PORTLAND -- Residents of neighborhoods along 82nd Avenue in NE Portland were invited to a meeting Tuesday night to share ideas on how to combat and deter prostitution.

The town hall-style meeting was scheduled from 6:30-8:30 pm in the Tabor Hall Room in Portland Community College’s Southeast Center at SE 82nd and Division.

Speakers will include Melissa Farly with the San Francisco-based group Prostitution Research and Jeri Williams from the City of Portland. Both will explain the root causes of prostitution and inform community members what they can do to fight it at an individual, street, neighborhood, and city level.

Area residents have held rallies in the past and even a march in their efforts to clear the area of prostitution.