FROM PAGE ONE
A16 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
Homeless:
ing to open this winter,
with trainings for volun-
teers on Oct. 3 at 6:30 p.m.
and Oct. 5 at 11 a.m. and
Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. at the sta-
tion, 1075 S. Highway 395.
Anyone who is home-
less or at risk of being
homeless is invited to a
Project Community Con-
nect and Veteran Stand
Down event Oct. 12 from
10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the
Hermiston
Community
Center, 415 S. Highway
395. It will include free
resources, such as hygiene
supplies, health screenings,
haircuts, veterinary care
and information on year-
round services.
Continued from Page A1
are the thousands of Ore-
gonians who end up dis-
cretely sleeping in their car,
in a garage or on a friend’s
couch for a few months at a
time after not being able to
afford rent.
“The hidden homeless
move in and out of home-
lessness,” Williams said.
“They’re always on the
edge economically. One
bad car repair or medical
bill will put them over.”
Scarcity of housing
drives up prices and makes
it hard to find a vacancy that
will fit the renter’s needs.
The top two recommenda-
tions of the OCF report are
increasing housing built at
all price points and increas-
ing the availability of
affordable housing through
vouchers, rent control and
other methods.
Hermiston, Umatilla and
Stanfield have been focused
on tackling the housing
problem in recent years.
Several new subdivisions
and a low-income apart-
ment complex nearly com-
plete on Sixth Street have
been announced in Hermis-
ton. Developers have been
building new homes every
month in Umatilla. In Stan-
field, developers will break
ground next spring on 40
new homes available to
low-income residents.
Hermiston School Dis-
trict’s liaison for home-
less students, Lisa Depew,
said a shortage of afford-
able housing in Hermiston
is definitely a factor in dis-
placing some local families.
Some might end up living
out of a van, while others
“double up” in an apart-
ment with another family.
“Affordable housing is
a huge component of what
some of our families are
exposed to,” she said.
Right now the district
only has 13 students clas-
sified as homeless under
the McKinney-Vento Act
— much lower than the 80
or so students who were on
that list when Depew first
Chronic homelessness
Staff photo by ben Lonergan
People gather for lunch at The Salvation Army on Emigrant
Avenue in Pendleton on Friday. The Salvation Army serves a
community lunch Monday through Saturday to those in need
of a meal.
took over. She said defini-
tions of homelessness have
tightened over time, but
whether a student officially
meets the definition or not,
there are plenty of “wrap-
around” services available
to students in need.
Bryn Browning, assis-
tant superintendent of
teaching and learning, said
those services include mak-
ing sure students have trans-
portation to school and that
they have whatever cloth-
ing, equipment and other
supplies they need to fully
participate in the class-
room and in extracurricular
activities.
The district also pro-
vides free breakfast to
every student and free
lunch to low-income stu-
dents to make sure all stu-
dents are having their nutri-
tion needs met. Schools
identify students who are
going hungry on weekends
and send home bags of food
put together by the Agape
House and local churches.
Resources
It’s not just students who
experience homelessness.
Both Pendleton and
Hermiston have warming
stations that offer a place
to sleep at night during
below-freezing weather,
but are lacking year-round
accommodations.
“There’s no shelter here
for the homeless, and that’s
a real big need,” said Major
DeWayne Hallstad of the
Pendleton Salvation Army.
The Salvation Army
serves free lunch to home-
less residents six days a
week. Hallstad said there
were 73 people at the meal
on Thursday.
In Hermiston, meals,
warm clothing and other
resources are available at
Desert Rose Ministries, 512
E Main St. in Hermiston.
Several churches also
provide free meals to peo-
ple in need, including the
Hermiston
Seventh-day
Adventist Church (5:30-
6:30 p.m. each Wednesday
at 855 W. Highland Ave.),
First Christian Church
(11 a.m. on Mondays at
775 W. Highland Ave.),
First United Methodist
Church (11 a.m. Thursdays
at 191 E. Gladys Ave.) and
Our Lady of Angels Catho-
lic Church (10:45 a.m. Fri-
days at 565 W. Hermiston
Ave.).
The Hermiston Warm-
ing Station is also prepar-
The most difficult situ-
ations for communities to
deal with are the chronic,
unsheltered homeless —
those who have been liv-
ing on the streets for years.
According to ECONorth-
west, Oregon, Washing-
ton, California and Hawaii
together hold more than
half of the country’s unshel-
tered homeless population.
