DIRECTOR'S DESK | A new report from Disability Rights Oregon finds people seeking help often wind up in jail – we can do better In a harrowing report on trespass arrests made at six Portland-area hospitals between 2017 and 2018, Disability Rights Ore ...
18 Jun 2019 - Kaia Sand
Conversations about Oregon’s shortage are moving forward, but progress is slow It’s been six months since an Oregon Judicial Department task force quietly released a report outlining troubling shortfalls in the state’s placement and treatment of children ...
14 Jul 2016 - Emily Green
Picciotto maintained a peace vigil outside the White House for more than three decades before she died in January at a homeless shelter Three days after her death, Concepcion Piccioto’s protest display still stands. Directly across from the White House, a ...
19 Feb 2016 - Abby Hershberger
For more than 40 years in Portland, it has been people with mental illness For years, our organization, the Mental Health Association of Portland, has chronicled, eulogized and remembered persons who have been on the receiving end of Portland-area police ...
15 May 2015 - Jason Renaud an...
The Portland Police Bureau recently made a stunning and unprecedented discovery — but, sadly, no one noticed. Probably because most of us knew it all along. Their non-breakthrough was this: Sometimes, the right police action is no action at all. After a d ...
19 Jan 2015 - Jason Renaud an...
In 1891, George Breckonridge was the first juvenile to be placed into custody at the reform school for boys in Woodburn, Ore. His crime was stealing a newspaper off his neighbor’s porch. Fast-forward 124 years, and the population within the walls of what ...
10 Jan 2015 - Emily Green
The Mental Health Association of Portland remains firm on Department of Justice v. City of Portland. The position elucidated in this column has been our unvarying stance since the outset of the lawsuit, and, barring sudden, cataclysmic changes descending ...
7 Aug 2014 - Jason Renaud
Paul Boden is the executive director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project, or WRAP. The organization is made up of community organizations around the United States, including Street Roots and Right 2 Survive in Portland. The group published the ground ...
2 Jul 2014 - Israel Bayer
On the desk in Juliet Follansbee’s downtown Portland office is a thick book of Oregon laws. It contains only a few sentences that grant the state agency she operates tremendous power over the lives of hundreds of Oregonians. In May, Follansbee was made in ...
12 Apr 2014 - Jake Thomas
Oregon’s mental health care systems gained attention and new money from the 2013 legislative sessions-- and more is on the way. While this is good news for Portlanders, especially those experiencing homelessness, mental health problems or addiction, it’s ...
18 Nov 2013 - Jasmine Rockow