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The dynamic underscores the interconnected nature of Portland’s mental health, drug addiction and housing problems—and the challenges of the “housing first” model.

wweek.com

‘They’re Not Ready To Be Housed Yet:’ Portland Housing Nonprofits Report New Costs From Property Damage

Andrew Schwartz

162

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 5h

Operating from the Old Town storefront Landdd, Lillian Hardy’s social club is carving a space for women in outdoor recreation.

wweek.com

More Than 800 Portlanders Have Joined the Women’s Outdoor Club

Caitlin Pangares

0131

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 6h

The product of Michael Apruzzese’s year-long community project is now available online and at 10 stores in town.

wweek.com

Photo Book ‘Junk’ Peeks Inside Portlanders’ Junk Drawers

Rachel Saslow

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 11h

Talk of the team’s future home overshadowed the arrival of Ja Morant and new head coach Micah Nori.

wweek.com

Blazers Leadership Faces the Music at Media Day

Robert Ohman

040

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 13h

A Republican seeking to represent parts of Multnomah and Clackamas counties got a boost from the wife of a prominent former fuel executive convicted of rape.

wweek.com

Contribution of the Week: $62,000

Garrett Andrews

252

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 13h

So when the three county chair hopefuls came into WW’s office last week for an endorsement interview, we asked what went wrong with the county’s oversight of the Sunstone Way contract and what accountability measures should have prevented it.

wweek.com

What Went Wrong With Sunstone Way?

Joanna Hou

141

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 14h

The conversation to approve the contract has had a lasting effect on the School Board’s dynamics. Since that night, its seven members have seemingly pushed on with open wounds.

wweek.com

A Controversial Bond Management Contract Continues To Divide the Portland School Board

Joanna Hou

030

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 14h

In other news: A family alleges in a lawsuit that construction at the Bull Run water treatment site has disrupted everyday life.

wweek.com

Murmurs: Housing Providers See Costs From Property Damage Balloon

WW Staff

130

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 20h

Run by an intergenerational volunteer staff, the former Hollywood Senior Center skips the institutional day care vibes in favor of something akin to a clubhouse.

wweek.com

Community for Positive Aging Is About Aging Gracefully With the Homies

Brianna Wheeler

082

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 20h

Aquafit and other water-based exercise classes might be a good fit for your aging parents. But they might be what you’re looking for, too.

wweek.com

Water Aerobics Has a Rap as an ‘Old Person’ Exercise. That’s Why I Love It.

Christen McCurdy

043

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 20h

Statistically, the average Portlander’s parents are of retirement age.

wweek.com

How to Help Mom and Dad Over the Hill

Matthew Trueherz

131

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 20h

The decades-old town has something to teach us all about what it looks like to bend an independent life toward community.

wweek.com

King City Has Long Set the Regional Standard for Middle-Class Senior Life

Andrew Schwartz

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 20h

An aging population affects the city’s schools, civic priorities and migration trends.

wweek.com

Statistically, Portland Is Getting Older

Joanna Hou

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 22h

With ‘Streamers,’ Dundon expands on a body of work he began with the 2023 book ‘Protest City.’

wweek.com

Photographer Rian Dundon Studies a New Breed of Hyper-Online Citizen Journalist

Garrett Andrews

031

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 30/09/2026

The ‘country-punk poet’ talks sex, drugs and publishing a short story from her 2019 collection ‘Black Light’ as a standalone book.

wweek.com

Kimberly King Parsons Spills Her ‘Guts’

Matthew Trueherz

010

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 30/09/2026

Go to the Swan Island Dahlia Festival, watch the doc ‘Black Zombie,’ and chow down at Taste of Portland.

wweek.com

Get Busy: What to Do In Portland (Sept. 30-Oct. 6, 2026)

Brianna Wheeler

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 30/09/2026

Also: Bolivian American sibling duo Los Thuthanaka plays the Wonder Ballroom, and Acid Mothers Temple is at Polaris Hall.

wweek.com

Shows of the Week: Geordie Greep Will Scare the Bejesus out of You

Daniel Bromfield

010

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 29/09/2026

There’s a shadow hanging over the Oregon’s governor’s race: a record $10 million check that a California carpenters union wrote to an affiliated Oregon political action committee Sept. 16.

wweek.com

$10 Million Mystery Check Hangs Over Governor’s Race

Nigel Jaquiss

071

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 28/09/2026

The Oregon Department of Justice has subpoenaed records as part of an investigation into the failed startup Made In Old Town, which secured a $7 million loan from Prosper Portland and then went belly-up earlier this year.

wweek.com

Oregon Department of Justice Subpoenas Records Concerning Failed Old Town Shoe Startup

Sophie Peel

0103

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 26/09/2026

Regulating screen time appears to be a top priority for the School Board’s seven members.

wweek.com

Portland School Board Takes Early Step Toward a Screen Time Policy

Joanna Hou

061

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 26/09/2026

Recently, OK Omens had become one of the most exciting places to eat seafood in Portland.