And yet, Williams said,
those four states are receiv-
ing significantly fewer fed-
eral funds for affordable
housing than some states
on the east side of the
country.
“We need to figure out
how to better get our share
of federal funds,” he said.
According to the report,
Oregon represents 1.3% of
the total U.S. population,
but 5.6% of the country’s
chronically homeless who
are sleeping outdoors.
Methods for count-
ing homeless residents are
imprecise. Annual “point
in time” counts rely on vol-
unteers hitting the streets to
try to find as many self-re-
ported homeless people
as possible, in addition to
organizations like warm-
ing stations taking a census
of those who walk through
their doors that month.
In
2018,
Umatilla
County
organizations
counted 511 homeless res-
idents, 57% of which were
located in Pendleton.
WEDNESDAy, OCTObER 2, 2019
Burke:
Continued from Page A1
to rural communities have
made him a sought-after
speaker and panel member
on rural healthcare issues,”
Eldridge said.
Burke said he will likely
retire sometime between
March and July of next year,
staying on as CEO until the
GSHCS board has been able
to find a strong candidate
and make the transition to
new leadership.
He has overseen many
transitions for Good Shep-
herd in the past, from add-
ing new services and pur-
chasing clinics to building
multi-million dollar expan-
sions of the medical campus
on 11th Street.
The health care indus-
try itself has also changed.
Burke said the past three
decades have seen major
medical advancements and
new technology introduced
to the field. Providers coor-
dinate care through electron-
ically-shared records. Hos-
pitals have identified best
practices to keep patients
healthy and are more
regulated.
“Hospitals are safer,”
Burke said.
There have been chal-
lenges too. Increased report-
ing requirements have added
demands on providers’
time, as have more strenu-
ous training requirements.
Burke said the way hospitals
are financed has undergone
“dramatic” changes.
“In rural America, we’re
losing a rural hospital every
month,” he said.
While rural hospitals
struggle to stay staffed and
stay afloat financially, they
have to balance the ris-
ing costs of health care for
patients. Burke said the
country needs to look at the
“inputs” into health care that
cause those cost increases.
Those inputs include
rising prescription drug
prices, increased personnel
costs driven by physician
and nursing shortages, and
increased regulations.
“Every time a new reg-
ulation comes out — well
intended — there is rarely an
accurate calculation of how
much it will cost to imple-
ment it,” Burke said.
During his time at Good
Shepherd, Burke has testi-
fied on those issues before
the Oregon Legislature and
Congressional
commit-
tees. He said he doesn’t see
the United States going to
a socialized, single-payer
health care system — some-
thing he’s “not a fan of” —
but the country does need to
continue to create solutions
for increasing the affordabil-
ity and availability of health
care.
While
rural
hospi-
tals struggle to retain staff,
Burke said Good Shepherd
has been more successful in
recruiting and retaining pro-
viders in recent years.
“Obviously that’s a ben-
efit to the community, that
we’re getting the number
of physicians we need,” he
said. “For many years we
didn’t have nearly enough,
and now it’s getting better.
We grow our own, and that’s
helped.”
It also helps that Good
Shepherd has been named
one of The Oregonian’s top
workplaces in Oregon mul-
tiple times. Burke said there
are many reasons Good
Shepherd is a great place
to work, but its people defi-
nitely top the list.
Burke said he hadn’t nec-
essarily intended to spend so
much of his career in Herm-
iston, but the community
became home and he has
“deeply loved” the work.
“The job is challeng-
ing, but I have enjoyed it
immensely,” he said.
Burke got his start in
the health care industry in
the 1960s, when his father,
a hospital administrator,
hired him as a janitor. Burke
encouraged young people
to consider a job in health
care, calling it a fulfilling
experience.
“It’s a career that’s not
going away,” he said. “Even
though we don’t know what
changes the future holds for
the industry, people will still
need care.”
Meet Internal Medicine Physician
Nu Nwe Tun, MD
Internal Medicine and Geriatrician physician, Nu Nwe
Tun, MD, provides adult medicine for patients 18 and
older, and specializes in managing the health, wellness
and treatment of elderly patients. She is very comfortable
treating simple and complex diseases; such as diabetes,
heart disease, hypertension, and respiratory disease.
“I’m committed to providing personalized care by focusing
not simply on treatment but on the well-being of the
whole patient as they age.” -Dr. Tun
Welcoming
New Patients
GOOD SHEPHERD
MEDICAL GROUP
Internal Medicine
541.567.5305
600 NW 11th St, Suite E-37
Hermiston, OR 97838