Ross Island sits mid-Willamette just south of downtown Portland, and has a history of being built up and exploited by men, but today it is ruled primarily by nature. From Friendly House, Mike Houck, Director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute, will present his vision of how it can serve as one. Mr. Houck has been a leader in urban nature issues since 1980 when he founded the Urban Naturalist Program at the Audubon Society of Portland. He has co-founded Coalition for a Livable Future (CLF); The national Coalition to Restore Urban Waters (CRUW); The Intertwine Alliance; and The Nature of Cities forum.
Video of Programs (search and sort)
Oregon’s Homeless Crisis
03/23/2025
Doug Marshall
Presentation by Doug Marshall, a native Portlander, who has dedicated over thirty years to addressing homelessness in his community. In 2019, he founded an organization committed to measuring the effectiveness of nonprofits in helping the homeless return to stability and become housed.
On the WEB: https://www.hhfpdx.org
Email: doug@hhfpdx.org
Portland Clean Air
03/16/2025
Greg Bourget
Presentation at Friendly House by Greg Bourget about “Portland Clean Air” an organization that uses data from eight government agencies, monitoring equipment for airborne particulate and solvents to identify the source of industrial air pollution. Bourget is the Executive Director and Lead Researcher for Portland Clean Air.
The Grasshopper Women: A Peruvian Tale of Globalization
03/09/2025
Jeff Seward
Presentation by Zoom. Jeff Seward shows us a video looking at the lives of a group of pioneering Peruvian women who experimented with the idea of creating an elite corps of computer professionals in a poor developing Latin American country. Jeff is a retired political scientist from Pacific University. He has given us more than twenty presentations over the years. He now lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Mindful Communal Responsiveness
03/02/2025
David Buckley
Presentation at Friendly House by David Buckley. David leads an interactive presentation seeking to bring mindfulness to our shared experience as a community. David is a psychiatric nurse practitioner trained in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which uses mindfulness to establish behaviors in line with one’s deeper values.