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Collaboration:

The Facebook group Portland, Oregon - Housing, Rooms, Apartments, Sublets, Roommates shows collaboration with many people in the Portland area. This Facebook group’s purpose is to help people advertise their homes for sale, or rooms they may be renting, and it provides a space for people to request information on housing. For example, someone may post that they are looking for an apartment near downtown Portland and state their budget, and the member of the group can reply with suggestions and resources to find housing. This group was not made specifically for people of color affected by gentrification, but it could help them find affordable housing and people experiencing the same issue can connect through the group.

Citizenship:

A tweet by the user @seamuscoyle expresses how white people in Portland should educate themselves on the history of racism in Oregon, as well as gentrification and white supremacy (Seamus, 2020). This relates to Citizenship because the user explains that one should learn about the history of where they live, which in turn would make a good citizen. Being aware of what has happened in your community is important to understand why some issues remain within that community, which can lead to one fighting for a change with the knowledge of the history of the area. Many people living in and going to shopping centers in Portland are unaware of the gentrification that took place to build those new houses and malls, so it is important that it is brought to light so more people can learn about it.

Common Purpose:

Protesters in Portland are shown protecting the “Red House” from police trying to evict a family from it in a video posted by user @PDXZane (Sparling, 2020). The protesters attempting to stop the police from evicting a family out of their home is an example of Common Purpose. These people came together with shared beliefs and the same goal to make a change. This relates to our topic for this blog, since eviction is a part of gentrification and will affect more communities in the future if it does not stop now, which is why the protesters were trying to prevent it from happening.

References:

Coyle, S. [@seamuscoyle_]. (2021, March 5). if you’re a white person living in portland, educate yourself on oregon’s wildly racist history and YOUR role in perpetrating [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/seamuscoyle_/status/1267547427633942528?s=21

Komives, S., & Wagner, Wendy. (2017). Leadership for a better world : Understanding the social change model of leadership development (Second ed.). San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.

Portland, Oregon - Housing, Rooms, Apartments, Sublets, Roommates. (2021, March 5). [Facebook Group]. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/unsupportedbrowser?ref=share

Sparling, Z. [@PDXZane]. (2021, March 5). Protesters in Portland are occupying space around Mississippi Avenue following police returning to the “Red House,” where a local family [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/pdxzane/status/1336393187087110145?s=21

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Losing Alberta: Gentrification in Northeast Portland

In this documentary, Portland natives tell stories about how things used to be in Northeast Portland, with the main focus being the Alberta neighborhood. African American Portland natives, and business owners reveal how life used to be in their neighborhoods, before their families and friends slowly began to leave. The video emphasises the fact that Portland is the fastest gentrified city in the country. Key topics discussed in the video includes: How the Alberta neighborhood become what it is now, the implications for the remnants of displaced communities, and the intentionality of the gentrification.

https://youtu.be/eSsDgiRrSOY

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Neil Smith, author of the book The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City, wrote the article “Gentrification and the Rent Gap” in 1987 as a response to another researchers’ hypotheses about gentrification, those of David Ley. Beyond his commentary on Ley’s research, however, Smith does argue his own coherent theory of gentrification, which is our focus here. Smith argues that gentrification happens in large part because of the “rent gap:” defined as the gap between the actual rent price of a plot of land and the potential rent that could be gained from “higher and better use” (Smith 462). While Ley and similar researchers do not consider the economic causes of gentrification, Smith argues that areas with high rent gaps are considerably more likely to become gentrified, as “[u]pper middle-class immigrants'' move in and “move into buildings already fixed up or newly built” or renovate buildings themselves. The rent gap “results from a complex pattern of investment and disinvestment” in neighborhoods, and gentrification is the process by which the housing market “corrects” this gap (Smith 463). At the end of the article, he calls for more empirical research into the rent gap, and suggests the gap may be smaller in countries like Canada where the state has more influence in the housing market than the U.S. Finally, he says that the rent gap is only one part of gentrification, which itself is only one part in the historical restructuring of the postindustrial city (Smith 464).

“The Consequences of Gentrification,” written decades later in 2016 by researchers Lei Ding and Jackelyn Hwang, partly fills the empirical void Smith noted in “Gentrification and the Rent Gap.” The study, published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, examines the impact of gentrification on residents’ financial health in Philadelphia. Drawing from a consumer credit database, the researchers find that gentrification is positively correlated with the financial health of city residents that stay in their neighborhoods, though that correlation is weaker among low-income residents, residents who move to low-income neighborhoods, or residents who move to any other neighborhood relative to residents who stay in their neighborhoods (Ding et al., 27). The authors here define gentrification as “the socioeconomic upgrading of a previously low-income central city neighborhood,” and define its financial impact as measured by residents’ credit scores. They find, broadly, that though there is not a direct link between gentrification and an increase in credit scores, improvements in the local economy can often lead to a better labor market and help people raise their credit scores. This is most prevalent among homeowners, who “have greater incentive” to stay with their current mortgage as housing prices rise. In contrast, financially vulnerable renters and those who do not own property (i.e. renters) are more likely to take a financial hit due to gentrification (Ding et al., 28).

