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NO BEDS, NO PROGRESS
The recent article “Oregon Health Authority Irks Residential Treatment Centers” [Murmurs, WW, July 8] overlooks a critical reality: While OHA’s policy changes aim to help individuals transitioning out of Oregon State Hospital, there is still a severe shortage of residential facilities. As a community mental health clinician in Portland, I have seen an alarming number of clients discharged from OSH directly to the streets. This cycle destroys clinical progress achieved during hospitalization and drives recidivism.
Blaming the friction between OHA and residential providers obscures the structural truth—there simply are not enough residential treatment beds. When residential facilities decline any individual, they often have no alternative but houselessness.
To break this cycle and address this urgent human rights issue, we must expand our state’s capacity. Please contact your state legislators by email, mail or phone to advocate for increased funding for residential treatment facilities. If feasible, you may consider supporting local community mental health organizations, like New Narrative, that maintain and build these vital residential mental health programs.
Together we can come together as a community to advocate for a population whose rights are being overlooked again by the system and overall improve the entire function and quality of Oregon’s mental health system.
Gwynne Hernandez, LCSW
Northeast Portland
THIS PLACE IS A DUMP
I sure wish Portland’s Bureau of Development Services, the agency in charge of investigating code violations, shared the Permitting & Development philosophy that high fines discouraged bad behaviors [“House and Home,” WW, July 8]. Over the past five years, I have reported the slumlord on my street for not providing his tenants with garbage service (they piled trash in the yard for weeks), allowing the grass to grow 2 feet high and harbor rats, and other serious violations (I’d name them, but I’d prefer not to be doxxed on the off chance the landlord reads your paper). BDS investigations and remedies take months. When I phoned after three years of this and asked why a repeat offender who couldn’t be bothered to keep his property safe and habitable couldn’t be fined, the BDS staffer said they were interested in bringing landlords into compliance and not punishing bad ones.
So the negligence of the lady who doesn’t understand the city’s complex Airbnb rules must be punished, even if she loses her house because of it, but the landlord who only provides garbage service when told it’s mandatory just needs a little nudge to comply? Gross.
LP
Southeast Portland
STILL CONVINCED GABLE DID IT
I am happily retired now after an almost 40 year professional career. I began as a prosecutor 1980. After 10 years, in 1990, I applied to be Oregon’s first Inspector General for the Oregon Department of Corrections.
Before arriving, I knew no one in Corrections. I hired outsiders as our investigators. I wanted to start with a clean slate. My first mandate was to investigate all the allegations in The Warden Report, authored by retired Oregon appellate judge John Warden at the direction of the governor and the legislature after the murder of Michael Francke.
We did that and released our findings in a public report and followed up with a press conference in which we answered questions. While we found individual acts of misconduct, we found no corruption. We found no coverup.
Phil Stanford, the notorious and at the time discredited former Oregonian columnist, has written a new book which i am forcing myself to read [“Phil Stanford Has Literally Written the Book on Michael Francke’s Murder,” wweek.com, July 19]. I am finding his accusations against some people i have known professionally to be frankly shocking and in my view baseless. For example, Dale Penn in my experience was a fine and honest public servant his entire career. Yet Stanford accuses him of covering up DOC corruption. I simply do not believe that.
I served as Inspector General during the murder trial of Frank Gable. I did not attend in personally but i followed it closely.
I have some observations I feel the need to share. First, the location and time of the murder are completely inconsistent with a planned execution. Second the manner of his murder is completely consistent with Gable’s criminal background. Prison inmates like Gable carry stabbing devices (shanks). Third, Gable helped ensure his conviction by insisting on calling a state’s witness as a defense witness. Finally, the fact that witnesses have recanted their testimony is completely expected years later. It does not necessarily mean they lied at trial. I don’t believe they did.
Allowing federal judges, most of whom have no experience in the state criminal justice system of Oregon, 30 years after the crime, to second guess the entire case, to me is an injustice.
I continue to be firmly convinced Frank Gable murdered Michael Franke.
John Foote
Former Clackamas County District Attorney
YOU TOO CAN CANOE
Thank you for writing your recent article about kayaking and camping [“Kayak Camping,” Oregon Summer magazine]. I had never heard of those reservoirs and I was intrigued! I am the owner of a canoe that my husband and I purchased after our wedding in 2010 from our wedding gift money. We hardly ever use it. The books available on Oregon and Washington paddling routes are really outdated and overly dramatic. We went yesterday on the Willamette and it sucked with all of the wake from the jet skis. We have been to all of the other lakes you mentioned that are local.
I think you should write a new guide to Oregon and Washington paddling and camping! I would buy it. We are longing to use our canoe more than just once in the fall on Estacada Lake. And also in the main paddling guide that’s out, they make it sound like you’re taking your life into your hands to go to Sauvie Island or Smith and Bybee lakes, which I think confuses and deters a lot of paddlers. Anyway, thanks for your article and I hope you write more!
Stephanie Oliver
Southeast Portland
MODA CENTER IS MORE THAN BLAZERS GAMES
Your article this morning was interesting [“NBA Commissioner Says Blazers Arena Deal ‘Seems to Have Gone Off Track,’” wweek.com, July 14], but it seems to me the messaging is what’s off track.
The city’s investment in Moda Center reaches far beyond a subsidy for a billionaire NBA team owner. The Blazers play 41 home games a year at Moda, but the building is available another 320-plus days a year for hosting other events that bring millions of dollars in revenue to the city of Portland.
Every time an event is held at Moda Center, local businesses and government profit from it. The proposed upgrades will position Moda Center to attract large-scale concerts, shows, national conventions and other types of entertainment that the current building cannot support from an electrical, hydraulic, seismic and amenity standpoint. It simply doesn’t meet today’s standards for hosting those events.
Investing in the remodeling and revitalization of Moda Center is good business for the city and the state. It’s much more than just bowing to a penny-pinching billionaire sports franchise owner.
Greg Harmon
Northwest Portland
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Portland, OR 97296
Email: amesh@wweek.com
