The Point-in-Time count is a federally required snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness in a given area. Last week, the Council for the Homeless in Vancouver, WA went out on a cold Thursday morning to start the count. It was conducted by outreach staff, volunteers and other social service providers. OPB’s “Think Out Loud” joined surveyors Daniel Rivera, Gemma Somol and Brian Starbuck as they conducted their work. We were also joined by Charlene Welch, chief advancement officer ...
Feb 05, 2025•32 min
Earlier this month, individuals and families had just five days to apply for a housing rental assistance program funded by the federal government that serves Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. Eligibility is based on income limits and other requirements, with vouchers awarded through a lottery system to only about 1 out of every 4 applicants. Demand for the vouchers grew by more than a third since 2023, but obstacles still remain for those lucky enough to obtain one. Reporter David Dudley ...
Feb 05, 2025•11 min
The city of Portland changed its zoning rules in 2020 with the goal of producing duplexes, cottage clusters and other multi-unit housing in areas traditionally zoned for single-family homes. The idea was to provide more options at more affordable price points for the city’s growing population. A new report shows the initiative is largely working. It says more middle housing units are now being built than single-family homes, and those units are selling for $250,000 to $300,000 less than a new, m...
Feb 05, 2025•12 min
When Oregon wildland firefighter Kevin Conley heard about the wildfires in Los Angeles, he wanted to do something to help. Conley is currently riding his bike from Astoria to Northern California to raise money for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, which provides financial and mental health resources to those fighting the fires. We’ll talk with Conley about his ride and the importance of mental health services for firefighters.
Feb 04, 2025•15 min
The difficult things we experience in our lives help create who we are. But how do the stories we tell ourselves - and others - about that trauma affect us? Lidia Yuknavitch, the celebrated Oregon writer of fiction, essays and memoirs, has written a new book about how reframing our stories can release us from what she calls “the tyranny of our mistakes, our traumas, and our confusions.” Yuknavitch joins us in the studio to talk about her latest book, “Reading the Waves.”
Feb 04, 2025•37 min
The MusicOregon Echo Fund provides funding to musicians to support career development, allowing artists to fund non-performance projects like recording in a studio or filming a music video. BendretheGiant, a Portland-based ensemble, has been working on recording music with help from the fund. The group’s new EP, "Wading In The Deep End" will be released on March 7. BendreTheGiant is also headed on tour with stops in Oregon, California and Washington. The group will play in Eugene at John Henry’s...
Feb 03, 2025•31 min
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson campaigned on ending unsheltered homelessness in the city. He recently released a detailed “blueprint” for achieving that goal, adding thousands of shelter beds in the coming year. The city is also facing a $100 million budget shortfall. Wilson joins us to share his thoughts on the budget crunch, the details of the expanded shelter capacity, and how he's thinking about the rights and wellbeing of city residents in light of recent executive orders from the president....
Feb 03, 2025•23 min
Lester Griffin launched The Foundation nearly two years ago in response to his own experiences with the criminal justice system and the support he wished he had as a youth growing up in Vancouver. The nonprofit provides resources for at-risk teens and young adults such as job development skills, mentorship and community service opportunities. It also helps adults recently released from incarceration by providing them free boxes of food, hygiene supplies and access to a team of navigators with li...
Jan 31, 2025•27 min
Insurers across the country are leaving high-risk areas that are affected by disasters like wildfires. Some Oregonians are experiencing insurance rate increases and are struggling with a shifting insurance market. In Deschutes County, homeowners in fire-prone areas are facing higher insurance premiums, according to The Source Weekly. And residents in Southern Oregon are seeing similar issues. Earlier this month, Democratic Senator Jeff Golden of Ashland held a town hall in Medford. He spoke with...
Jan 31, 2025•26 min
Amy Tan might be best known for her fiction, including "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God’s Wife," but her latest book takes its drama from her backyard bird feeder. In 2019, Tan began drawing birds she saw in nature, particularly the ones who visited her tree-filled backyard in Northern California. The result is a book of reflections, observations, detailed drawings and cartoon sketches called "The Backyard Bird Chronicles." Tan talks to us in front of an audience of students at Franklin ...