Both articles tackle the economic causes and effects of gentrification, which can often be lost in popular discourse. Smith presents a compelling argument for why gentrification happens in the first place -- the rent gap -- and Ding and Hwang essentially confirm that hypothesis nearly 30 years later with their findings on the financial health of homeowners in gentrified neighborhoods.

Literature

Ding, L., & Hwang, J. (2016). The Consequences of Gentrification: A Focus on Residents' Financial Health in Philadelphia. Cityscape, 18(3), 27-56. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/26328272

Smith, N. (1987). Gentrification and the Rent Gap. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 77(3), 462-465. Retrieved February 25, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563279

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(via https://open.spotify.com/track/4CPszpSnlbgnQLIQYyzIR2?si=s6UMjG_zT22JIu3X_Tt1cA)

H.E.R. is a singer songwriter with thirteen grammy nominations, one them for her song “I Can’t Breathe.” This song was nominated for song of the year, and with good reason. H.E.R. addresses police brutality with beautiful lyrics, a sombre tone, and a bluesy sound. The name of this song are the last words that George Floyd said (and almost six years prior Eric Garner) and has since been a rallying cry for protesters all over the world in response to racial prejudice. This last year put a spotlight on police brutality, but this isn’t a new experience for people of color in the United States. Racial profiling has been seen over and over, but pleas for change have been met with inhumane indifference from the public, police officers, and politicians. This song is H.E.R.’s response to what is happening in this country. 

In the song she delivers a monologue where she says “It’s justifying a genocide/ Romanticizing the theft and bloodshed/ That made America the land of the free.” These powerful words confront the policing system in place today and how they were set up. 

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“Priced Out” Podcast

Priced Out is a podcast that is an extension of a documentary titled Priced Out: 15 Years of Gentrification In Portland, Ore and is hosted by Andru Morgan and Cornelius Swart. The film focuses on gentrification in Portland specifically, and while the podcast largely focuses on Portland as well it addresses the problem of gentrification on a larger, national level. They talk about many major American cites and their experience with gentrification including Tulsa, Boston, Los Angeles, St Louis, and Detroit. There are several episodes dedicated to Long Beach with one particularly interesting one comparing it to Portland. Racial diversity could not be much different between the two cities, but gentrification is happening in both nonetheless. There are forty episodes total (and counting), each one information packed and often with fascinating interviews. 

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Interview Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00]

[00:00:00] [00:00:00] So the first question we have is what made you start Taking Ownership PDX?

[00:00:08] Randal: [00:00:08] Um, well, um, I had a lot of people asking me how they could be stronger allies or accomplices for the, for marginalized communities and particularly the Black community. Because I, um, I have built quite a platform through hip hop.

[00:00:24] I'm a hip hop artist, uh, playing a six piece funk hip hop band called Speaker Minds. And I've, um, I do solo music with a DJ and I've been doing that for my entire adult life. So, and my music often talks about social justice and injustices, citizen, community outreach, and uplifting, things like that. So, and I've done a lot of philanthropy work in my, in my day, a lot of culturally specific, um, jobs where I've been like a mentor for Black and Brown youth on probation.

[00:00:53] Uh, I worked as a student advocate, um, for low income [00:01:00] young adults work heavy, you know, just a little, a lot of those communities. So, um, people, you know, got to know me as that. And so they reached out and, um, I also go to PSU right now. So I'm finishing my bachelor's in Black Studies and Social Science. And, um, so I've learned a lot about, you know, a lot of the oppressive, exclusionary ways of, of Oregon and the, you know, the nation.

[00:01:26] Um, and so I thought it would be a good idea. You know, when people ask me how they can help, I said, look, you gotta share your resources. Especially if you come from privilege, um, and you have benefited from exclusionary practices, uh, you know, so share your, share your wealth and let's, um, and then the idea that to repair homes came from the fact that, you know, I grew up in Portland, I'm a native, I grew up in Northeast Portland, so I watched the neighborhoods change.

[00:01:53] Um, and now that I have an idea of why that's happened, I realized, you know, a way that we could really help is [00:02:00] by, um, getting some of these repairs done. For the homeowners that still have survived gentrification, um, and, uh, that will keep the city off their back. Um, and, um, because a lot of the ways displacement happens is, uh, white people move into these neighborhoods and then they start complaining about Black people's houses, not looking, uh, adequate enough for their standards.

[00:02:25] And then, uh, the city comes out and puts liens on their homes and stuff. So this is a good way to combat gentrification in that way.

[00:02:34] Laura: [00:02:34] Amazing. Um, uh, we noticed that Taking Ownership PDX has a lot of support from other organizations and you also have a lot of volunteers and donors. Um, was that surprising to you?

[00:02:49] Like how did that happen so quickly?

