By Jim Kight  - NW Connections

Affordable housing is in short supply throughout East County. There is always more demand than the market can supply and there is a two-year waiting list at any given time for families to receive subsidized housing.

Innovative Housing Inc. has taken a unique position with its recent property acquisition and complete remodel of Hewitt Place Townhouses. Located on SW 29th Way in Troutdale, the four-plexes are home to 44 low-income families. The non-profit group recently replaced windows, exterior siding, roofs, kitchen and bathroom cabinets, flooring and interior doors, and appliances on the units that were originally built in 1992. They also provided a new community room for meals, meetings and entertainment for the residents and guests.

Meredith Schmidt, the assistant project manager for the improvements, supervised the architects and contractors who completed the $2.9 million dollar project. The funding came from a variety of sources including federal and state credits and grants. She spent two years putting the funding package together but her tenacity paid off for the families who are now enjoying upgraded living quarters.

Councilor Matt Wand represented the City of Troutdale at the official opening of the homes and commented, “By rehabilitating Hewitt Place Townhomes, Innovative Housing sends a positive message both to its residents and to the broader surrounding community.”

An additional benefit to those living in Troutdale from low or moderate income families is the sharing of excess produce from local farms and wholesalers that is delivered to Hewitt Place. This distribution is once a month on the third Wednesday from 10:30–11:15am. It is based on the honor system for the non-residents of Hewitt Place but they are more than willing to share with the community.

We applaud the mission statement of Innovative Housing Inc. which states in part, “Our mission is to create innovative solutions to unmet housing needs and to do so in a way that makes good business sense”. Certainly the $5.4 million invested in acquisition and renovation speaks to that commitment.

(This article appeared in the August Edition of NW Connections)

www.oregonlive.com

Even before Jeff Gilbert started his position as principal at Reynolds High School in 2008, he got a call from a local attorney.

The speech team at Reynolds High School, the lawyer said, had a rich pedigree; the lawyer himself was an alumnus. What could be done to help get the program back?

This spring, speech is back at Reynolds, with the help of a couple of local alumni attorneys, Reynolds staff and the Oregon League of Minority Voters.

OLMV has been looking at Oregon high schools with high percentages of low-income and minority students. The nonprofit wants to bolster speech programs to enable more students to find their “voices.”

“To be at the table, we have to empower those to take a more vocal position,” said Promise King, OLMV executive director.

King said speech programs will get a financial boost from OLMV at Jefferson High School in Portland and also in the Hillsboro/Woodburn area. At Reynolds, the support will initially pay for travel costs to competitions.

With 2,800 students, Reynolds is one of the biggest high schools in the state. About 68 percent of the student body is qualified for free/reduced lunch, and nearly half of students are minorities.

” Reynolds has got a history of a really good debate program,” King said.

No one knows that more than Matthew Wand, a Troutdale City Council member and candidate for state representative who has worked with Reynolds’ mock trial team for the past six years.

“My partner and I, both of us, are alumni of the speech team,” said Wand, who is a partner with alumni Steve Maddoux at the Gresham firm Wand Maddoux Preston LLC. “Every job interview I’ve gone on, every time I go to court, I draw on the skills I learned from speech.”

Wand and Maddoux took Gilbert to lunch before he started his job at Reynolds to talk about the importance of the speech team.

“He was very enthusiastic and supportive, but as you know, with budget cuts, it was difficult,” Wand said.

Reynolds had a strong program throughout the 1990s, but things got rocky in the 2000s because of budget cuts, waning student interest and the loss of the coach.

Dan Robertson, an award-winning speech coach at Reynolds who retired in 2003, just happened to be subbing on campus this spring when the energy around reforming a team started growing. He has restarted coaching the team.

“We have a really good core of students who are interested in competing next year,” said Robertson, who already was meeting with students three times a week.

Gilbert, who also was a high school speech star, said it’s unusual to have a program start in spring but students are lining up to take part.

“It transforms you,” said Gilbert, who helped pay for college with speech skills learned at Flathead High School in Kalispell, Mont.

This spring, Reynolds students wanted to go to the district competition in March to practice. There, one of Reynolds’ students qualified for state.

“In the span of two weeks, we were able to get a student qualified for state, which is insane,” said Lauren Smith, a Reynolds grant coordinator.

The student, Christine Jacobsen, will travel to Western Oregon University to compete in “After Dinner Speaking” at the state speech competition April 22-24, where she’ll give a prepared speech on “street signs that are ironic or confusing,” such as “Caution: water on road during rain.”