wweek.com

OK Omens to Close, Ending 25-Year Legacy of the Restaurant Castagna

Rachel Saslow

040

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 26/09/2026

The documents detail the specific claims a university investigator felt she had “substantiated”—and which she had not.

wweek.com

OHSU Releases Files From Investigation That Preceded Abrupt Firing of Health System CEO

Andrew Schwartz

031

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 25/09/2026

The custard-like cake is an easy skillet recipe that works with or without the elusive fall fruit.

wweek.com

What We’re Cooking This Week: Olive Oil Cake with Quince

Jim Dixon

030

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 25/09/2026

It’s nearly extinguished, and it was far from 2026’s biggest Oregon blaze, but the 94,000-acre Grasshopper Fire east of Mount Hood represents the biggest missed opportunity this fire season.

wweek.com

Did the Grasshopper Fire Have to Be So Bad?

Penny Rosenberg

161

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 25/09/2026

As a public official, there are several things you would prefer not to read in an audit of a $61 million public contract.

wweek.com

Readers Respond to Audit of Portland Public Schools’ $61 Million Contract

WW Staff

250

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 25/09/2026

The controversial fuel terminal along the Willamette River that’s currently owned by Zenith Energy will soon have a new owner.

wweek.com

Franchise Transfer of Fuel Terminal Greenlighted After Months of Limbo

Sophie Peel

030

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 24/09/2026

In two recommendations, Jennifer McGuirk suggests the county strengthen its seat allocation policies and improve the program’s waitlist.

wweek.com

County Auditor Raises Concerns Around Preschool for All Contracting

Joanna Hou

030

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 24/09/2026

With the beginning of fall comes a now familiar tune: Oregon students continue to post outcomes on the statewide assessment that continue to fall flat from pre-pandemic outcomes

wweek.com

Oregon’s Students Continue to See Slow Recovery in State Assessment Outcomes

Joanna Hou

031

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 24/09/2026

‘Rock*’ is a speculative cultural history that asks, what if the Velvet Underground was the biggest band the world had ever known?

wweek.com

Fake Trivia From Chuck Klosterman’s Bizarro Rock-’n’-Roll History

Matthew Trueherz

050

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 24/09/2026

The ex-CEO of Home Forward, who resigned under a cloud of controversy earlier this year, is poised to be selected to serve as the next executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh.

wweek.com

Pittsburgh Housing Authority Expected to Pick Ex-Home Forward CEO Ivory Mathews to Lead Agency

Sophie Peel

030

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 24/09/2026

Monthly visitors and office workers in downtown hit 3 million people for the first time since 2019. The number is higher than last summer, when foot traffic neared 2.8 million, and marks five consecutive years of growth.

wweek.com

Downtown Foot Traffic Is Up But Office Workers Remain Home, Study Shows

Garrett Andrews

2102

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

The film ‘Peaking’ shows the effects of LSD, psilocybin, ibogaine, MDMA, ayahuasca and toad.

wweek.com

Documentary on Psychedelics Shows Real-Deal Trips

Rachel Saslow

051

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

Jane Austen’s most classic of classics critiques the patriarchy and wins slapstick laughs in Kate Hamill’s adaptation.

wweek.com

A Retooled, Farcical ‘Pride & Prejudice’ Opens Season 20 at Portland Center Stage

Eric Ash

040

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

Two city councilors are seeking to increase the city’s existing surtax on companies whose CEOs are making much more than their employees, and at the same time increase the existing threshold for the city’s Business License Tax.

wweek.com

Portland Councilors Seek To Raise Taxes on Companies With Highly-Paid CEOs and Exempt More Small Businesses From Tax

Sophie Peel

3141

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

We asked the six incumbent city councilors what fuels the bitter feuds between the two factions.

wweek.com

What Divides the Portland City Council?

Sophie Peel

220

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

The fact that a city director was lobbying the same elected officials to whom she might later allocate public campaign finance dollars raises ethical questions for some observers.

wweek.com

A City Campaign Finance Officer Lobbied Councilors in Her Free Time Last Year

Sophie Peel

453

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

The Portland School Board’s policy committee was set to discuss a districtwide screen time policy Sept. 22 that if approved would, in some cases, significantly reduce the amount of time students in grades K–8 spend in front of screens.

wweek.com

Murmurs: Draft Screen Policy Would Curb Use Across PPS

WW Staff

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

Trisha Baga’s experiential audiovisual installation at PICA explodes the tourist trap form.

wweek.com

‘MORE’ Escapes the Corny Pitfalls of 3D and Immersive Art Works

Jordan Sutherland

020

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

The city announced this week that the Columbia Pool in North Portland will be demolished later this year.

wweek.com

City Will Demolish North Portland Pool

Sophie Peel

242

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 23/09/2026

At issue is the school district's contract with the Texas-based management firm Procedeo. The referral letter cites potential violations of two state laws that prohibit the use of a public position for financial gain. It doesn't specify who is under investigation.

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