[00:02:52] Randal: [00:02:52] Uh, so surprising. Yeah, I had no idea it was going to take off like it did. Um, I, I, you know, I, I thought it was gonna. [00:03:00] Just be like maybe a couple of homes, you know? Well, when I started there, I was very naive. Cause I don't, I'm not from the housing world. I, you know, I was a renter at the time.

[00:03:08] Um, You know, I don't, I didn't know the capacity. I thought we would just get a bunch of volunteers together and find some materials and start swinging hammers at homes and trying to, um, try to make them look better. But, uh, there's a lot more to it than that. And a lot of people were like, "well, you know, I don't really want to like come out and help, especially with the pandemic. Um, but here's some money to put towards it," and it just took off, you know, uh, after the first house. We were able to do quite a bit of repairs and then another house came in and then just, you know, words got out and then the news started getting a hold of it. So I did a bunch of news interviews and then that was when it really took off.

[00:03:48] Um, but yeah, because I, you know, I, I was not expecting this kind of response at all. Uh, I think people liked that I started at guerrilla style because I wasn't like waiting to get through all the red [00:04:00] tape, you know, I've been on enough committees and been in enough groups that I know. That red tape can take years to get through.

[00:04:06] So I was like, you know, send me your money and I'll, I'll put it towards the house and, you know, I'll deal with Uncle Sam later. Um, but yeah, I, would've never imagined, um, how big this got and how fast and it's still going strong.

[00:04:22] La'don: [00:04:22] Well, um, I have a question about that. So if someone wanted to be a part of that and volunteer, how would they go about that?

[00:04:29] Randal: [00:04:29] So right now, we're not really encouraging volunteers unless you're licensed, bonded and insured. We got over 400 volunteers signed up and we don't have enough work for that, especially in the winter. Um, You know, we, we, if you want it to, you could go to our website and there's a volunteer section, uh, taking ownership, pdx.org.

[00:04:48] Uh, but we're not encouraging that unless you are skilled in a trade and licensed, bonded, and insured. Um, so we can actually like do, um, [00:05:00] quality and insured work on these homes.

[00:05:02] La'don: [00:05:02] Thanks.

[00:05:04] Laura: [00:05:04] Okay. So the next set of questions is more specific to your thoughts on gentrification. So, um, who has a stake in preventing gentrification? Who can do that?

[00:05:19] Randal: [00:05:19] Um, the state, the city, the nation, the, the feds, uh, anybody that can make policies, you know, um, to, to stop this thing. Make policies that provide reparations. And I mean, I strongly believe reparations are needed for, uh, particularly the black community, but other communities as well, you know, natives need better reparations too.

[00:05:40] Um, but you know, the way, if you have any idea of how horrible this country has been. To, to, uh, nonwhite people, uh, particularly black people and the natives. Um, you would understand that the, that there is some sort of equity in the form of [00:06:00] monetary, um, gifts or whatever, that needed to be given. I mean, think about Oregon.

[00:06:06] They were, when they found Oregon, they were just buying up. Like they're just giving 300 to 600 acres of land to, to white men, just, you know, and black people couldn't even live here. So, um, with that understanding, I mean, they think that they have to like give you the, it has to, it has to be through equitable practices.

[00:06:25] They have to like, um, put in policies for developers that they have to give the developers the same rules that residential people have. So developers can come into neighborhoods and buy  up houses and tear them down and build up some, you know, some, uh, garbage 30 unit building without asking the community what they want.

[00:06:48] Um, well, let's say if you're, if you're a homeowner, a residential homeowner and you want to just build a garage or something, you gotta ask all your neighbors what they think, what color, you know? So it's [00:07:00] not fair that these developers just because they have multi-millions and they, you know, can house more people, um, can come in here with their own set of rules and it actually impacts the whole, the rest of the neighborhood because utilities go up, property taxes go up.

[00:07:16] Um, and you know, you bring a whole different demographic into these neighborhoods. Uh, that's another thing is, you know, um, where I live, I just bought a house in Albina. It's mostly white people around here. This is a historically black neighborhood. Um, they'd lost all that culture. I think there has to be some policy in place that, that keeps the culture, uh, in the neighborhoods to, um, give the neighborhood of the voice.

[00:07:42] Yeah. But they definitely have to, um, do something reparation-like, and maybe that's providing property or, you know, monetary gifts or something.

[00:07:55] Annie: [00:07:55] So I do have a question about that. Um, do you think that legislative change is going to [00:08:00] be the most effective here in dealing with gentrification, or is it going to be more on like an individual level that we're going to see the most change?

[00:08:07] Randal: [00:08:07] I mean, I think most change starts from the bottom and like it does, you know, I don't know anything, any kind of change like that um, on a legislative level, I feel like always has to start with some individuals getting together and, you know, making some noise and then they're like, "Oh, okay, fine. It just looks like they're not going to shut up about it."

[00:08:31] So now we're going to start, you know, when you even think about like marijuana passing, you know, uh, you know, any, anything we've really got to make some noise unless it's benefiting the corporations. If it started, if it benefits everyday people on an individual level, we have to make noise and then they'll consider passing some stuff.