Jan 30, 2025•52 min
The Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is facing a massive backlog of wage theft complaints. According to its annual report, the agency saw a 208% increase in wage claims from 2020 to 2024. In response, the agency implemented an income threshold for investigations, meaning investigators are not following up on any claims from workers who make more than $25.34 an hour. BOLI officials say the agency’s staffing hasn’t kept up with the growth of Oregon’s workforce, and they are asking lawmakers t...
Jan 29, 2025•22 min
By 2040 about 78 million Americans will be 65 or older, according to the Administration on Aging. In Oregon, lower birth rates combined with longer life expectancies means that Oregon’s population is rapidly growing older. The shift in population affects sectors like healthcare and affordable housing. AGE+ is a nonprofit that advocates for older Oregonians. It’s pushing for a statewide task force to plan for Oregon’s changing demographics -- a shift that many of the state's rural areas are alrea...
Jan 29, 2025•17 min
Oregon launched a program last summer to pay parents who care for their children with severe disabilities or medical needs. Advocates pushed for the Children’s Extraordinary Needs waiver after a similar COVID-era program ended in 2023. But parents say the state program is underfunded and falling short of its promise. It can only serve a tenth of the families that qualify, and only pays caregivers for up to 20 hours of work per week. SB 538, or Tensy’s Law, aims to provide adequate funding to exp...
Jan 29, 2025•15 min
A new study made national headlines, estimating that in the next three decades, around 42% of adults over the age of 55 will develop dementia. Allison Lindauer is an associate professor of neurology at the Oregon Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at OHSU. She joins us to share what we know about dementia and what people can do to prevent it.
Jan 28, 2025•27 min
Around 14,000 subscribers read the locally-owned community newspaper Hoodview News every month. Along with community events, feel-good stories about the East County area and advertisements, readers find columns that espouse and encourage a transphobic worldview. Hoodview News is published by longtime Oregon political operative Mike Wiley — perhaps best known for his work as communications director for the Oregon Citizens Alliance, or OCA, an ultra-conservative activist group that pushed strident...
Jan 28, 2025•11 min
The bridge connecting Oregon and Washington on Interstate 5 has needed replacement for decades. Experts say it would not withstand earthquakes of the size that the Northwest is certain to experience in coming years. Hundreds of millions of state and federal dollars went under the metaphorical bridge when the Columbia River Crossing project fell apart more than a decade ago. Now the I-5 replacement plan that Oregon, Washington and other public agencies have created depends on funding from both st...
Jan 28, 2025•15 min
Earlier this month, Stephanie Johnson, a first grade teacher at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Bend, found out she won a Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. Central Oregon Daily News first reported on Johnson’s achievement. The award is considered to be the highest national honor a K-12 educator can receive for teaching science, technology, engineering or mathematics. Johnson was one of five teachers in Oregon who received the most recent award, which was give...
Jan 27, 2025•17 min
Glyphosate is an herbicide that’s widely used in agriculture in the U.S. and around the world. It’s the active ingredient in Roundup, which is commonly applied to crops like soy, cotton and corn that have been genetically modified to withstand the weed killer. The Environmental Protection Agency maintains that glyphosate is “not likely to be carcinogenic to humans,” although a ruling in 2022 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has prompted the agency to review the chemica...
Jan 27, 2025•11 min
In 2020, the Almeda Fire ripped through the Rogue Valley and it destroyed about a third of the town of Talent. Among the losses were nearly 90 homes located at the Talent Mobile Estates park. Years later, the town continues to rebuild, including a groundbreaking ceremony for the mobile home park last year. We check in on recovery efforts from Darby Ayers-Flood, the mayor of Talent.
Jan 27, 2025•14 min
Oregon lawmakers gathered in Salem on Tuesday for the start of the 2025 legislative session. They’ll have five months to tackle the state’s pressing challenges, including passing a two-year budget. Last month, Governor Kotek unveiled a budget proposal that boosts spending on her top priorities such as building more affordable housing, combating homelessness and funding for K-12 schools. Lawmakers are also expected to pass a multibillion-dollar transportation package to shore up the state’s aging...
