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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 18, 2018)
NORTHWEST East Oregonian A2 Tuesday, December 18, 2018 U.S. homeless count grows in 2018, Seattle among top This year’s count continued that trend, showing 552,800 people without homes across the country, up by about 2,000 from 2017, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Devel- opment’s point-in-time tally. It was the second consec- utive increase after seven straight years of declines. The number of homeless referred to as unsheltered — those living in the streets, encampments or other open places — was more than 194,000 nationwide. That also was up from last year. More than 37,000 of the unsheltered were in the Los Angeles area this year, down 2 percent from 2017. San Diego, California’s second most populous city, also saw a decline in both total homelessness and those on the streets. After a hepati- tis A outbreak spread among the homeless population and killed 20 people in 2017, the city turned to industri- al-sized tents to house hun- dreds of people. As the tents went up, officials also cited people camping on down- town streets. Encamp- ments downtown cleared out quickly, but the number along the San Diego River doubled. The city is considering a ballot measure to raise money for affordable hous- ing in 2020. By GEOFF MULVIHILL Associated Press A federal report released Monday provides a pos- sible glimmer of hope for the homeless crisis that has gripped many cities up and down the West Coast. The number of people living on the streets in Los Angeles and San Diego, two epicenters of the homeless- ness crisis, fell this year, sug- gesting those cities’ efforts to combat the problem could be starting to pay off. In Los Angeles, the count fell by 3 percent after a sharp increase the year before. Peter Lynn, executive direc- tor of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Author- ity, said that can be cred- ited to results of six months of stepped-up homeless ser- vices after Los Angeles County voters raised taxes to help in 2017. Later that year, Los Ange- les city voters approved a bond issue to provide more affordable housing — a fac- tor Lynn said will start show- ing up in future counts. “We’re also dealing with the countervailing pressure of housing markets that are pretty unforgiving,” he said. Cities in California, Ore- gon and Washington have driven an overall spike in the number of homeless people nationwide in recent years. AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File In this May 24, 2018, file photo, a man sleeps on the sidewalk as people behind line up to buy lunch at a Dick’s Drive-In restaurant in Seattle. Nationwide, the over- all increase this year was driven by a 2 percent rise in the unsheltered home- less population — those liv- ing in vehicles, tents and on the streets — along with 4,000 people in emergency shelters after hurricanes, wildfires and other disas- ters, according to HUD. The numbers of homeless veter- ans and families continued their long-term declines. At a time when rents are rising faster than wages — especially for lower-income Forecast for Pendleton Area TODAY WEDNESDAY Cloudy, a little rain; windy Mostly cloudy, breezy and mild 55° 42° 52° 40° 57° 42° 53° 37° THURSDAY FRIDAY Mostly cloudy and mild SATURDAY Turning cloudy and cooler Cloudy 42° 27° 45° 29° HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 51° 40° 44° 30° 49° 29° OREGON FORECAST ALMANAC Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows. PENDLETON through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Seattle Olympia 53/46 49/38 54/36 Longview Kennewick Walla Walla 58/44 Lewiston 54/45 59/43 Astoria 55/46 Pullman Yakima 53/37 53/43 53/42 Portland Hermiston 55/46 The Dalles 57/42 Salem Corvallis 56/43 Yesterday Normals Records La Grande 46/36 PRECIPITATION John Day Eugene Bend 57/45 51/34 49/35 Ontario 46/34 Caldwell Burns 52° 34° 39° 27° 61° (1937) -13° (2016) 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date Albany 57/45 0.01" 0.24" 0.85" 7.20" 8.84" 9.32" Today Boardman Pendleton Medford 55/39 46/32 Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2018 SW 4-8 SW 10-20 Sunrise today Sunset tonight Moonrise today Moonset today 7:31 a.m. 4:12 p.m. 1:53 p.m. 2:35 a.m. Full Last New First Dec 22 Dec 29 Jan 5 Jan 13 NATIONAL EXTREMES Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states) High 75° in Columbus, Texas Low -9° in Gunnison, Colo. ing to determine how State Police accessed the Capitol’s surveillance video about the delivery. In his email, Boquist said he delivered the doc- uments to offices on three floors at the Capitol between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. He said he was distrib- uting documents about an incoming senator “as a reminder” to other senators. He said the material included “biographical data, online data and quotes of a candi- date who is now a senator elect.” Boquist apparently was referring to Jeff Golden of Ashland, a Democrat who will take office next month as a senator. Golden told the Oregon Capital Bureau that the mate- rials other senators received referenced things he had said and done in the 1970s. Wed. SW 10-20 SSW 12-25 SUN AND MOON Klamath Falls SALEM — A state sen- ator caught on tape slipping anonymous packets under the doors of at least seven other senators last month has been warned his conduct could be considered work- place harassment. The letter’s public dis- closure is the latest in a series of actions by Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, that have raised eyebrows and prompted concern at the Capitol. Boquist’s conduct recently drew a written warning from the Legislature’s top in-house lawyer, Dexter