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After extended delays and obstacles, LiFEBoat Services will open a year-round, low-barrier shelter for the homeless downtown.

The nonprofit, which also includes navigation help from Filling Empty Bellies and mental health support through Beacon Peer Support, will offer 22 shelter beds at its Commercial Street space in Astoria starting Tuesday.

“It’s been a lot of work to get here, and more than a few challenges,” said Osarch Orak, LiFEBoat’s executive director.

See the story by Olivia Palmer by clicking here.

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Friends of the Astoria Column has approached the city about capital improvement projects ahead of the landmark’s 100th anniversary in 2026.

Jordan Schnitzer, the Portland developer and philanthropist who has taken a leading role in preserving the Column, shared ideas with the City Council on Monday night that include a larger gift shop, a new theater, improved restrooms and expanded parking.

The existing gift shop would be relocated to enhance views looking north. The new theater could serve as an education room with videos about the Column, Native American history at the site and the history of the region.

The Column — rising 125 feet at Coxcomb Hill — is Astoria’s signature landmark and draws an estimated 300,000 visitors a year.

”Without being presumptuous here, but I believe that everybody here feels that the Column, if anything, is the heart and soul of Astoria. It’s on top of that hill and the 100th anniversary is a pretty amazing time,” Schnitzer said.

Read the story by Julia Eastham by clicking here.

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Linda Moreland, a retired financial planner and longtime member of the Columbia Memorial Hospital Foundation Board, has made a $250,000 contribution to the Astoria hospital’s expansion project.

Moreland has been closely involved with fundraising for the project and cited the importance of improving local health care as a motivation for her gift.

Moreland moved to the North Coast from Portland in 2013 and started a financial planning business. It was her finance background that first got her involved with the hospital, after a friend encouraged her to join the foundation’s finance committee.

Now retired, Moreland is still putting her finance background to use to help the foundation fundraise for the hospital expansion, which has an estimated construction cost of between $225 million and $250 million.

Take a look at the report by Rebecca Norden-Bright by clicking here.

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— Derrick DePledge