Welcome to Village Portland, neighborhood news & actions in East Portland.
We’re here to bridge the gap between news & civic participation… and to encourage folks get involved with their community and support their neighbors. There are a million voices fighting for your attention, but we want to help you connect with your village, your neighborhood… where your power to connect and make change is the strongest.
We’re most excited about the Village Portland @ Montavilla site. It has the space for more in-depth stories, as well as a neighborhood directory where neighbors can find and learn the story of local businesses and organizations. Explore your Village with DuckDuckGo, the search company that respects your privacy (at the DuckDuckGo link, for repeated searches leave site:https://villageportland.com/ in the search box).
Read more about how to get involved and promote your business or organization below, or you’re an organizer or writer interested in bringing a Village Portland to your neighborhood, contact Andrew Wilkins, Publisher & Editor:
Ben Brubaker speaking to attendees of CAHOOTS crisis worker training
When I was invited to the first of what is hoped to be many training sessions for those seeking to work as crisis workers for Portland Street Response I wasn’t sure what to expect. The invitation came from a local outreach group leader and White Bird-trained crisis worker Ree Campbell.
The training session was attended by around three dozen different advocacy and outreach group members affiliated with a wide number of organizations, most of them not representative of their organizations, instead there personally for the training.
The training for this session was a deeply comprehensive explanation of Eugene, Oregon’s CAHOOTS (Critical Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) model held at Taborspace on 54th and Belmont, late last month. The crisis workers’ role in Portland Street Response, which is being based on CAHOOTS), was the focus of the training.
The main speaker was Ben Brubaker of White Bird Clinic.
Brubaker gave a history of White Bird Clinic, CAHOOTS, and their histories not only in Eugene— but also with the Oregon Country Fair— providing medical and crisis services. “We started off at the Oregon Country Fair with a couple of band-aids and saying we are the medical clinic and now we are the fifth or sixth largest ER in the state during the weekend of the country fair.” This was answered by cheers from the attendees.
The CAHOOTS program is staffed by volunteers from the community. The Portland Street Response program is also planned to be run by volunteers, Brubaker said.
He went on to share some of the interactions he has had as a CAHOOTS crisis worker, including a story about a call that appeared to be an individual in a mental health crisis— but it ended up being a diabetic episode.
Brubaker then spoke on several different facets of the role of the crisis worker, but placed a special emphasis on how the interactions with mentally distressed or houseless individuals in a crisis state should be approached.
He explained that White Bird’s philosophy is that everyone deserves respect for their beliefs and personal experiences, and that the crisis worker’s role is to provide help where possible with the minimal amount of intervention needed to de-escalating an situation.
The use of self in the situation was another topic he touched on and how and that the crisis worker is the most valuable tool in the situation but to not be disheartened “if it isn’t resolved as hoped”. He elaborated on the use of voice during a situation and that you should “use the other person’s volume like a scaffolding” and that the worker should use a form of speech they feel the person having the issue will be most comfortable with.
For example, you wouldn’t want to speak super professionally with someone speaking with a lot of street slang. He also explained that a crisis worker should pay attention to their tone and not try to speak over the person. Several other main statements he made about being a crisis worker were “Speak with integrity”, “Don’t make assumptions”, and that a crisis worker who might have a bad interaction in the field should not take it personally.
“Body language can tell a lot about a person”, demonstrating how crossed arms show irritation. He explained that some people might not realize they are showing slightest signs of agitation by making facial expressions, and how that could be picked up on by the clients they are working with.
According to Brubaker, a crisis worker trainee will need to complete 500 hours of rigorous training in the field and pass multiple progress and proficiency examinations before being officially declared as a CAHOOTS crisis worker.
The crisis worker will also be required to keep track of the interactions they have in a logbook which they must also be trained to properly fill out. Training should be able to completed in around six months to a year.
Brubaker also shared that he is concerned that Portland’s Street Response might not be set up how he and other CAHOOTS workers feel it might be most effective. They envision a series of six or more teams in the different neighborhoods in Portland working together instead of it being one large team answering calls out of a specific headquarters.