Jan 27, 2025•12 min
Looking at the history of psychological operations, “Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” is the latest book by author and journalist Annalee Newitz. It explores misinformation, propaganda and how the stories we hear can manipulate us. The book also features a chapter on the work the Coquille Indian Tribe has done to undo damage these operations did to some Oregon tribes in the past. Newitz spoke in front of an audience with “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller at a Pow...
Jan 24, 2025•52 min
Oregon's reigning – and two time – state champion in chess is a junior at Westview High School in Beaverton. Zoey Tang has been playing since she was 7 years old and joined a chess club at her small charter school. She was hooked. She recently became the first Oregonian ever to achieve the title of “woman grandmaster.” She joined us to share her thoughts on the title and her goals going forward.
Jan 23, 2025•16 min
One of Mayor Keith Wilson’s main campaign platforms was his commitment to ending unsheltered homelessness in the city. On Wednesday, he presented his $28 million “Blueprint” for how he plans to achieve that goal. OPB Portland City Government Reporter Alex Zielinski joins us to share details about the plan and the reaction of regional officials and homeless experts who have been working to get people off the streets for decades.
Jan 23, 2025•13 min
President Donald Trump has wasted no time in enacting his immigration policy. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order that aims to end birthright citizenship, the constitutional provision that automatically grants citizenship to children born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ status. Attorneys general across the country, including in Oregon, have already sued to block the order. The administration will also allow immigration authorities to make arrests in traditionally s...
Jan 23, 2025•24 min
Last summer, more than 12,000 of Deschutes County residents received a letter inviting them to participate in a civic assembly, convened by nonprofit groups and with support from the city of Bend and the county. Only 30 were selected in a lottery system, all coming from various ages and backgrounds. They met in the fall to brainstorm ideas to address youth homelessness. Their ideas ranged from changes in the foster care system to financial literacy classes in schools. Katy Kundmueller and Alex L...
Jan 22, 2025•23 min
Marion County once burned its trash — and generated some of its electrical power — using the Reworld incinerator. But since that facility has previously announced it would be closing and stopped accepting residential waste, the county’s garbage is now going to the Coffin Butte Landfill in Benton County. However, as reported in the Statesman Journal, Reworld is challenging state regulations that it blamed on the closure. Regardless, since space at Coffin Butte is limited, Marion County commission...
Jan 22, 2025•15 min
The fentanyl crisis has taken a toll on communities all across Oregon. It has also shined a light on the challenges frontline responders face when trying to get people help for substance use disorder, especially in rural areas and jails or prisons where treatment can be hard to obtain. But a training program in addiction medicine offered by OHSU is providing help by sharing resources, best practices and collaborative problem solving on complex cases. While most of the people who enroll in the co...
Jan 22, 2025•15 min
Oregon has a rich tattoo history, from indigenous practitioners to sailors. And Oregon newspapers have run stories about tattoos since the early 20th century. Within the state you can see all styles represented, from American traditional to fine lines and realism. There is no shortage of inked skin in the state, but as data obtained by OPB from OHA's Board of Electrologists and Body Art Practitioners show, the number of tattoo artists has skyrocketed since the pandemic. From 2019 to 2024, Oregon...
Jan 21, 2025•26 min
Researchers have long known there was some kind of aquifer in the Cascade Mountains that feeds rivers like the McKenzie and the Deschutes. But they never knew just how big it might be — until now, that is. A new study found that the Central Oregon aquifer holds 80 cubic kilometers of water, roughly three times the size of Nevada’s Lake Mead. Leif Karlstrom is an associate professor of earth sciences at the University of Oregon. He led the study and joins us with more details on what the discover...
Jan 21, 2025•14 min
Democratic Representative Maxine Dexter has begun her first term on Capitol Hill, representing Oregon's 3rd Congressional District. Earl Blumenauer, who represented the region for nearly 30 years, has now joined the faculty at Portland State University. In the first two weeks of her term, Dexter has already voted on bills about immigration and transgender student athletes, and she has been assigned to serve on the House Natural Resources and Veterans Affairs Committees. Dexter joins us from Wash...
Jan 21, 2025•14 min
