Oregonians get help buying homes

By Julia Shumway | Editor

“Homeownership means having something I can leave for my children. I always worry about if I were to have an untimely passing, where would my children end up? And now I know that they have a home.” — Ja’Nelle Samuels, a single mom from Portland who was able to buy a home with guidance from a Portland-based nonprofit that recently expanded statewide to help more marginalized Oregonians become homeowners.

Also in today's edition:

Oregon considers charging for undersea cables
Kotek and Drazan part of a record number of women running for governor nationwide

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These lending programs are helping underserved Oregonians buy homes

By Mia Maldonado

From left to right, Arrive Executive Director Dana Shepherd Fuller celebrates the nonprofit’s 35th birthday alongside tenured board member Mike Shcrader and Arrive Founder and Former Executive Director Peg Malloy. (Courtesy of Arrive)

After seven years of living in a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Northeast Portland with her four sons, Ja’Nelle Samuels assumed homeownership was impossible.

The 43-year-old single mom and nonprofit manager grew up without housing stability. Her only model for homeownership growing up was her grandmother, who took her in after she left the foster care system.

Following data center boom, Oregon for first time considers charging use fees for undersea cables

By Alex Baumhardt

Ten of the 16 undersea fiber-optic cables permitted off of Oregon's Coast are in areas in Tillamook County, pictured here. (Photo by Mia Maldonado/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

The Oregon Department of State Lands is proposing for the first time to charge multinational telecommunications and tech companies for using the seafloor off the state’s Pacific Coast for fiber-optic cables used to transmit internet data and international calls.

Trump proposal to end employer race, gender reporting advances

By Nada Hassanein | Stateline

Doulas participate in a simulation training session. The Trump administration recently proposed to rescind a requirement that certain employers report the demographics of their workforce. (Photo courtesy of Kenda Sutton-El/Birth in Color)

A federal commission voted Tuesday in favor of a Trump administration proposal to rescind requirements that larger employers report the demographics of their workers — information that’s used to help enforce racial and gender antidiscrimination laws.