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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 2015)
June 3, 2015 Page 5 On the Front Lines of a Housing Crisis C ontinued from F ront If all 1,000 housing sites come to reality, the targets would more than double the im- pact PCRI is making in the community. The organization had 352 homes when it start- ed in 1992, 70 of which were single-family homes that came on the market because of fraudulent land sale contracts, and it cur- rently holds 700 homes that house roughly 2,500 residents, Fitzpatrick said. PCRI will be hosting a series of meet- ings to reach out to residents who have already been displaced or who are on the verge of displacement. The goal is to bring in those that are closest to and experiencing the full effects of Portland’s housing crisis and are best-suited to some of the housing PCRI can provide. “Homeownership is a stabilizing solu- tion to displacement,” explains Fitzpatrick. “We’re looking at different housing mod- els that work with the space we have – like duplexes, triplexes, and row houses. We want to create homeownership that engag- es the community in that process, finding the right kind of homes and making sure more people can get housed.” Fitzpatrick also knows that the city has a poor track record of keeping some of its promises to predominately African-Ameri- can residents, citing the distrust after city- backed projects pushed communities out on multiple occasions, including when Memorial Coliseum was built in the 1960s, or when Legacy Hospital made room for expansions in the 1970s. Fitzpatrick not only wants to bring dis- placed residents back to the city, she also wants people to become informed about their rights and needs as homeowners. “We’ve all heard of low-information voters, or folks who might not fully un- derstand their rights as voters or what their vote is doing – but there are also low-information homeowners, people who don’t necessarily know what they might be getting into and what their rights are, and they have previously been vic- tims of predatory lending practices and I want to empower and educate more of ...there are also low-information homeowners, people who don’t necessarily know what they might be getting into and what their rights are, and they have previously been victims of predatory lending practices... --Maxine Fitzpatrick them, so that it’s harder for banks to take advantage of them.” If the “Pathway 1000” program shows some success, it could set an example for dealing with the effects of gentrification and displacement across the whole country. If you or someone you know is interested in housing through this new initiative, a questionnaire to determine eligibility and housing needs is available at pcrihome.org.