Several advocates in attendance also expressed to Village Portland, that they are frustration with the local street paper Street Roots, Portland State University’s Homeless Research & Action Collaborative, and Hardesty‘s Office because it has so far appeared to those advocates, that they are trying to recruit crisis workers from PSU’s social worker program instead of the advocates, outreach workers, and groups that are already doing the work on the ground.
The whole event lasted over two hours and future trainings are already being planned.
Boots on the Ground PDX will be announcing events through their Facebook page here. The events are open to anyone who wants to get the training to be a Portland Street Response volunteer.
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Cory Elia is a journalist, photographer, videographer, documentary director & producer, radio personality & podcaster. His journalistic focus is on politics, protest, and poverty.
In the first decade of the 20th Century, schools became a lot more fun. It was an era of reform, when throughout the country ideas about all kinds of improvements were in the air.
In the realm of education, reformers wanted to move away from traditional academic norms towards something more effective and engaging. They advocated taking into account how children learn. And many thought there should be closer a connection between school and the “real world”.
Montavilla School, c. 1918 Source: Portland Archives A2012-30 (photo by Mt Hood Studio)
A new way of learning could take place outside the classroom, with activities like gardening. And manual training programs could make learning more hands on and practical. Teachers could supplement book learning with projected slides and tangible objects children could actually handle.
This was a heady— and exciting— agenda, but as Multnomah County Superintendent of Schools RF Robinson put it in 1902, this was “an age of invention and progress” requiring new methods in our schools. Capturing the new spirit of educational reform, The Timesof Portland issued a plea in 1912 for the right of children “to shout, to play, to enjoy life— as Nature intended.”
The topic of how Montavilla School changed under the impact of the new thinking is so vast that I’ve decided to divide it into two parts. And since an important aspect of the “new learning” was training the body as well as the mind, in this article I’ll focus mainly on the increased emphasis on school sports.
But first, some practical concerns
As we will see, new methods and new curricula would gather momentum at Montavilla School, but in the opening years of the 20th Century the focus was mainly on dealing with the results of Montavilla’s burgeoning population. As more homes were built and more families moved into Montavilla, the school population grew accordingly. More classrooms and teachers were needed, which meant more assessments on taxpayers and more debt.
Enough money was raised for new classrooms to be built in 1904, 1907, and 1912. There was even enough revenue to build an assembly hall in 1912. With these latest additions, Montavilla School became one of the largest schools in Portland. But parents and teachers wanted not just sufficient classrooms and a large meeting space, but also a better library. And they succeeded in creating what the Oregonian of January 3, 1902 described as the best school library in Multnomah County.
Montavilla children’s neighborhood clean-up
Along with practical concerns, in the early years of the new century we begin to see that learning sometimes taking place outside the classroom, in the real world. In May 1903, for example, Principal N.W. Bowland and his pupils decided to undertake a community service project— hoping to make Montavilla one of Portland’s cleanest suburbs. Such a project would offer lessons in responsibility and civic engagement, other ideals of the reformers.
Each day after school, some 200 – 250 pupils (more than half the student population) worked to collect several tons of tin cans and other trash—most probably from vacant lots, where such things were often discarded in the days before organized trash collection. The debris was carted off and dumped in unused wells and cisterns. (Buried “treasures” beneath your gardens?)
As a reward, the participating children were treated to an electric trolley ride all the way to St. Johns and a picnic in Cedar Park. Reportedly the excited children were waking their parents in the wee hours of the morning to make sure they’d have their picnic lunches ready when it was time to board the trolley at 10 am.
Calisthenics and parades
Portland School Children Drilling on Multnomah Field for Annual Exhibition (Oregonian June 9, 1908) Source: Historical Oregon Newspapers
Physical fitness was increasingly emphasized in schools, and a popular method in the early 20th Century was calisthenics, exercises practiced by both boys and girls. One intriguing example is routines with Indian clubs, which Principal Bowman led in the 1908 Annual Children’s Drill at Multnomah Field (now Providence Park).