Johnson. “I strongly urge you to be mindful (of) your actions and the appearance of your actions so that concerns about workplace harassment are not raised again,” John- son, the legislative counsel, wrote in a “memo of con- cern” dated Dec. 5. Such communications are typically confidential, but Boquist himself disclosed the memo Friday by distrib- uting it to senators and hav- ing it posted on a legislative website. Johnson said senators or their staff discovered doc- uments tucked under their doors the morning of Nov. 15, a Thursday. “In the security camera images, one can discern that the top page of the documents being held by you matches a page of the documents deliv- ered to the offices,” Johnson wrote. Boquist last month acknowledged his conduct in an email to Travis Hampton, Oregon State Police super- intendent. Boquist was try- WINDS (in mph) 46/34 44/26 0.02" 0.39" 0.80" 9.26" 15.43" 12.27" through 3 p.m. yest. HIGH LOW TEMP. Pendleton 45/33 57/46 24 hours ending 3 p.m. Month to date Normal month to date Year to date Last year to date Normal year to date HERMISTON Enterprise 55/42 52/42 54° 40° 39° 26° 62° (1917) -12° (1964) PRECIPITATION Moses Lake 53/43 Aberdeen 47/36 47/37 Tacoma Yesterday Normals Records Spokane Wenatchee 54/46 data picture is incomplete because several West Coast areas with large populations, including San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and Cali- fornia’s Orange County, did not conduct new counts of unsheltered homeless pop- ulations this year. Those places will do fresh surveys in early 2019. Homelessness has exploded along with a soar- ing economy in several West Coast cities in recent years and has become a hot local political issue. From 2015 Boquist reprimanded for secretly distributing documents to colleagues By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE Oregon Capital Bureau PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST 53° 37° people — an essentially stagnant count is a not a bad sign, said Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alli- ance to End Homelessness. “Given what’s going on with rental housing, it’s not exactly good news. But it means communities are pushing back against the headwinds,” said Berg, who like other advocates urges caution about reading too much into one-year trends in the homeless count. The homelessness through last year, voters on the West Coast approved more than $8 billion in spending — most of it in tax increases — to address homelessness. In Seattle, which has the nation’s largest home- less population outside New York or Los Angeles, the count this year rose to more than 12,000 — more than half of them unsheltered. The number was less than 9,000 just four years ago, and the city has been wres- tling with what to do about the problem. The City Council in May passed a $48 million tax on businesses to raise money for affordable housing. But under pressure from Ama- zon, Starbucks and other companies, it repealed it the next month. Another place in the West with a rising number was the Phoenix area, where the total count this year was nearly 6,300, up 12 percent from the previous year. About two-fifths of people without homes there are in shelters. The region’s status as the fastest-growing county in the U.S., with 200 people a day moving in, is a factor in the rising homeless number, said Anne Scott, a human services planner who coor- dinates the count for the Maricopa Association of Governments. NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY State lawmakers revisit worker protections for off duty pot use SALEM (AP) — Ore- gon lawmakers will con- sider making it illegal for businesses to fire employ- ees who flunk drug tests for using marijuana off the clock, reviving a workers’ rights campaign that failed in the statehouse last year. The Statesman Journal reports that a proposed bill would also change state law to protect job seekers who use substances like pot that are legal here. The proposal reflects a debate over whether Oregon workers should be forced to abstain from marijuana use — which is allowed under state law but remains fed- erally illegal — for fear of getting fired or losing an employment offer. Senate Bill 301, which represented a previous attempt to loosen employ- ment restrictions, failed in 2017. That bill generally dealt with discrimination against medical marijuana cardholders who tested pos- itive for the cannabis. The latest proposal has come before the Sen- ate Interim Committee on Judiciary, chaired by Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene. Prozanski said Monday that the concept was a redrafted form of SB 301. “We’ll definitely have some discussions” on the proposal, he said. The proposed bill wouldn’t allow employees to use pot if their collective bargaining agreements pro- hibit partaking while off- duty, or if there is a “bona fide occupational qualifica- tion” associated with their job. It also does not permit working under the influence. SB 301 included excep- tions for labor agreements, workers doing their jobs while impaired and con- tracts between employers and federal officials that require employers to have “ a drug-free workplace” to receive federal dollars. “There are a lot of ques- tions employers have when it comes to establishing workplace rules, particularly when it comes to cannabis,” said Beau Whitney, a senior economist with Washington, D.C.-based cannabis think tank New Frontier Data. Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day. -10s -0s 0s showers t-storms 10s rain 20s flurries 30s snow 40s 50s ice 60s cold front E AST O REGONIAN — Founded Oct. 16, 1875 — 211 S.E. Byers Ave., Pendleton 541-276-2211 333 E. 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