Coffee Creek Correctional Facility is the only women’s prison in the state. GOOGLE MAPS The first research survey conducted inside Oregon’s only women’s prison suggests there are links between intimate partner violence and incarceration. Reform advocates believe this data could help change the narrative around criminal justice in the state. The survey of women incarcerated […]
Blair Stenvick
Blair Stenvick is a former news reporter and culture writer for the Portland Mercury.
Posted inFeature
Young Womxn of Color Sound Off on Portland, White Feminism, and the Future
Spend half an hour chatting about feminism with the young womxn of color who run the CENTER Youth Collective, and a lot will come up. The CENTER—it stands for “Create. Engage. Notice. Teach. Empower. Remember.”—is a social justice-oriented youth outreach center in North Portland. Its Youth Collective is made up largely of teenage womxn of […]
Posted inNews
Portland’s Trying to Prepare Brick Buildings for an Earthquake—But at What Cost?
When Virginia Hankins and her father bought a commercial building on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. in 1990, business in the area was far from booming. “Times were hard,” Hankins says. “We couldn’t find anybody to rent in that building.” Nearly 30 years later, that’s no longer the case. Hankins’ building is occupied by what […]
Posted inNews
Portland City Council Passes Amendments to Controversial Earthquake Safety Policy
SARAH YEOMAN The Portland City Council voted Wednesday to amend a controversial earthquake safety ordinance. The original ordinance, passed in October, requires owners of unreinforced masonry buildings (URMs)—old brick buildings that would be lethal in the event of an earthquake—to place signs alerting occupants of their danger and notify tenants about it. The cost to […]
Posted inNews
PSU Students Continue Call to Disarm Campus Cops, Despite Report’s Findings
ANDREW JANKOWSKI Members of the Portland State University Student Union (PSUSU) aren’t happy about a recent campus security report that stops short of recommending that campus police be disarmed—but they also aren’t surprised. At about 5 pm last Friday, Portland State University (PSU) dropped a 209-page report from Margolis Healy, a campus safety firm founded […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News: Trump Meets With Kim Jong Un, Oregon Drought Watch, and Local LGBTQ Mistrust of the Police
Stay up to date on Portland news and politics. Looking for fun? Here are the best Things to Do in Portland today. Chip Somodevilla / GETTY IMAGES Good morning, Portland! Grab your mug of hot brown stuff and watch the cold white stuff slowly disappear from the city streets. Here are the headlines. Drought Watch: […]
Posted inNews
Portland’s Trying to Prepare Brick Buildings for an Earthquake—But at What Cost?
SARAH YEOMAN When Virginia Hankins and her father bought a commercial building on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. in 1990, business in the area was far from booming. “Times were hard,” Hankins says. “We couldn’t find anybody to rent in that building.” Nearly 30 years later, that’s no longer the case. Hankins’ building is occupied […]
Posted inNews
Amid Anti-LGBTQ Violence, Many Queer Portlanders Don’t Trust the Police for Protection
BLAIR STENVICK On a Sunday evening in June of 2016, queer Portlander Jen was assaulted outside of a bar in downtown Portland. “I was picked up and thrown to the ground… by a man who then jumped in his SUV and sped off while his girlfriend shouted ‘FAGGOT!’ at me from the passenger window,” Jen, […]
Posted inNewsblast!
Good Morning, News: 2020 Dems Debate Health Care, Andre Gladen’s Family Seeks Justice, and Billy Porter Wins the Oscars
Dia Dipasupil / GETTY IMAGES Good morning, Portland! Much like Green Book winning Best Picture, snow has fallen over the city, despite nobody actually expecting or wanting it. Here are the headlines! Policy, Please: Bernie Sanders introduced the idea of free health care for all into the American Overton window in the 2016 Democratic primary. […]
Posted inNews
City Council Makes the Portland Clean Energy Fund Official
BRETT MAURER /GETTY IMAGES Last November, Portland voters passed a ballot measure to created Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF). On Thursday, the Portland City Council voted the fund into official city code. The PCEF establishes a one percent business tax on companies that annually make over a billion dollars nationally, and more than $500,000 locally. […]
Posted inNews
How Will a Rose Quarter Freeway Expansion Impact a Historically Black Middle School?
An overhead view of I-5 and Harriet Tubman Middle School. MATT WONG A plan to expand the Interstate 5 freeway in Northeast Portland is raising concerns among local environmental activists—and among parents at a historically Black middle school that would be affected by the expansion. When the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) released an environmental […]
Posted inNews
NAACP-Led Coalition Isn’t Satisfied With Proposed Changes to Earthquake-Unsafe Building Rules
E.D. Mondaine, president of Portland’s NAACP chapter, speaks at a rally outside Portland City Hall Wednesday morning. BLAIR STENVICK The Portland City Council is considering amending a controversial ordinance that requires owners of unreinforced brick buildings to label them as earthquake-unsafe. But, an NAACP-led coalition that opposes the ordinance is making it clear that those […]