(You can see a 1904 film of this exercise on YouTube here.)
Shattuck Public School Children Marching in the Rose Festival Parade, 1909 Source: Portland Archives, A2011-014.22
Organized drills based on calisthenic exercises were the main component of the Children’s Parade (or the Rosebud Parade), perhaps the most popular feature of the Rose Festival from its beginning in 1907.
Each school, including Montavilla, performed these synchronized drills as they marched in formation down Grand Avenue. Awards and prizes were offered for the best displays. As a reward for all their after school practice, Montavilla School children, in 1910, took second place for the prestigious Manley Cup.
An enthusiastic press heralded the stamina and discipline of all the children as demonstrations of the value of physical culture exercises in the schools.
Note: The last Rosebud Parade took place in 1917. A children’s parade as a feature of the Rose Festival was revived in 1936 and continues to this day.
Team sports
Momentum for physical education was also building in the area of team sports. In 1908, Portland public schools launched the Grammar School Athletic League and began its operation with a baseball league. The Montavilla School baseball team played its first game of the season against its old rival Mount Tabor School.
In 1909 a football league was launched, with Montavilla among the 13 member schools. Football at that time was almost exclusively an eastside sport; only one of the 13 teams was from west of the Willamette.
For safety’s sake, the teams were divided into three sections: lightweights, averaging about 108 pounds, heavy-medium weights 112 pounds and heavyweights 125 -130 pounds. Montavilla’s Principal Bowland was one of four principals in charge of heavyweights.
Montavilla School football team (Oregonian December 5, 1909) Source: Historic Oregon Newspapers
Some were concerned that football was too rough and soccer was introduced as an alternative in grammar school in 1911 by P. Chappelle Brown, “the father of soccer in Oregon”. Montavilla School was an early soccer adopter, with a successful season in the fall of 1912.
When the Athletic League was launched in 1908, Robert Krohn, head of the physical culture department of the Portland public schools, started getting messages from school girls who wanted games of their own, such as basketball, tennis and baseball. He hoped to make this happen in the future, he said, but whether this ever occurred for Montavilla girls is uncertain, although other grammar schools did have at least girls’ basketball teams by 1914.
If you were into physical exercise and games, Montavilla School was a great place to be in the early 1900s. But even if you weren’t, there were lots of other new programs and clubs to engage a variety of interests… as we’ll see in the next installment of the Montavilla School story.
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Historical story ideas? Questions about Montavilla’s past? Also share a love for neighborhood history?
Comment on the article at the link in the heading. Or you can reach out to Pat Sanders at pat.montavilla.history@gmail.com.
Read all of the “Montavilla Memories” articles by Pat Sanders here.
Can we have better, more productive discussions? I believe we can.
Will it take a conscious decision to disregard the models on display in most of the mainstream media. Absolutely.
I opened the door to new ways of storytelling and community problem solving when I started Village Portland, and have been thankful to the folks who have answered the call.
Darren McCormick describes himself (even though he doesn’t like having to describe himself), as an amateur philosopher. He has developed, and has been testing out, a method called Debate by Agreement.
And since we’re working on establishing a new Village Portland on the Portland State University campus (spearheaded by Cory Elia), we figured it would be a good idea to try it out on campus.
Hopefully, the process is something neighbors from across Portland can all learn from.
“Is an Eat & Greet on its own going to solve homelessness? No, but an Eat & Greet can be a platform for community engagement and action. We believe an Eat & Greet can cultivate the connections our community needs — the empathy we need — to continue building toward new ideas, and solutions.”
1427 SE 122nd Ave * 5:30 pm – 8:30 pm
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MONDAY, OCTOBER 14TH
Interested in serving on the Montavilla Neighborhood Association board?
The elections are at 6:30 pm. Follow this link if you’d like to learn more and / or throw your hat in the ring.
About 60 people showed up for a Montavilla public safety meeting held Thursday, September 27th.