[00:08:55] Laura: [00:08:55] Um, the next question is, do you think enough [00:09:00] people know or even care about the gentrification that has been happening?

[00:09:07]Randal: [00:09:07] , I don't think enough people really understand the capacity of what gentrification is. You know what it's done, how severe it's been. Um, I think people, yeah, I think people just think like, cause you, when you grew up in capitalism, you just think that's just the way it is. Like, they want to take your house, they'll take your house.

[00:09:29] You know, they want to do that. You just got to work harder. You just got to pull yourself up by your bootstrap to keep your house. They don't understand the policies and just like the nuanced ways in which they operate to, to, you know, take their homes. And, um, if you're one of the people benefiting from gentrification, You're usually one of the people that has the most resources and the most power to enact the change.

[00:09:56] That's why we always tell white people, y'all got to talk to each other. Y'all got to be [00:10:00] the ones out here, um, really, you know, making that change, um, because this is your, this is a system that was built by y'all, so y'all gotta dismantle it, you know, it can't just be us. So. I think it's hard for white people who benefit from it because they're content and they think, all right, I just bought this house, but you know, I'll put a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard and they think that's enough, you know?

[00:10:26] So they don't, you know, I, so just for instance, some serious, uh, accomplice ally work that just happened is I bought this house from a white lady. She sold it to me for what was, what was left on the mortgage, because she didn't want to make any money off it. And she wanted to put a black family back in the Albina neighborhood.

[00:10:49] So like, that's that radical philanthropy work that I think needs to happen that I don't think a lot of people are going to do. This woman's like on some other shit. [00:11:00] So, which I'm thankful for. Um, and, but yeah, I don't think that there's not going to be a lot of people that are going to do that. And she didn't put herself out cause she's wealthy and she's a, she's a successful business owner and owns multiple properties.

[00:11:14] I don't know if I can say enough people care to make the actual radical, um, decisions and actions that it will take to, to reverse gentrification. And gentrification is already done. Like there's no, there's no like black community in Portland anymore. It's gone, you know, I mean, I guess you could say it's in the numbers, but that's not really, you know, that's not really it, so it has to be reversed at this point.

[00:11:53] Laura: [00:11:53] How important do you think aging in places, you know, like being able to, um, [00:12:00] to stay in someone's home regardless of their age or their income? How much of an importance do you see in that?

[00:12:09] Randal: [00:12:09] I think, you know, it's like, uh, I think it's like one of the most important things as far as what humans need is, you know, shelter and, uh, as somebody who, um, is a brand new homeowner - I just bought this house two months ago - um, I was a renter all before that. With two, I became a father at night, 10 years old of two, and I've lived in maybe 12 places since they were born. We're renting apartments, living in garages, whatever I could find and, you know, um, and it's miserable and it's, uh, not knowing, you know, having to move.

[00:12:46] First of all, moving sucks. You know, we all know that. Um, but yeah, you know, bouncing my kids around from place to place and, um, you know, just to be able to stay and [00:13:00] to be able to pay into your property and then actually get towards paying off your property is huge. You know, like an actual mortgage is amazing.

[00:13:09] Uh, when you're renting, you're just giving your money away all the time. Um, But yeah. I mean, especially when you get older and, uh, it looked the cost of living going up, you know, it's harder to find other places to live. Um, so yeah, it's important. And then familiarity in communities is I think so important to, to, uh, people. And so, yeah, I think it's just in so many, so many aspects of it is important.

[00:13:38] Laura: [00:13:38] And I have one last question. Uh, do you have any advice on how to spread awareness on, uh, the ramifications of gentrification for people who don't have much of a platform or just, you know, every day trying to spread awareness?

[00:13:57] Randal: [00:13:57] Um, I also want to say the importance of [00:14:00] aging in place is also to be able to pass down your property to the next generation. So I think that's actually really huge. Ways to raise awareness. I mean, do your research, one, you know, uh, I think that's important.

[00:14:14] There's a great class - I'm actually in my capstone class right now. Um, it's racial equity in Oregon. I'm learning a lot about gentrification and just the origin of all that in that class. I, so I recommend y'all take it. I don't know, take that class if you want, but it's a good one. Well, yeah. Do your, do your, uh, research on, on, um, Portland or even, you know, other cities too, but I mean, Portland has its own unique or Oregon has its own unique story.

[00:14:40] And I mean, my way of raising awareness is social media. That's how this whole thing started. If I didn't have a platform on social media, there's no way I would've got the word out so fast, um, And provide resources. Um, yeah, I think that's, that's the way to go these days [00:15:00] is social media. Yeah. And action. Don't just talk about it. Do about it.

[00:15:11]Laura: [00:15:11] Well, thank you so much, Randall.

