HOUSING
SPECIAL
EDITION
QR code for
Portland Observer
Online
‘City of Roses’
Volume XLV
Number 17
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • April 27, 2016
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by C ervante p ope /t he p ortland o bserver
Oficials from Portland Community Investment Initiatives, Inc. celebrate a future site for affordable housing on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and the adop-
tion of a city policy to help families that were displaced or at risk of displacement receive preference when new affordable housing is built. Pictured, from left, are Travis
Phillips, PCRI housing development manager; Maxine Fitzpatrick, the nonproit’s executive director, and Andrea Debnam, PCRI manager of resident services.
Right to Return Home
Pathway 1,000 aims to ix troubled housing history
by C ervante p ope
t he p ortland o bserver
Attempting to ix a troubled
housing history in the city, Port-
land Community Reinvestment
Initiatives, Inc. (PCRI) and the
Portland Housing Bureau have pi-
oneered a new campaign in hopes
of acknowledging and ixing the
longtime displacement of mostly
people of color and low income
residents from north and northeast
Portland.
Approximately 10,000 mainly
African American residents have
lost their homes between the years
of 1990 and 2000 in the city’s
close-in and historically black
neighborhoods. Statistically, that’s
three people every day for 10
years having lost their home.
PCRI’s Pathway 1000 Initia-
tive may be part of the solution.
As a part of the Portland Hous-
ing Bureau’s North/Northeast
Neighborhood Housing Strategy,
the initiative is a displacement
mitigation plan with the goals of
dulling and in turn, reversing the
involuntary displacement of those
former long term Portland resi-
dents that have been pushed out,
as well as those who are current-
ly at risk of displacement them-
selves.
As the longtime executive di-
rector of PCRI, Maxine Fitzpat-
rick has witnessed numerous Afri-
can American families left abreast
to Portland’s continual rising
housing costs and loss of afford-
able housing options.
“We cannot undo the harms
done, but rather must focus on re-
storing housing justice for those
who were harmed. PCRI’s goal
is to support and encourage dis-
placed African Americans to focus
on the future,” says Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick and PCRI, along
with the Portland Bureau of Plan-
ning and Sustainability, the Port-
land Housing Bureau, the Portland
C ontinued on p age 7