ASTORIA – On a still sunny fall day, two women sit in the grass by the Columbia River to eat their lunch: cheesy potatoes, cooked carrots and chicken. The meal is supplied by Filling Empty Bellies, a nonprofit that serves lunches to people in need six days a week in Astoria’s People’s Park.
The park is unidentified and is easily overlooked as green space along the Astoria Riverwalk and across from the tourist-filled Mo’s Restaurant, which opened a year ago.
The two women, who asked not to be identified, are housed – although unstably so. One is couch surfing; the other recently moved off the street and in with a partner. They both pay rent and work, one full time in the service industry, the other part time in retail. Both women are pregnant.
With nearly 10,000 residents, Astoria is the most populated town in Clatsop County, which also includes Warrenton, Hammond, Gearhart, Seaside and Cannon Beach.
The effects of the statewide housing crisis and a rise in homelessness are felt acutely in Clatsop County, where a low-vacancy rental market has long outpaced wages for a coastal economy in transition. Industries such as forestry and fishing, which have sustained the settlement of Chinook land at the mouth of the Columbia River for the past 200 years, is giving way to tourism and a service-industry-based economy.
To read the full article written by Kaisa Schlarb, click HERE
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