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(1/8) “I had a lot of people asking me how they could be stronger allies or accomplices for the marginalized communities and particularly the black community, because I have built quite a platform through hip hop. I’m a hip hop artist, I play in a six piece funk hip hop band called Speaker Minds, and I do solo music with a DJ, and I’ve been doing that for my entire adult life. My music often talks about social justice and injustices, citizens, community outreach, and uplifting, things like that. I’ve done a lot of philanthropy work in my day, a lot of culturally specific jobs where I’ve been like a mentor for black and brown youth on probation. I worked as a student advocate for low income young adults, just with a lot of those communities. So people got to know me as that. And so they reached out and I also go to PSU right now. I’m finishing my bachelor’s in Black Studies and Social Science. I’ve learned a lot about a lot of the oppressive, exclusionary ways of Oregon and the nation. So I thought it would be a good idea. When people ask me how they can help, I said, ‘look, you gotta share your resources. Especially if you come from privilege and you have benefited from exclusionary practices, so share your wealth’. Then the idea to repair homes came from the fact that I grew up in Portland, I'm a native, I grew up in Northeast Portland, so I watched the neighborhoods change. Now that I have an idea of why that's happened, I realized, a way that we could really help is by getting some of these repairs done, for the homeowners that still have survived gentrification. That will keep the city off their back. Because a lot of the ways displacement happens is white people move into these neighborhoods and then they start complaining about Black people's houses, not looking adequate enough for their standards. And then the city comes out and puts lines on their homes and stuff. So this is a good way to combat gentrification in that way.”

(2/8) “I had no idea it was going to take off like it did. I thought it was gonna just be maybe a couple of homes. Well, when I started there, I was very naive. Cause I'm not from the housing world. I was a renter at the time. I didn't know the capacity. I thought we would just get a bunch of volunteers together and find some materials and start swinging hammers at homes and try to make them look better. But there's a lot more to it than that. And a lot of people were like, ‘well, , I don't really want to come out and help, especially with the pandemic, but here's some money to put towards it’, and it just took off after the first house. We were able to do quite a bit of repairs and then another house came in and then just words got out and then the news started getting a hold of it. I did a bunch of news interviews and then that was when it really took off. I was not expecting this kind of response at all. I think people liked that I started it guerrilla style because I wasn't waiting to get through all the red tape. I've been on enough committees and been in enough groups that I know that red tape can take years to get through. So I was like, send me your money and I'll put it towards the house and I'll deal with Uncle Sam later. I would've never imagined how big this got and how fast and it's still going strong.”

(3/8) “Right now, we're not really encouraging volunteers unless you're licensed, bonded and insured. We got over 400 volunteers signed up and we don’t have enough work for that, especially in the winter. If you want it to, you could go to our website and there's a volunteer section, takingownershippdx.org, but we're not encouraging that unless you are skilled in a trade and licensed, bonded, and insured. So we can actually do quality and insured work on these homes.”

(4/8) “The state, the city, the nation, the, the feds, anybody that can make policies to stop this thing. Make policies that provide reparations. And I mean, I strongly believe reparations are needed for particularly the black community, but other communities as well, natives need better reparations too. If you have any idea of how horrible this country has been to nonwhite people, particularly black people and the natives, you would understand that there is some sort of equity in the form of monetary gifts that needed to be given. I mean, think about Oregon. They were, when they found Oregon, they were just buying up. They're just giving 300 to 600 acres of land to white men, and black people couldn't even live here. With that understanding, they think that it has to be through equitable practices. They have to put in policies for developers that they have to give the developers the same rules that residential people have. So developers can come into neighborhoods and buy up houses and tear them down and build up some garbage 30 unit building without asking the community what they want. Let's say if you're a homeowner, a residential homeowner and you want to just build a garage or something, you gotta ask all your neighbors what they think, what color. It's not fair that these developers just because they have multi-millions and they can house more people, can come in here with their own set of rules and it actually impacts the whole, the rest of the neighborhood because utilities go up, property taxes go up. You bring a whole different demographic into these neighborhoods. That's another thing where I live. I just bought a house in Albina. It's mostly white people around here. This is a historically black neighborhood. They'd lost all that culture. I think there has to be some policy in place that keeps the culture in the neighborhoods to give the neighborhood a voice. They definitely have to do something reparation-like, and maybe that's providing property or monetary gifts.”

(5/8) “I think most change starts from the bottom and it does, I don't know anything, any kind of change like that on a legislative level, I feel always has to start with some individuals getting together and making some noise and then they're like,’Oh, okay, fine. It just looks like they're not going to shut up about it’. So now we're going to start. When you even think about marijuana passing, anything, we've really got to make some noise unless it's benefiting the corporations. If it benefits everyday people on an individual level, we have to make noise and then they'll consider passing some stuff.”

