Livable Communities

Summer is almost upon us and we are excited to invite you to our second season of NeighborWalks!

Tuesday, May 17th is Election Day in Oregon and voters in the City of Portland will cast their votes to select a new mayor. The results may determine who the next mayor will be or if no one candidate gets the required 50% of votes, the top two candidates will face off again in November.

By Elaine Friesen-Strang

By Dick Weinman, AARP Volunteer and ALF Living Guru

By Elaine Friesen-Strang

Crossing the street shouldn’t mean crossing your fingers. Yet every two hours, a pedestrian in the United States is killed because a street or crosswalk is unsafe. Children, seniors, people of color and the low-income are disproportionately the victims of these fatalities. According to the 2015 Oregon State of Pedestrian Safety Report, Oregonians 65 years and older are four times more likely to be killed walking on our streets than any other age group. That is why AARP Oregon supports Measure 26-173.

On Saturday, April 2 nd AARP Oregon hosted a Portland Mayoral Candidate Forum at the DoubleTree Lloyd Center. Mayoral Candidates Ted Wheeler and Jules Bailey participated in the forum which was moderated by Laural Porter, KGW-TV Anchor and Straight Talk Host. The forum included audience polling, moderated Q& A with the candidates and also questions from the audience.

By Michele Scheib, AARP Oregon Volunteer

At our Portland Mayoral Forum, we started the program by hearing from our members. Take a minute and find out what we learned! For example, 97% of AARP members voted in the last election. But we also asked about older workers, transportation, housing and more.

Yes, it does take a village. Not only to raise happy, healthy and well adjusted children, but to continue our wellbeing through out life. That's why we are excited to share with you a little bit about the growing "village" movement right here in our neck of the woods. We recently caught up with Eastside Village, a new organization that just begun serving southeast Portland neighborhoods. Eastside Village is but one of several villages that will be operating in the Portland Metro region in the near future and we wanted to make sure you had an opportunity to learn about the village model, what they do, and how you can get involved.