More than a few neighbors missed the presentation and asked for an update, so I reached out to the meeting’s organizer, Benjamin Kerensa, with a few questions.
He said the meeting was called in response to the rash of recently shootings south of 78th and Glisan St, but the Q&A portion quickly turned to the broader issue of crime and homelessness in Montavilla.
Portland Police sent six officers: Assist Chief Chris Davis, Asst Chief Art Nakumura, Commander Tashia Hager, Captain Craig Dobson, Sergeant Pearce from the Gun Violence Reduction Team and Detective Meghan Burkeen from the Detectives Bureau. The Mayors Office sent Public Safety Advisor Robert King.
Kerensa said up to that point, there had been no arrests relating to the incidents, and the police encouraged neighbors to submit leads if they had them.
Three neighbors from near Multnomah County’s syringe exchange attended the meeting with complaints about crime they said they think is related to the exchange.
Kerensa wrote: “The police said their vice team has talked with the county and the county assures they are dealing with those issues but neighbors said the county isn’t receptive so police leadership said neighbors should complain to county health director and county board of commissioners and hold them accountable.”
He said that he thinks crime, especially theft, is getting worse in the neighborhood. He bases that on his frequent walks through the neighborhood from 2 am to 3 am, and following the crime-tracking Ring app.
To take a pulse of crime in Montavilla, I consulted City crime statistics available here:
August 2017 – August 2018: 672 larcenies and 196 burglaries
August 2018 – August 2019: 622 larcenies and 156 burglaries
Kerensa said Portland Police told him that the public-facing statistics “are just substantiated stats that means a arrest was made. When no arrest is made they don’t report that in public stats even if crime occurred the full raw data with substantiated and unsubstantiated is much higher.”
The police use a different set of stats for their own use, Kerensa said he was told.
update: Here’s what PPB lists as their crime data source:
I reached out to PPB to address that claim, and will update the story when they reply.
update 10/7: Sgt. Kevin Allen, PPB public information officer, denied Kerensa’s claim, confirming that the listed crime data is “all reported crimes, not just the ones that resulted in arrest.”
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Though hearings on the plan to change City Code 3.96 has been paused, neighborhood associations continue to seek more details and make suggestions about the City’s official relationship with community groups.
Brentwood-Darlington Neighborhood Association hosted several staff from Office of Community and Civic Life at their monthly meeting. You can hear audio from the event here, including a Q&A with its director, Suk Rhee.
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APANO arts fest:
It’s the third annual East Portland Arts & Literary Festival! This year in APANO‘s new building that opened this summer and Fubonn Shopping Center.
All kinds of music, storytelling, poetry, dance, and crafting will be on will be there to enjoy. The schedule is here.
Orchards of 82nd, 8188 SE Division St, & Fubonn Shopping Center (2850 SE 82nd Ave * Fri evening & Sat * $5 suggested
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4TH
Live Montavilla music:
“Pete Krebs is a two-time inductee into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame, and a double cancer survivor. An in-demand performer, teacher and session musician, he lives in the NE Portland Cully neighborhood with his dog Dixie, who is a dingo and wears a little hat.”
Vino Veritas, 7835 SE Stark St * 7 pm – 10 pm * free
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5TH
Once Upon a Time Family Theatre:
“Once Upon a Time Family Theatre is a magical mix of theatrical simplicity and grand storytelling for kids and their families. There’s always a slight twist to the traditional story that keeps these productions fresh. Though simply produced, these delightful and engaging productions will soon have everyone fully absorbed in the interaction of live theatre.”
This month’s production: “The Princess who Never Smiled”
Portland Metro Arts, 9003 SE Stark St * 11:30 am * children $1, $2 adults $2
“Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble (PJCE) honors the music and creative process of Oregon-born saxophonist Jim Pepper (Kaw/Creek) with a concert of new music.”
