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In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories of the weekend:
In our annual look at high school graduation, The Columbian this year presents a cross-section of the diverse experiences and lives of the Class of 2018.
These are the stories of six students whose experiences have historically been underrepresented.
They are students of color, students with disabilities, students graduating from alternative high school programs and a recent immigrant to the United States. We hope you will enjoy their stories, below and on Pages A6-7 in Sunday’s print edition, and join us in wishing the best for them and the rest of the Class of 2018.
Read the full story: 2018 Clark County grads revel in diverse roles
The number of people who live outside is up 39 percent from last year according to a count of homelessness in Clark County. Council for the Homeless recently released results from the Point in Time count, an annual census of the homeless population taken on a single day in January.
Kate Budd, executive director of the Vancouver-based council, said the jump in the unsheltered population is in line with the visible increase in homelessness that people are seeing. The Point in Time count is required by the state and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which defines unsheltered as “living in a place not meant for human habitation such as a car, a tent, or a trailer with no running water or electricity.”
Volunteers counted 105 more people living outside this year compared to last year. Half of that increase was from volunteers finding more people on the streets; the rest came from school districts and from counting people in the SafePark program, which allows homeless people to park overnight in church parking lots.
Nearly 40 percent of those living outside reported some sort of disability.
Read the full story: Annual homeless count shows 39 percent jump
The cavernous Georgia-Pacific paper mill, which churned with thousands of papermakers a generation ago, is now a ghost town, said Felicia Tillery; and former workers like her are in limbo.
“It is hard,” she said, trying to describe this past month when up to 300 workers have been laid off. Her last day was June 1, though she is luckier than most because her children are grown and she can get by on her husband’s income and benefits.
“I might retire. I might do something else. It just depends on what comes up,” she said. “I’m not devastated … (but) there’s a lot of people that work really hard that I think are devastated.”
Tillery made her comments from a classroom at WorkSource Vancouver, where she recently joined a handful of ex-mill workers looking for help with life after layoffs.
There, at 204 S.E. Stone Mill Drive, representatives from WorkSource try to help laid off former mill workers carve out some options, like applying for new jobs, filing for unemployment benefits or even enrolling in school.
Read the full story: After Georgia-Pacific cut up to 300 employees, workers trying to find footing
