| resources | contact | about | volunteer | tv news | video | radio | questions |
| |||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||
      regionstopic pagesgenresactionsall action pages >> resourcesglobal imc
|
Social Services
Cuts, community support, resources
From the open publishing newswire:
The struggle continues...
February 24th, 2011-- Workers from Janus Youth Program, a frontline organization helping at risk youth, continue picketing their workplace after management made the decision to move to an expensive and undemocratic arbitration process for dispute resolution. Link to 2:30 min VIDEO:  http://bmediacollective.org/?p=537
Word. homepage: http://www.bmediacollective.org
From the open publishing newswire:
Laughing Horse Books, Red & Black Cafe, and Microcosm Publishing are hosting a sleeping bag drive to assist those who are homeless through the winter. Please donate today!!
Cold, rainy weather has arrived, with temperatures expected to dip below freezing by Thanksgiving. Each sleeping bag is someone's home this winter and essential to survival in the Oregon winter, protecting against discomfort, illness, and even death. Over two thousand people are living either on the streets, camping, or in a car- with thousands more living without permanent housing or other conditions (Oregon Housing/Community Service). Laughing Horse Books, Red & Black Café, and Microcosm Publishing have teamed up to collect sleeping bags and donations (which will go directly towards sleeping bags as well as weatherproof tarps to protect from the weather), to be distributed in the local area. With many homeless vulnerable to the dangerous, harsh winter sleeping in and around St. Francis Park and adjacent to our businesses, we are compelled to provide what resources we have to assist those in need. Sleeping Bags will be picked up from each location on November 19th. Please visit WWW.SLEEPINGBAGDRIVE.COM to donate, add your business/organization as a sleeping bag collection-point, or for more information.. or drop off new or clean bags (preferably low-temperature capable/below freezing..) to Laughing Horse Books, Red & Black Cafe, or Microcosm Publishing. Thanks for the support!!
From the open publishing newswire:
Tenant Rights Project, together with community allies, on March 24 held a second picket and protest at downtown Portland nonprofit slumlord admin office, of Central City Concern, over retaliatory eviction notices, and violations of Oregon's landlord-tenant law. Activists also talked at Portland City Council before the picket.
The informational picket included housing activists, students from Reed and Willamette, and included a number of picket signs protesting recent retaliatory eviction notices against tenant activists, lack of livability and habitability in CCC housing units and buildings, and lack of transparency by the CCC board of directors. CCC is a $33,000,000 per year landlord, with about $50,000,000 in capital projects in addition. Tenant organizers have sent three demand letters to the CCC board of directors requesting better pest control, better repairs, safety improvements to the buildings, and requesting that tenants be allowed to attend and speak at CCC monthly board meetings, held on a Wednesday evening once a month at the CCC admin office where last Wednesday's picket was held, at the corner of NW 6th and Everett streets.
From the open publishing newswire:
Budget shortfalls, student ratios, and teachers' contract disputes hamper institutions' ability to educate students
Let's just say it: education is pretty messed up right now. Oregon taxpayers now spend roughly the same amount of money to incarcerate 13,401 inmates as they do to educate 438,000 university and community college students. But spending on prisons is growing at a faster rate than education and other state services.
From the open publishing newswire:
Our public agencies and officials are hard at work building a "failed state." I would define a "failed state" as one that does not meet the minimum requirements for attaining a measure of public legitimacy based on serving broad social needs. Such a state can only maintain authority through brute force. A state will "fail" once it stops serving the needs of a critical mass of its citizens.
From the open publishing newswire:
Two members of the ATU (TriMet drivers union) and Lynn Lehrbach (with the Teamsters in Portland, and a TriMet board member) are expected to attend and talk at this Wednesday night's 6 p.m. Transit Rider Union meeting, on Saving Fareless Square coalition and direct action organizing. 1,500 transit riders have signed petitions to Save Fareless Square, and despite Lynn (on the TriMet board) voting with us, TriMet continues to ignore democracy, the public interest, clean air, global warming, oil wars, and transit equity.
