Aug 20, 2021
This week, the COVID-19 crisis, worsened as hospitals in both Oregon and Washington continued to fill up and case counts climbed. Wildfires burned, the western drought deepened, and Afghanistan and Haiti descended into crisis. I talked to Oregon U.S. Senator Ron Wyden about all of these issues. Also, there's widespread concern, here and across the country, about how the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is affecting our veterans' mental health. The V.A. has put out an alert, saying experts are worried about increasing cases of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and even suicide risk. I found out this is having a big impact on our veterans' community, which includes hundreds of thousands of families in Oregon and Washington. We talked to Robert Tell, who manages mental health services for tens of thousands of veterans at the Portland V.A.. And: how far can $1.2 million dollars go, to help people find a way out of homelessness? The United Way is making that big donation to the Bybee Lakes Hope Center, for some big plans for the more than 155,000 square foot Wapato Correctional Facility site. So I talked to Cindy Adams, President and C.E.O. of the United Way of the Columbia Willamette chapter, about how this could work as a hand up and out of homelessness.