It’s supposed to be funny, she said.

Jacobsen, a senior who plans to attend Mt. Hood Community College in the fall, said she joined the team for public speaking skills. She hopes to become a high school teacher.

—Melissa L. Jones

By Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Oregonian

Residents got their first peek at design plans for a new east county courts facility this week, buffering hopes that the long-promised project will finally be built even as fears resurfaced that it will again be pushed back because Multnomah County faces another tough budget year.

The county held a meeting at Parklane Christian Reformed Church in Gresham to show off building plans, answer questions and take suggestions on the latest scaled-down incarnation of a decades-long effort to replace the dilapidated and overcrowded east county courthouse. The project has gone from a comprehensive $42 million justice center that would include police and sheriff’s offices to a two- or three-courtroom building costing $21 million.

The county board will decide whether to proceed at its April 22 meeting. If a majority of commissioners approves the plan, the facility could be completed in early 2012.

East county residents who streamed in to the presentation were impressed by the gleaming glass-and-brick structure with immaculate landscaping that would fill a deserted and dusty lot in Rockwood, one of the county’s poorest areas. But they worried what it means now that former Chairman Ted Wheeler has been replaced by Jeff Cogen. Wheeler was the force that got the stalled project moving forward last year, while Cogen says the facility is a great need but is skeptical the county can afford it right now.

“There’s been a sense that people don’t care about us, and the pride of having a building of that nature come into that community I think sends a message that we’re worthwhile,” said Sue O’Halloran, who owns a Gresham real estate company, as she looked at some of the design slides. “I think the whole county commission has to grasp how important this is. It’s never the perfect time, but it’s the right time.”

The building, at Southeast 185 Avenue and Stark Street, would be two to three stories high and hold courtrooms as well as space for district attorneys. It also might include flexible space the community could use after hours.

The design goals are to seek LEED Gold certification, the second-highest sustainable building standard, and include features such as a green roof and being 60 percent carbon-neutral.

There’s no doubt the building would be a boon for Rockwood, which has had difficulty attracting development. Commissioner Diane McKeel said construction would bring 294 jobs and become “the cornerstone of continued economic development for the Rockwood community.”

But advocates — many of them elected officials from across the county — said the greatest need it would satisfy is alleviating overcrowding and physical deterioration in both the east county and downtown Portland courthouses.

“Our desire is to simply serve the community,” said Matthew Wand, Troutdale city councilor.

Roy Jay, a Portland businessman who runs a program that allows people convicted of minor crimes to clear their names, said most clients he deals with must travel from east county to the downtown courthouse. He pointed out that population growth is headed east and the already-constrained courthouse cannot handle it.

“We need a new courthouse, and we need it now,” Jay said. “This is a priority.”

McKeel and fellow Commissioner Judy Shiprack trumpeted the need to move the project forward.

“As a longtime east county resident, I have watched intently as we’ve struggled to get a new court facility for the residents east of 122nd Avenue,” McKeel said. “I have taken on an active role … in ensuring all county residents have equal access to due process.”

Cogen, who didn’t attend the meeting because of a scheduling conflict, said earlier in the day that he understands the need and agrees a new courthouse must be built. But he was skeptical of the board’s October decision to proceed with the redesign. And as the new county chairman, he still questions whether the county can afford to build it now while having to trim between $5 million and $7 million from its budget this year.

“The bottom line is that east county does deserve a better courts facility, but this is also occurring in a time of very, very tight resources,” Cogen said. “We have lots of desperate needs. It’s not enough to say this is an important project, because it doesn’t occur in a vacuum. What other important programs would have to be sacrificed?”

Shiprack and McKeel made it clear they want the project to move forward now.

“We are more than just one-deep,” Shiprack said, answering a concern that Wheeler’s departure would hurt the project. “We will be five county commissioners, and it’s going to move ahead. I am very optimistic about that.”

Shiprack said the financing, which would occur largely through bonds, is there.

“We are not going to pull the rug out from under social services that serve the most vulnerable,” she said. “This will not take bread out of the mouths of hungry children; this is a justice facility for a community that really needs it.”

Before the meeting wrapped up, Jay cautioned about 70 people who came not to be complacent but to voice their support when the county discusses April 22 whether to approve the project .

“Do not expect these people here to do it themselves,” he said, referring to Shiprack and McKeel. “This is your community, and you need to be there; otherwise, shame on you.”