Midland Library, 805 SE 122nd Ave * 4 pm
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6TH
Farmers market:
Montavilla Farmers Market, 7700 block of SE Stark St * 10 am – 2 pm
“Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) invite all to a free, public celebration for the restoration of Crystal Springs Creek. The Salmon Celebration will celebrate the significance of the creek restoration work that has brought wild salmon back to the city.”
Johnson Creek Park, SE 21st Ave & Clatsop St * 11 am – 4 pm
Hello everyone! It’s Andrew here, I just wanted to say hello and update you on what Village Portland has been up to.
We’ve added new neighborhoods, partnerships, and reporters— and we are stoked about some new moves in the works.
Cory Elia (Reflection: conducting the survey for the Portland Street Response) and Lesley McLam have been doing some awesome work around homelessness and homeless organizing, and are focusing in on more focused reporting on the areas of PSU and St Johns, respectively.
McLam has been reporting on Jason Barns Landing, a managed camp in North Portland that’s taking what I see as a civil disobedience approach to their camp. And their answering the question: what happens when homeless folk tire of being moved— tired of having their community scattered— keep coming back to the same place?
Both Elia and McLam are volunteers at community radio station KBOO, and use their equipment to publish a podcast called Tripp-p. Like KBOO, Open Signal, is a resource for community media creators that we’ve been collaborating with.
Another media non-profit that trains homeless youth in video storytelling we’re collaborating with, Outside the Frame, also uses Open Signal equipment.
Here’s the third episode of Village Portland Presents, a five-episode series we produced for Open Signal earlier this year. It’s a compilation of video stories, themed around community organizing and culture.
It’s been great to meet other organizations and folks passionate about independent media, and offering more folks a chance to tell their stories.
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FRIDAY
Music Fridays in Montavilla:
“2017 Cascade Blues Association Muddy Award recipient Steve Kerin is a true student of the New Orleans style–his playing complex and dense, but also joyous and danceable. And his warm singing voice is suffused with an authentic New Orleans growl. He’s the real Louisiana deal, and the Northwest is richer for it.”
Vino Veritas Wine Bar and Bottle Shop, 7835 SE Stark St * 7 pm – 10 pm * free
SATURDAY
Montavilla cleanup:
Montavilla Church, 9204 SE Hawthorne Blvd * 9 am – 3 pm
“Celebrate the legacy of Jim Pepper with Native musicians, singers and dancers, The Gary Ogan Band, the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble and the Flying Eagle Band.“
Parkrose High School 12003 NE Shaver St * 11 am – 9 pm * free
“Join us for our Farm to Table, our signature annual event at Zenger Farm’s Urban Grange! The evening will include a live auction, dinner, and celebration of the thousands of children and families in the Zenger Farm community.”
Zenger Farms, 11741 SE Foster Rd * 5 pm * $200, tickets here
I love the old buildings of Montavilla. I think they give character to our neighborhood and a sense of continuity. Mostly these are old houses and small businesses, but a few stand out as something more substantial, something more communal.
I can’t help feeling curious about how they got here, how they began their lives. I’d like to share a bit of what I’ve found out about some of Montavilla’s larger old buildings, ones I’m sure many of you pass nearly every day in your travels and have perhaps wondered about them as much as I have.
The Altenheim Now Administration Hall, Portland Community College Southeast Center 7901 SE Division St Built from 1911 – 1912
The Altenheim – Photo by Patricia Sanders
Two of Montavilla’s large historic buildings were created as retirement homes for Portland’s substantial German population: the Altenheim (meaning “old people’s home”), shown above, and the German Baptist Old People’s Home (see below). That German Portlanders built two retirement facilities is not surprising given how many Germans migrated to the United States in the second half of the 19th Century. Of those who settled in Portland, many resided in what is now the southeast part of the city. A large group lived in what is now Montavilla at the time of the 1900 US Census. Then German families comprised Montavilla’s largest immigrant constituency, 32 households compared, for example, to 19 households of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish immigrants combined.