(6/8) “I don't think enough people really understand the capacity of what gentrification is. What it's done, how severe it's been. When you grew up in capitalism, you just think that's just the way it is. They want to take your house, they'll take your house. They want to do that. You just got to work harder. You just got to pull yourself up by your bootstrap to keep your house. They don't understand the policies and just like the nuanced ways in which they operate to take their homes. And if you're one of the people benefiting from gentrification, you're usually one of the people that has the most resources and the most power to enact the change. That's why we always tell white people, y'all got to talk to each other. Y'all got to be the ones out here really making that change, because this is a system that was built by y'all, so y'all gotta dismantle it. It can't just be us. I think it's hard for white people who benefit from it because they're content and they think, all right, I just bought this house, but, I'll put a Black Lives Matter sign in my yard’ and they think that's enough? Just for instance, some serious accomplice ally work that just happened is I bought this house from a white lady. She sold it to me for what was left on the mortgage, because she didn't want to make any money off it. And she wanted to put a black family back in the Albina neighborhood. That's that radical philanthropy work that I think needs to happen that I don't think a lot of people are going to do. This woman's on some other shit, which I'm thankful for. I don't think that there's not going to be a lot of people that are going to do that. And she didn't put herself out cause she's wealthy and she's a successful business owner and owns multiple properties. I don't know if I can say enough people care to make the actual radical decisions and actions that it will take to reverse gentrification. And gentrification is already done. There's no black community in Portland anymore. It's gone. I guess you could say it's in the numbers, but that's not really it, so it has to be reversed at this point.”

(7/8) “I think it's one of the most important things as far as what humans need is, shelter, and as somebody who is a brand new homeowner - I just bought this house two months ago - I was a renter all before that. With two, I became a father at nineteen years old of two, and I've lived in maybe 12 places since they were born. We're renting apartments, living in garages, whatever I could find and, it's miserable and it's not knowing, having to move. First of all, moving sucks. We all know that. Bouncing my kids around from place to place just to be able to stay. And to be able to pay into your property and then actually get towards paying off your property is huge. An actual mortgage is amazing. When you're renting, you're just giving your money away all the time. Especially when you get older and the cost of living going up, it's harder to find other places to live. It's important. And then familiarity in communities is I think so important to people. I think it's just so many aspects of it is important.”

(8/8) “I also want to say the importance of aging in place is also to be able to pass down your property to the next generation. I think that's actually really huge. Ways to raise awareness, do your research. I think that's important. There's a great class - I'm actually in my capstone class right now, it's racial equity in Oregon. I'm learning a lot about gentrification and just the origin of all that in that class. I recommend y'all take it. Take that class if you want, but it's a good one. Do your research on Portland or even other cities too, but I mean, Oregon has its own unique story. My way of raising awareness is social media. That's how this whole thing started. If I didn't have a platform on social media, there's no way I would've got the word out so fast. And provide resources. I think that's the way to go these days, is social media. And action. Don't just talk about it. Be about it.”

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Stakeholders of Gentrification in Portland

Gentrification displayed no benefits or sympathy for the black community. The African American community in NE Portland,  saw black families and businesses displaced again and again, as freeways, hospital expansions, and white families and businesses moved in. The black neighborhoods in NE Portland used to be close-knit. Parents often looked after each other's children while they played, and neighbors regularly held barbecues. Eventually, rent got higher and higher, while white Portlanders grew richer, and black income fell. They were witnessing the disappearance of their cultural identity. This worsened Portland’s racial divide. Before gentrification, they could walk down Northeast Alberta and eat a black restaurant, play dominos at the park, or get a haircut at a black-owned barber shop. However as the community dispersed, black residents felt unsafe and unwelcome in their own neighborhoods, and because they were so spread out, they didn’t know where to find black-owned businesses. What is the black community doing about it today? Many families and real estate organizations are working to buy back homes and retail spaces from white owners in the NE. The goal is to rebuild and maintain black neighborhoods, and for parents to be able to pass these homes down to their children. Today, Portland has more black businesses than ever. With the lack of opportunities, people of color became entrepreneurs, and created their own opportunities to gain wealth. Resources for locating more Black-owned businesses operating in Portland, that you can support, include:

BlackPDX

ILoveBlackFood

Mercatus

In the 1970’s Portland started a project to build a hospital in the Albina neighborhood. Unfortunately that meant 171 residential homes (of which almost 75% where owned by Black families) were demolished (Ellis, 2020), only for the hospital campus to have never been built. One obvious stakeholder group are the direct descendent of the home owners whose houses were destroyed. Owning a home is a great way to build wealth, and that can be passed down and built upon for generations. While affordable rental housing was built in the neighborhood and helps many families, it didn’t compensate the individuals that owned property (residential or business property). There are discussions being had today about what the city owes these descendants and former homeowners. Some believe that reparations are the only way to repair the harms the city has inflicted, and some think those conversations (and potential funding) are taking away from the issues of current Portland residents (Ellis, 2020).

Another stakeholder is the city of Portland itself. The government historically controlled where Black families can live, buy property, and take out loans to become homeowners. The Fair Housing Act wasn’t passed until 1968, outlawing discriminatory housing practices, and as we’ve seen hasn’t ended racial housing disparities. The city of Portland has several documents of information about gentrification including typology assessments, displacement studies, and a paper the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability contracted with with Dr. Lisa Bates of Portland State University. The government says this “paper is the starting point for raising questions and a community discussion about what the City of Portland can do about gentrification” (Gentrification and Displacement Studies).

