Tasha said she takes full respon-
sibility for the mishap, but she also
didn’t know where else to go. She
wasn’t in a domestic abuse situation or
addicted to drugs, so shelters geared to
help people dealing with those situa-
tions were not available.
The pair could go to places like the
Pendleton Public Library or Walmart
Homelessness increases in Oregon
Every two years, during the last ten days of January, there is a na-
tionwide effort to count every homeless person in the United States.
The last such point-in-time effort took place in 2017. According to the
Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services:
• The number of people experiencing homelessness in Oregon was
13,953. This was a 6 percent increase since 2015.
• 70 percent of this population were people living in households
without children
• About one out of four homeless people were in households with
children, and were more likely to be sheltered
• 4 percent of the homeless population, or 605 people, consisted
of unaccompanied children under the age of 18.
• There were 3,387 chronically homeless people, making up
24 percent of the total homeless population.
during the day, but fi nding an over-
night place proved more diffi cult. The
Pendleton Warming Station doesn’t
accept anyone under 18, so Tasha had
to cross that off her list as well.
By August, the Lamonts had settled
into their only option: a tent in a family
member’s backyard.
Daniel said the following months
in the tent were tough, especially
when he had to get up in the morning
without heat.
He tried to keep his homelessness
under wraps, but rumors began to
spread. Whenever a classmate dropped
him off after school, he would get
questions as to why he went through
the back instead of to the front door.
He would tell them that his family
would let him in through the back
door, but that didn’t stop the gossip
from continuing to churn.
See STUDENTS/12A
love a good storm.
When lightning sizzles
through the sky and rain
batters the window glass, I
can’t look away. I pull up a
chair.
If the storm rages inside
my body, however, it’s quite
another matter.
When my husband Bill
got the fl u a couple of weeks
ago, I brought him soup and
tea. I didn’t
worry about
More inside getting the
fl u. After all,
Flu season
I hadn’t seen
hitting earlier
a doctor for
than usual
REGION/3A
anything
other than
a routine
checkup in years. I exercised
every day and ate plenty
of vegetables. I arrogantly
believed I was so healthy,
fl u would take one look and
back away, hands lifted in
a gesture of submission. A
virus would bounce off my
body like hot oil in a Tefl on
pan, right?
Wrong.
Several days ago, my
chest tightened and a chill
reverberated through my
body. Shaking it off, I went
on with my day. Within
hours, fl u hit me over the
head with a tire iron, or so
it seemed. I had the classic
array of infl uenza symptoms:
diffi culty breathing, sore
throat, runny nose, fever,
cough and weakness. I slept
for 24 hours straight.
I wrote about the fl u just
before I got sick.
In the story, Dr. Ann
Thomas, public health
physician for the State of
Oregon said fl u season had
taken off dramatically in
the last few weeks. Thomas
predicted a record-setting
season. She urged people to
run to the nearest pharmacy
See FLU/12A