PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — A vandal or vandals broke into a resource center for the hearing impaired, destroying nearly everything, including important communication tools.
Advocates walked into the Southwest Washington Resource Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing on September 18 to find a mess left behind after someone broke in. The doors, video phones and computer monitors were broken, the tech room was destroyed and chairs were slashed.
“We were shocked,” resource center director Terese Rognmo said. “Why would they do something to us? Are we being targeted for being deaf?”
The center provides resources for more than 125 people in Clark, Cowlitz, Pacific, Skamania, Thurston, Yakima and Tri-Cities counties and it’s the only deaf resource center in the Vancouver area.
Rognmo said the center was also targeted in May when a couple boys threw rocks at the window while she was inside.
Now the center is struggling to help dozens of people who rely on their free services to find housing, insurance and jobs. The center is funded solely by the Office of Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Olympia. They can’t afford to replace the damaged items, which aren’t covered by insurance.
The center started a fundraising campaign in hopes of raising enough money to replace what was destroyed.
Anyone with information about the break in is asked to call Vancouver police at 360.693.3111.
