The Rose City trails Detroit for percentage of households receiving food assistance.
BY JACOB PALMER | OB DIGITAL NEWS EDITOR
Portland trails Detroit in highest percentage of households receiving food assistance during 2013, according to a report from the Census Bureau Tuesday.
The Rose City tied with the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area with 17.5% of households receiving food stamps in the calendar year.
OregonLive.com reports:
Oregon has long been known to have some of the highest rates of family hunger and reliance on food stamps, and Tuesday’s report said that is still the case. Oregon and Mississippi were at a statistical tie for food stamp use during 2013, it said. In both states, about 20 percent of households relied on food stamps, compared with a national rate of 13.5 percent. Oregon’s highest rates of reliance on food stamps are concentrated in Southwest Oregon.
Four of the nation’s 25 biggest metro areas, including Detroit, saw food stamp use decline from 2012 to 2013. Portland did not.
At a Community Summit held on Saturday, Portlanders gathered to discuss how to fix some of the problems the city is experiencing
Several issues “from homelessness to racial profiling to residential demolitions” were discussed, according to the Portland Tribune:
The summit was the first citywide community gathering organized by ONI since 2009. In contrast to previous versions that focused primarily on the issues faced by neighborhood associations, Saturday’s event was designed to also address the concerns of other communities in the city, including minority groups. This was the result of a deliberate effort begun under former Mayor Tom Potter in 2004 to involve more people in city affairs.
As a result, subjects addressed at dozens of workshops held throughout the day involved both neighborhood and citywide issues. Neighborhood concerns were well represented with workshops on such issues as liquor license renewals, noise ordinance violations, and residential demolition and infill projects. But workshops were also held on such border topics as police accountability and growing old in Portland. Issues pushed by more traditional advocacy organizations were also addressed, such as increasing the minimum wage, which is supported by union-supported groups such as 15 Now PDX.
