🌱 Portland's Treehouse Of Terror + Homeless Deaths In Oregon

What's up. Portland? It's Thursday; not quite the weekend, but close enough for government work. Oh, not this government, but maybe the Westeros government? Maybe I'm just thinking about dragons too much. Here's what's going on today.

First, today's weather:

We've got a cloudy day, oddly enough, but that's not going to stop the heat. We've got a high temp of 96.

Here are the top five stories in Portland today:

1. Having bad neighbors is the worst, but at least I've never had to deal with people like this. A Southeast Portland couple says they've been terrorized for years by campers living in and around a massive treehouse built on city property. Right off of SE Foster Road, near Johnson Creek, is a large tree house. Neighbors say a few dozen people have been living in the treehouse and that they've been loud and violent. "They're right outside our bedroom window at night. We can hear them," said Marysue Stickler. "They're fighting. There's [sic] guys punching women, women screaming up and down the street. It's horrible."(KATU)
2. There's a new, even deadlier type of fentanyl in Portland. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office says their Special Investigations Unit found four grams of what is often referred to as “rainbow fentanyl” while serving a search warrant at a Northeast Portland residence recently — along with body armor, $5,000 in cash, nine guns, meth, heroin and 800 pills of fentanyl. (KOIN)
3. The Portland Street Response Team may be getting bigger. Six months after the Portland Street Response team announced it was expanding its services city-wide, the program announced a new push to hire more than two dozen new positions. The Portland Street Response Team started back in 2021 with seven people and now it's looking to have a staff of 58. The street response team responds to non-emergency calls for people going through a behavioral or mental health crisis. (KPTV)
4. The past two years have hit Portland pretty hard and now a new study shows how hard a time we've had bouncing back. Researchers from University of California Berkeley used GPS data from cell phones to measure activity in the downtown area. The data was taken from 2019 and studied all the way up until this year. Out of 62 cities, Portland came in at No. 60. Researchers say downtown Portland only has 41% of the activity it did in 2019. UC Berkeley professor Karen Chapple said part of the reason for the slow recovery is more people are working from home. (KGW)
5. At least 207 people died in Oregon while experiencing homelessness this year, from January through June. The Register-Guard first reported the numbers released on an Oregon Health Authority dashboard, after Senate Bill 850 required all Oregon counties to track how many people die without shelter. Data show disparities among various demographics. Four times more men died than women, and 75% of the people who died were older than 45. Only one juvenile was reported. Less than half of the deaths happened in a medical or care facility. (OPB)

Today in Portland:

• The Blessed Temple and Peace Lutheran Church is holding a community fair on North Rosa Parks Way. Have a socially distanced evening of fun; enjoy the giveaway items: school supplies, new & used clothing, paper products & more! 5:30 - 8 p.m.
• Meet with Weird Portland Creatives at Gigantic Brewing in SE Portland. The PDX Soapbox Derby is infamous as one of Portland's Old School 'Weird' events. What started as a fun idea amongst a small group of friends has grown into one of the city's premiere summer events. But how did this happen, and why did Portland embrace this wacky race? Find out as we speak with racers and organizers stretching all the way back to the beginning, 25 years ago. 6 - 8 p.m.
• Do you want some funny for your Thursday night? Then check out Casey McLain and Other Funny Comedians at Kelly's Olympian in downtown Portland. Casey McLain is a stand-up comedian based in Tacoma, WA who tours the country and on a rare occasion performs in Seattle. He has many local comedian friends and he will bring the best of them to this show! 8 - 9:30 p.m.
• Oh, so Casey isn't enough for you? You want something more — bombastic? How about Dishoom Dishoom: A Bollywood Action Comedy Show at Desert Island Studios in North Portland! It shares clips from favorite Bollywood action movies and invites the best comedians in PDX to riff on them! It's its own version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, LIVE with a Bollywood vibe. It's guaranteed to be a fun night out! Doors open at 7:30 p.m.
• Rhapsody in Red will be playing at the Goodfoot in SE Portland. Based in Portland, Oregon, Rhapsody in Red is a musical tribute to Jerry Garcia. Performing songs from Jerry’s vast musical catalog, the band fuses their individual musicianship with a great love for that iconic Jerry style and musicality. Come out and dance all night to tunes performed by these longtime “Jerry-inspired musicians”. Doors open at 8 p.m.

From my notebook:

• Portland Audubon: "This is about the time Rufous Hummingbirds start their fall migration heading south via the chain of Rocky Mountains. They have fantastic recall and have been observed returning to the previous site of a feeder a year later." (Portland Audubon via Facebook)
• Did you plant too many cucumbers this year? I planted too many cucumbers this year, which means finding new and interesting uses for them. What are other people doing? If you're curious, just go over to TikTok where, evidently, they're trending. Have a look, maybe it'll help you figure out what to do with excess cucumbers. I wonder how a cucumber gimlet would be? (Portland Monthly)
• Remember what last summer's heatwave did to the trees in Portland. Several of mine got singed. If you're worried about your trees during this current heatwave, Chris Ruvelcaba, the owner of Monkeyman’s Tree Service has a few words of advice. “The first and foremost thing that I tell people is that their trees need water,” he says. “I would say a majority of the calls we have been getting are people that think their trees are dying because they are turning brown, they are losing limbs, or they start to look dead. We will send an arborist out and they’ll see the trees aren’t dead, they’re just thirsty. They just want some water.” (KPTV)
• Next year, Oregon becomes the first state in the nation where it will be legal for adults to take psilocybin — the active ingredient found in magic mushrooms — as a therapeutic treatment watched over by a trained facilitator. Are we ready for this? It’s an enticing tourism prospect, particularly in Portland, where the hospitality industry has been agonizingly slow to bounce back after the upheavals of the pandemic. (Portland Monthly)
• If you're into art, you should probably know about the Splendorporium. It is part non-profit, offering art classes for children, and part art gallery, hosting some of the weirder artists (such as myself) of Portland. Here is a fancy skull! (Splendorporium via Instagram)
• Could Portland get a view of the Northern Lights? There's a chance! NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has a geomagnetic storm watch forecast in effect from Aug. 17-19. This may mean those beautiful colors of the aurora may come far enough south to see locally. From time to time we do have the opportunity to see these northern lights in northern Oregon. (KOIN)

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There's your Thursday, Portland, and a fine one it is! Keep cool, enjoy yourselves and, as always, be kind to each other. I'll be back tomorrow to get you all excited about what's going on in our beloved city.

— Dominic Anaya

About me: Doctor, educator and now a writer/artist, I'm just chillin' in Portland, OR with my wife, our ferrets, our chickens and our goats.

Have a news tip or suggestion for an upcoming Portland Daily? Contact me at portland@patch.com