The Altenheim has an interesting connection to one particularly well-known German American, Portland’s brewer Henry Weinhard (1830-1904). He was not only a well-respected and successful businessman, but also a founding member of the General German Aid Society in 1871. Not surprisingly, his widow Louise bought and later donated to this organization a 20-acre tract of farmland specifically as a site for a German retirement home. Construction on the Colonial Revival-style building began in 1911 and it was dedicated on May 29, 1912.
The Altenheim continued as a retirement home for Portland Germans until 2003. Two years later the German American Society (formerly the General German Aid society) began using it for meetings, events, and German language courses. The Society sold the property to PCC Southeast Center in 2010 and relocated to the former Rose City Masonic Lodge at NE 57th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard.
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German Baptist Old People’s Home Now Milepost 5 Studios 850 NE 82nd Ave Built from 1928 – 1950
German Baptist Old People’s Home, Oregon Street Entrance – Photo by Patricia Sanders
The German Baptists of Portland were already thinking about a retirement home in 1912, but World War I delayed the project, so it was not until 1920 when the First German Baptist Church bought a large tract of land at the corner of NE 82nd Avenue and Oregon Street. The property came with a house, which was converted into a 25-person retirement home. It opened in 1922, with the distinction of being the third retirement home specifically for German Baptists in the US.
This house is not, of course, the Colonial Revival building we know today. As needs grew, the German Baptist Old People’s Home Society built the large brick complex in four stages between 1928 and 1950. In 2007, the retirement home was re-conceived as a place with affordable rental spaces for artists. After years of remodeling, Milepost 5 opened in 2011. Then, in 2018, it was purchased by Community Development Partners, an affordable housing developer. Although the building changed over the years, it was continuously used for high-density residential purposes.
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Oregon Employment Institution for the Blind Now Sutcliffe Hall, Multnomah University 8435 NE Glisan St Built in 1923
Oregon Employment Institution for the Blind – Photo by Patricia Sanders
In 1920 the Oregon legislature and Oregon voters authorized the creation of a facility offering living quarters and employment for blind men and women. After being temporarily housed in a building on Burnside, in 1922 an 11-acre tract of land on NE Glisan, just east of Montavilla Park, was purchased. Portland architects Houghtaling & Dougan designed the institute complex in a popular stripped-down Neoclassical style. It opened in 1923. There the blind residents made caned chairs, woven carpets and brooms for sale in the on-site shops.
In 1952, the Multnomah School of the Bible purchased the property. Today the old Institution’s administration building continues to serve the same purpose for Multnomah University as Sutcliffe Hall.
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Monastery of the Precious Blood Now St. Andrew’s Memory Care 1208 SE 76th Ave Built in 1923
Monastery of the Precious Blood – Photo by Thomas Tilton
This monumental Spanish Colonial-style building located on SE 76th Avenue between SE Main and SE Salmon Streets is a familiar and well-known sight in the Kinzel Park Addition section of Montavilla. It’s elegant and ornate features are a stark contrast to the simpler styles of the previous three institutional buildings.
The building began life as the monastery that was home to the Sisters Adorers of the Precious Blood, a contemplative order founded in 1861 in Quebec. A contingent of the French Canadian order came to Oregon to establish a community, going first to Gervais in January, 1892, then to Portland in June 1892, when they settled into the original Greek Revival-style monastery. In 1921, when Portland’s fire marshal demanded substantial improvements, the growing community, requiring a much larger structure, hired architects Jacobberger and Smith to design the elegant building we see today.
The Monastery was sold in 1984 and, after renovations, reopened as St. Andrew’s Memory Care.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tour of four historical institutions that are monuments to important moments in Montavilla’s past. This exploration is part of my ambition to create someday a historical map of interesting places in Montavilla. If you have favorite buildings or sites you think should be on this map, please let me know about them. Together we can create a meaningful history of our neighborhood.
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Historical story ideas? Questions about Montavilla’s past? Also share a love for neighborhood history?
Comment on the article at the link in the heading. Or you can reach out to Pat Sanders at pat.montavilla.history@gmail.com.
Read all of the “Montavilla Memories” articles by Pat Sanders here.