There are many other stakeholders affected by gentrification including banks, property managers, property developers, wealthy investors, homeowners living in neighborhoods just starting to be gentrified, other marginalized families or individuals, business owners, and many more.

Ellis, R. (2020, December 16). Portland took these BLACK families' homes. some of their descendants Want reparations. Retrieved February 12, 2021, from https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/16/portland-oregon-affordable-housing-reparations/

Gentrification and Displacement Studies. (n.d.). Retrieved February 12, 2021, from https://www.portland.gov/bps/adap/gentrification-and-displacement-studies

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Post #2

Red House puts fresh spotlight on militant housing activism, but it’s nothing new for Portland

Protesters reoccupy longtime Black-owned N. Mississippi Ave. property after clashes with police trying to ‘re-secure’ house

These two articles are about the “Red House” incident from December, one from the “mainstream” news source The Oregonian and the other from the activism-focused street paper Street Roots. The differences between how these articles portray the event, and what aspects of it they focus on, can give readers a very different impression of what happened depending on which paper they read.

The Oregonian article begins with a description of the protest as consisting of “morning clashes with police” over the foreclosure of the home, and quickly moves on to Mayor Ted Wheeler’s description of the protest as an “illegal occupation” and his vow to “hold those violating our community’s laws accountable.” Much of the article focuses on the government’s and law enforcement’s perspective, as the next few paragraphs describe “violent clashes,” damage to police cars, and protesters throwing rocks, “prompting an officer to deploy an impact munition.” It’s important to note that throughout the article, the active voice is used for the protesters’ actions -- “protesters threw rocks at officers,” “They piled up rocks and bricks” -- while the police’s actions are largely written in passive voice or framed as an inevitable consequence of the protest, i.e. protesters “prompt[ed] an officer to deploy an impact munition,” instead of something like “the officer shot rubber bullets.” Similarly, the word “gentrified” does not appear in the article until the last paragraph.

The Street Roots article, in contrast, focuses more on the protesters’ intent, the reasons for the protest, and the history of structural racism and gentrification in Portland. And while the Oregonian article focused almost exclusively on elements of violence at the protests, Street Roots places an emphasis on the community’s efforts to raise money for the family, mutual aid, and the connections between this foreclosure protest and other protests like rent strikes and houselessness mutual aid networks. Even though the article didn’t mention it explicitly, their mention of other community protests reminded me of the 1930s when community members forcibly prevented sheriffs and the police from evicting people from their homes.

These two articles have very different frames of reference, and your impression of the Red House protests would likely be very different depending on which one you read. One focuses almost exclusively on the lawbreaking of the protesters, as if that was the only important factor or that the law determined what was right; and the other focuses on the goals of the protest and its role in a long history of anti-eviction and foreclosure protests.

Citations

Brannan, H. (2021, January 24). Red house Puts FRESH spotlight on militant Housing activism, but it's nothing new for Portland. Retrieved February 05, 2021, from https://www.streetroots.org/news/2021/01/20/red-house-puts-fresh-spotlight-militant-housing-activism-it-s-nothing-new-portland

Oregonian/OregonLive, J., Oregonian/OregonLive, T., & Shane Dixon Kavanaugh | The Oregonian/OregonLive. (2020, December 12). Protesters reoccupy LONGTIME BLACK-OWNED N. Mississippi Ave. property after clashes with police trying to 're-secure' house. Retrieved February 05, 2021, from https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2020/12/at-least-7-arrested-at-n-mississippi-home-where-protesters-have-camped-to-prevent-eviction.html

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The Urban Displacement Project, a research project out of UC Berkeley, defines “gentrification” like this: “a process of neighborhood change that includes economic change in a historically disinvested neighborhood —by means of real estate investment and new higher-income residents moving in - as well as demographic change - not only in terms of income level, but also in terms of changes in the education level or racial make-up of residents” (Urban Displacement Project). Gentrification has affected Portland, especially historically Black neighborhoods in North and Northeast Portland, increasingly in recent years.

Originally, “gentrification” was coined in 1964 to describe the process by which upper- and middle-class households, known otherwise as the “gentry,” renovated downtown homes and neighborhoods in low-income urban areas. This changed the social makeup of the neighborhood from working-class to the professional class (Rochester, 11). This is referred to as “first-wave gentrification,” which developed into second-wave, with even more affluent newcomers and capital investment; third-wave, in the 1990s when capital investment intensified and gentrification spread outside the city center into more disparate neighborhoods; and fourth-wave gentrification, which is the 21st century version of gentrification which both exists far outside the “urban core” in neighborhoods like Alberta and St. Johns, and also includes the construction of new housing instead of renovating old housing (Rochester, 13).

