Oregon Health & Science University students are holding a one-day free clinic for local residents who need basic medical, dental or vision exams.
Life on the streets turned deadly again last year in the Portland area, with dozens of people dying far too young.
The federal government has given Outside In $2.5 million to step up its mental health services for homeless youth.
Conditions for prisoners suffering from mental illness at the Multnomah County Detention Center have improved over the last year, according to a new report by Disability Rights Oregon.
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on hypothermic homeless deaths. Click here to read part one.
When Michael Jensen was found dead in his tent, his feet were sticking out of the tent, and he was lying on his right side “with his hands up under his chin like he was cold,” a homeless outreach worker said.
During the five years Tony Price roamed the streets and dozed in doorways, the emergency rooms of Sacramento’s hospitals were a regular place for him to sleep off a hard day’s drinking.
“A lot of times I would pass out, and then I’d wake up in the hospital,” said Price, 50.
The Oregon House voted for a measure that will allow Oregon-born homeless people to get free birth certificates, a critical starting point to receiving government assistance, earning a GED and getting ahead in life.
The House Health Committee is pushing two simple but possibly life-changing bills for the state’s neediest residents, allowing homeless people to get free copies of their birth certificates and steering Oregon State Hospital officials to sign up patients for federal assistance as they leave the mental hospital.
A bipartisan pair of lawmakers plans to fight to keep a critical program for getting disabled, homeless people into housing after the initiative was defunded in the governor’s proposed budget, released earlier this month.
