A little more than a month ago, Keri Salim, owner of Chez What? Café in Northeast Portland, found herself nervously addressing a closed-door, private youth crime discussion that included Mayor Vera Katz and officers from the Northeast Police Precinct. Amid back-slapping endorsements for more gang enforcement in the neighborhood, Salim put forth a lone dissenting […]
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Hello, Anyone There?
Crisis Line for Domestic Violence Victims Struggles Back to Its Feet
After a temporary absence, one of Portland’s most imperative resources for the domestically abused has been reinstated. Originally established in 1972, the Portland Crisis Line collapsed in February when its own, domestic spats pulled apart the program; due to internal politics, the entire staff was fired by then-Executive Director Kris Peters. But after Peters resigned, […]
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Treva or Brianna
31-Year-Old Woman Imprisoned for Being 17
When Ken Dunn met Brianna Stewart in a math class during his sophomore year, he thought she seemed a little old. “I thought she was a teacher at first,” he said. “But then she told me she was my age, so I believed her.” After that, Ken never once suspected that she was actually a […]
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The High Cost of Dope
Newly Enforced Drug Policy Threatens Financial Aid
Although summer vacation for students often means lax part-time jobs or internships to spruce up resumes, this summer some may be scrambling to find a way to earn bundles of cash in order to stay in school. Under a new policy–being enforced for the first time on a large scale–any student convicted of a so-called […]
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Pining For Posters
City Hall Plans to Beautify Portland by Removing Free Expression
Johnne Eschleman considers himself as serious an artist as they come; he spends hours planning, buying supplies, and weighing his aesthetic worth in relation to that of other artists. He works primarily outside, so when he’s installing his work he has to consider the effects of the weather, the environment, how many cars pass in […]
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Hunting for Lost Business
Hawthorne Merchants Upset About The Hunted
Built in 1910, the Hawthorne Bridge is one of the enduring images of Portland. But in recent years, it has become as much a blessing as a finicky curse to the commercial district which derives both its name and the majority of its traffic from the bridge. Since 70 percent of of Hawthorne’s customers use […]
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Housing Boom, Housing Bust
Portland’s Rental Crisis is Just Around the Corner
Almost two years ago, apartment vacancy rates in Portland dropped under five percent. This marked a critical juncture in Portland housing, since experts say anything below five percent represents a seller’s market in which landlords control the shots. Yet, in spite of ominous warning signs of a housing crunch, the City of Portland has been […]
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Wait and See
Equal Protection for Sexual Orientations Hits the Wall
Last week, with the hope of convincing their legislators to ban sexual orientation discrimination in public schools, 100 gay rights advocates from all over Oregon waited hours just to get a word in with their representatives in Salem. But, in spite of the hours cooling their heels and the time put into lobbying-training, the advocates […]
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Abort This Website
Court Allows Anti-Abortion Website to Re-Launch
Pictures of babies’ limbs in bloody garbage bags are plastered all over the recently re-launched “Nuremberg Files” website. Along with those images are lists of so-called “baby butchers.” The website, under the wing of the locally-based American Coalition of Life Activists (ACLA), gained national attention several years ago when it was linked to the killing […]
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Staying Put
A New Program Tries To Stop Gentrification in Its Tracks
The rows of houses along Interstate–an odd assortment of Victorians and ticky-tack ranch homes–are calm, even though they sit in one of Portland’s most heated battlefields. In a few years, an extension to the MAX line will tie the city’s economic center directly to the traditionally isolated and working-class neighborhoods of North Portland. And, if […]
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Home Is Where the Drugs Are
A Federal Lawsuit May Rid the City of Drug-Free Zones
Last July, Glen White was arrested on the sidewalk in front of his home. Only a few months previously White had been busted on a run-of-the-mill drug possession and kicked out of the city’s system of so-called Drug-Free Zones (DFZs)–an area that quite inconveniently included his neighborhood. This conflict between one of Portland police’s favorite […]
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Reality vs. Perception
Have Portland Police Really Gone Gestapo?
What began as an alleged response to a noise complaint and spun into a scuffle between party-goers and 43 police officers has now turned into something even more: Activists claim that police are purposefully profiling them and orchestrating a plan of intimidation. Two weeks ago, police arrived at a small house party in inner Northeast […]