January 2017

This segment originally aired Jan. 13, 2016, on VICE News Tonight on HBO. A farm in Mesopotamia, Ohio — one of just six therapeutic farms in the United States — is treating people with mental illness. In 1955, 560,000 patients lived full time in state psychiatric facilities. Today, just 45,000 do. Psychiatric hospitals were shuttered, in part, because of widespread reports of patient abuse. Now, many of the country’s mentally ill are on the streets or in prison. Private insurance companies,...

Trauma and Resilience Conference Speakers March 18, 2017 Multnomah University; Portland, Oregon sponsored by New Wine, New Wineskins [click for more information] It is often said that art is impossible to define, though "you know it when you see it." Is this what trauma is like? To be sure, trauma seems difficult if not possible to define. Yet, insidiously, because of the innumerable forms and shapes it takes, many of us would not even recognize trauma when we see it. Perhaps provisionally,...

Good heart and lung fitness can benefit older adults' brains, researchers report. They assessed the heart/lung fitness of healthy young adults (aged 18 to 31) and older adults (aged 55 to 74), and compared their ability to learn and remember the names of strangers in photos. MRI scans recorded images of their brain activity as they learned the names. The older adults had more difficulty with the memory test than the young adults. But older adults with high levels of heart/lung fitness did...

A father of two was fatally shot at about 11 p.m. yesterday, apparently caught in the crossfire between two teenagers at the corner of Busy and Main streets. Witnesses said the suspects, two black youths between 14 and 17, started arguing, then pulled out guns. The victim, whose name has not been released yet, was a husband and father of two daughters who was reportedly walking home due to car trouble. Unfortunately, the above description of juvenile crime is common in the media. Studies...

Meranda Davis knows her daughter hasn’t always been an angel. Auto theft, assaults, wild tantrums in court left a judge little choice but to send the 15-year-old to Copper Lake School for Girls, one of Wisconsin’s two juvenile detention facilities. “If you choose to steal cars, you deserve to wind up in a juvenile jail. I know that,” Davis said Monday. “But nobody deserves to be treated the way they treat people in there.” That treatment, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week,...

That’s the mission of this privately funded nonprofit organization that established a multigenerational community on a former elementary school site in North Portland. The cluster of townhomes and apartments brings together low-income elders and nine adults who have adopted or are in the process of adopting children out of foster care through an organization that provides on-site services and creates a support network for all. Inspired by Hope Meadows, a similar development in Illinois,...

Over 80,000 children in Massachusetts suffer from asthma which, when left unmanaged, can dramatically impact overall health, limit school attendance and physical activity. In many cases, uncontrolled asthma symptoms lead to costly emergency room visits. Treating this problem on a large scale will take more than inhalers—it requires coordinated community action. Through the Massachusetts Prevention and Wellness Trust Fund (PWTF), Lynn, Worcester, Holyoke, and other cities have formed...

People’s past, present and future are interconnected, and so is our country’s. Being willing to consider the connection between historical trauma and present-day experiences and distress is essential on a personal level – and also on a national one, especially as we collectively work through the bruises of the recent campaign and election. Post the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the president of the U.S. last week, we must consider how historical trauma may be shaping reactions to this...

If there was any doubt about whether Donald Trump as president would pursue the truculent police culture he campaigned on, it was erased during his inaugural address on “ American carnage .” Soon after, all mentions of police reform on the White House’s website were replaced with new Trump-ian language decrying the “dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America.” Many people are fearfully awaiting what this will translate to on the ground under a Trump presidency. However, it’s important to...

Gentrification is the hottest of hot-button urban issues. Many activists and critics see it as essentially a process by which more affluent and educated white newcomers displace poorer, working-class black residents. But those who have studied the subject closely, like Columbia University urban planner Lance Freeman , believe that the issue of displacement is more myth than reality. In fact, Freeman’s detailed empirical research has found that the probability of a family being displaced by...

Obamacare’s days are numbered. That was the message of the executive order President Donald Trump signed Friday, instructing government agencies to “minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the [Affordable Care Act].” When I spoke with a handful of Trump supporters after the inauguration Friday, they said they eagerly awaited Obamacare’s end. Tanya, a woman from Virginia who was rolling a walker down I Street to the inaugural parade, said she was struggling with her $6,750...

Trustees with the Alameda Unified School District are expected to formally declare the district a “safe haven” for all students Tuesday, a move aimed at easing fears among parents and others that they may be targeted under the immigration policies of the Trump Administration. The resolution, which trustees initially considered Jan. 10 and broadly supported, says the district has an “unequivocal commitment to ensuring a safe educational environment for all.” It also reaffirms that...