Oregon, has always been transparent about being opposed to black people living the state. It began with the Black Exclusionary laws that were meant to exclude black people from settling in the state, or owning or renting homes. Northeast Portland was one of the areas that did grant housing services to African Americans, which led to the area being heavily inhabited by people of color. Due to the rising costs of rent and housing, many people can’t afford to live in the area anymore, and are forced to move. Gentrification is the reason why Northeast Portland continuing to experience a change in racial demographics, more than any other area. As stated in the article Gentrification in Northeast Portland, "A study by Governing Magazine released in February says that out of the 50 major cities in the U.S., Portland is the most gentrified city. 58 percent of the gentrification-eligible tracts throughout the city gentrified, and nearly all of the neighborhoods eligible for gentrification in North and Northeast Portland have gentrified since 2000"(The Beacon) (Gentrification In Northeast Portland). That is not a shocking fact, knowing Oregon’s history.

Northwest Portland was originally a site of gentrification. In the 1970s and 1980s NW Portland, the neighborhood became a place for “yuppies” and upper-class professionals to live, like one newspaper report put it: “Northwest 23rd Avenue is hot. Check it out on any weekend afternoon and you will find swarms of hip-looking shoppers peering into the windows of eclectic shops with intriguing names” (Oesterle 13). But this change in wealth didn’t benefit everyone, as seen in anonymous fliers sent around the neighborhood reading, "Our actions are aimed at you, the rich, the upper class,” meant to protest the rising housing costs and renter displacement caused by the development (Oesterle 20).

Albina, once a highly segregated and low-income neighborhood, has become a high-income gentrified area with rising rents and property values in recent decades. After the Vanport flood of 1948, thousands of Black residents were left homeless as “urban renewal” projects tore down historic buildings and housing while African Americans were redlined out of housing elsewhere in the city (Ause 3). And since the 1990s, organizations like the Urban League have fought against rising rents and housing costs as the formerly working-class Black residents of Albina have been displaced by wealthy white professionals (Ause 4).

Fortunately there are many individuals and organizations dedicated to stopping further gentrification in Portland. One of them is Taking Ownership, a new local Portland organization that fights gentrification by renovating Black-owned homes. Started by Randal Wyatt (Portland musician and activist) just last year, this organization is now comprised of many people and businesses including contractors and realtors that work together to help stop gentrification in Portland. Their priority in Portland is keeping homeowners in their homes, with a focus on Black homeowners in communities that are experiencing gentrification at any stage. Enabling individuals to age in causes changes on the individual and community level. The homeowner is given the opportunity to “generate wealth and simultaneously deter predatory investors” (Taking Ownership PDX) that can swindle people out of their homes. These renovations also increase property values of the community, further raising the homeowners’s wealth invested in the home.

For thirty years Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives has been helping individuals and families find affordable housing with the ultimate goal of giving them the housing stability and tools needed to become long term homeowners. They rent out over 700 affordable housing units and provide its residents with free financial educational programs and offer matched savings accounts. PCRI also invests time into helping families become leaders with programs designed to aid them in becoming self-sufficient, and is a provider of a homeownership program that coaches renters for first-time home ownership. They are providers of countless other programs like financial wellness coaching, youth programs, and community centers. PCRI’s mission is to provide affordable housing all throughout Portland to provide basic human needs.

                                                   Literature 

           Ause, C. W. (2016). Black and Green: How Disinvestment, Displacement and Segregation Created the Conditions For Eco-Gentrification in Portland's Albina District, 1940-2015 (Unpublished master's thesis). Portland State University.

           Genemo, A. (2019). Gentrification In Northeast Portland. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28,2021, from https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/2c2b1fb54d5b495f8f59d8ff1bc75c0e.

           Gentrification Explained. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.urbandisplacement.org/gentrification-explained.

           Oesterle, S. (1994). An empirical assessment of the gentrification process in Northwest Portland, Oregon (Unpublished master's thesis).

           Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives Inc. · Meeting the Affordable Housing Needs of the Community. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://pcrihome.org/.

           Rochester, N. E. (2016). On Both Sides of the Tracks: Light Rail and Gentrification in Portland, Oregon (Unpublished master's thesis). Portland State University.

           TAKING OWNERSHIP PDX. (n.d.). Retrieved January 28, 2021, from https://takingownershippdx.com/.

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by PCRI (@pcrihome)

For thirty years Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives has been helping individuals and families find affordable housing with the ultimate goal of giving them the housing stability and tools needed to become long term homeowners. They rent out over 700 affordable housing units and provide its residents with free financial educational programs and offer matched savings accounts. This instragram post highlights how increased college debt affects Black communities disproportionately.

About. (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2021, from http://pcrihome.org/about.

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A post shared by Taking Ownership PDX, LLC (@takingownershippdx)

Taking Ownership is a new local Portland organization that aims to fight gentrification by renovating Black-owned homes. This increases the property values in these communities, enables these homeowners to stay in their homes for longer to start growing generational wealth, and deter predatory lending. Here they outline the benefits to aging in place.

TAKING OWNERSHIP PDX. (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2021, from https://takingownershippdx.com/#:~:text=ABOUT%20TAKING%20OWNERSHIP%20PDX%2C%20LLC.&text=Together%20we%20renovate%20and%20revive,to%20deflect%20the%20gentrification%20process.