Paul Carlos Southwick: LGBTQ children . are often deprived of a safe and stable placement.
True Colors Day is a national day devoted to increasing awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) youth who experience homelessness. Some of the roots of this homelessness crisis are intertwined with the failures of foster care systems across the country, including here in Oregon, to meet the needs of LGBTQ children in their care and support youth who are aging out of foster care.
Forty percent of homeless foster children identify as LGBTQ, and of those, approximately 30% report aging out of the child welfare system into homelessness.
Dr. Robert Bentley is a Portland ophthalmologist with more than 30 years of experience.
As a physician and practicing ophthalmological eye surgeon with more than 33 years of clinical experience, I ll be among the first to tell you how important a different profession, that of optometry, is for overall eye health care. Optometrists perform valuable services, including routine eye exams and prescriptions for eyeglasses and contacts.
But optometrists are not medical doctors; they are not physicians. They do not have years of medical school education and post-med school residency or surgical training. Nor do optometrists have the direct clinical experience that helps ophthalmologists like me manage and avoid difficult, or even life-threatening, patient safety situations.
April 03 2021
Dave Coburn: Their oath of office swears them to upholding the constitution and doing their duty.
I have spent the last year as a frontline grocery worker during this pandemic, and I always showed up to work and met my responsibilities to my coworkers, my friends and my family.
I believe our state lawmakers should do the same, and I support legislation that would impose consequences on legislators who walk out when the Legislature is in session.
It is particularly frustrating to see walkouts this year, as so many of my friends, family and coworkers have desperately needed elements of COVID-19 relief. It feels beyond childish to walk away, rather than work with others to improve bills, or vote against them.
April 01 2021
A chance run-in with Forest Grove s police chief led a retired journalist down the rabbit hole to find the truth.
Part 1 of a series
A few months ago, I ran into Forest Grove Police Chief Henry Reimann outside the city library. I was on my way out after picking up some books and he was on his way in to record Is Your Mama a Llama? for the library s online storytime program.
As a member of the Forest Grove chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice, I d gotten to know Reimann a bit and found him open and easygoing. So I asked if he had any updates on the Steven Teets case. You may have heard of it: an early morning attack by an intoxicated man on a Forest Grove family s home last Oct. 31.
April 02 2021
After her house was attacked, one woman works to protect her family and learn basic facts about their attacker.
Part 2 of a series
Shortly before 1 a.m. last Oct. 31, Mirella Castaneda and Pablo Weimann awoke to the alarm blaring from their Ram pickup in the driveway. The Forest Grove couple lives with their 13-year-old son, 11-year-old daughter, two foster sons, 13 and 16, and Castaneda s mother, due west of downtown Portland in the Washington County city.
Weimann, a construction worker who specializes in finish and tile work, shut off the alarm remotely and lay back down. But when it went off again, Castaneda, an administrative specialist at Washington County s Department of Environmental Health, got out of bed and stuck her head outside the front door, thinking she might see a raccoon.