From the open publishing newswire:
The Fairview Training Center was once known as the "Oregon State Institution for the Feeble-Minded." It was established in 1908 and housed thousands of residents with disabilities for close to a century. During that time, these residents suffered from inadequate staffing, poor training, serious health hazards, restraints, forced sterilization, rape, torture and neglect. Many of the residents were brought to the Center as small children and lived their entire lives in the confines of this prison masking as a hospital.
From the open publishing newswire:
Portland Food Not Bombs now serves free vegan meals 7 days a week.
Monday-Friday at Col. Summers Park(SE 17th and Taylor) Saturdays at N. Park Blocs/Riot Elephant(W. Burnside and Park) Sundays at Peninsula Park(N. Rosa Parks and Albina0 All meals are at 530. Come an get it!
From the open publishing newswire:
DIRECT ACTION GETS THE GOODS: Monday, May 11, at 9 a.m., at the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1021 SW 4th Ave. Stop the auction of foreclosed homes by the bank-fraudsters. Support SB 628.
Not active in supporting your neighbors who are facing homelessness because you think Obama will magically make everything all right? Give up that Ghost....We need grass-roots action NOW, and YOU need to make it happen.... Every Monday morning, foreclosed homes are being auctioned at the Multnomah County Courthouse (1021 SW 4th Ave.). This is being done in spite of the fact that the bankers and their political flunkies are obstructing attempts to require mortgage mediation with the victims of the financial scams that threaten to harm all working class people. (Contact your state representatives about support for SB 628, the pre-foreclosure mandatory mediation bill that the bank fraudsters are attempting to destroy, and see: link to blog.affil.org). Wear red and bring signs, if you can.
From the open publishing newswire:
The controversial Mississippi Ave Lofts received a federal low income loan from The Albina Community Bank. I reread it several times because I couldn't believe my eyes. I think there is something terribly wrong with a high end condo project such as MAL, with 721 sq ft studios selling just below 300,000 and housing high end retail stores like Pastaworks, qualifying for a federal loan for low income communities.
Not only are they high end, but these developers have a documented track record of trying to bend rules and being less than honest in their drive to capitalize as much as they possible even in spite of community opposition. Then after they finally get their way (city capitulates, big surprise) they hire Gray Purcell a non-union, hire anybody off the streets(literally), company.
From the open publishing newswire:
*SCAM WARNING!!* Rental-Data Bureau's (aka RDB, rental-data.com) Predatory Practices
If you are seeking rental property in the Portland Metro area you may have run across their NUMEROUS "Call RDB" house listing ads online. The ads often list enticingly low prices in attractive areas, yet NEVER offer an address or a photo. Avoid these people and their dubious 'service' like the plague on free society they are. They republish a database of freely obtained house listings from off the net and charge RENTERS $35 to see their substandard imageless database. They illegitimately spam the free classified sites with their 'listings' which are in reality only ads for their website 'service'. They use phony bait and switch tactics by listing enticing properties in their ads that do not exist in the database once you become a member.
From the open publishing newswire:
This Thursday, Books to Prisoners will be selling some of the overstock books in order to raise money for mailings. This will be at the Last Thursday Art walk near NE. 28th and Alberta from about 3:00 til late..Come early to get great deals on books and support prisoners
From the open publishing newswire:
One of the outcomes of the most recent review of the infamous sit-lie ordinance, is that the city has been persuaded of the need for more public restrooms. This recognition on the part of the city is related to its agreement to decriminalize sitting on the sidewalk, finding approximately $750,000 for the entire program, part of which would go to provide an alternative, in the form of a drop in center of sorts, to this reality of homeless life.
Also in the new provision, is a determination to establish the availability of more public restrooms to counter the glaring lack of these essential facilities for people who have no alternative. In the account I read most recently about this pressing need, doubts were expressed that the restrooms could last long, because it was thought that they would quickly be destroyed by some of the people out there with the worst problems. Seattle's discouraging experience with the auto toilets was mentioned to illustrate this concern. |
|