Category Archives: housing

PCRI Executive Director, Board Members to Address KNA

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PCRI Offices on Martin Luther King Blvd

Maxine Fitzpatrick, Executive Director of Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, and at least two members of the PCRI Board plan to give a presentation to KNA at the November 10th meeting. PCRI wanted to present last month but there was not enough time to notify any neighbors who would be intereted in coming.

Ms. Fitzpatrick was interviewed by KNA communications volunteer Trace Salmon in the wake of a brawl in front of one of their housing complexes. This incident, which resulted in gunfire, brought to the forefront concerns about how invested PCRI is in a common vision of a safe and livable neighborhood. In the interview, Ms. Fitzpatrick decried the tactics of neighbors who complain about such incidents by sending emails to PCRI management and Board of Directors instead of getting to know their neighbors and dealing with issues on a personal level.

With the scrutiny on PCRI from this incident, nagging questions about their property maintenance and rental strategy were also brought to light. A number of PCRI properties have lingered vacant for long periods and maintenance items have gone neglected. Since the story in our blog PCRI staff have been cleaning graffiti from their property and assessing maintenance needs.

A PCRI Property in King

At the meeting, it should become clear whether PCRI will act in good faith to meet its mission of providing housing to the large numbers of Portlanders who cannot afford it while respecting the desire of all residents, PCRI residents included, to live in a safe and crime-free neighborhood. After concerns were sent to the PCRI Board of Directors following the gunfire, the board chair responded that he was looking into what course of action PCRI should take. Maxine Fitzpatrick said that the incident in question seemed to her to be an isolated one that didn’t require PCRI action. Whether or not there is any action PCRI could take, the response thus far has been less than reassuring.

While Ms. Fitzpatrick is accutely attuned to history of NE Portland and the systematic, discriminatory disempowerment of African Americans and other racial minorities who were denied access to capital and mortgage loans for decades, she dismisses people who have recently come to the neighborhood who have higher standards than to be tolerant of gunfire. It leaves one with the impression that Ms. Fitzpatrick thinks PCRI’s housing mission is in conflict with middle-class values. If so, affordable housing will only continue to be further stigmatized in the court of public opinion and PCRI’s mission will continue to become more difficult to meet.

Home Repair Funds Available in Interstate Urban Renewal Area

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The Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) has funding to help approximately 32 eligible homeowners in the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area (URA) through its Home Repair Loan Program. Portions of King Neighborhood from Garfield Street to the west are in the Interstate URA. The program helps modest income home owners make critical repairs to their homes. Homeowners can borrow up to $15,000. The loan program doesn’t require monthly payments or charge interest. At the beginning of the 11th year of the loan, 20 percent of the loan will be forgiven. After the 15th year, the loan will be completely forgiven.

The loan is a 0.00% deferred payment loan with an Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of 0.0012%, which results from $400 in fees PHB charges to administer each loan. PHB allows these fees to be financed. Funds must be used to make critical repairs like fixing electrical hazards, replacing leaky roofs, removing mold, repairing failing porches, and addressing other health and safety items or building code violations.

Read more at:

http://www.portlandonline.com/phb/index.cfm?c=52589

Density to Increase on Garfield

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A new development planned for the Walnut Park portion of the King Neighborhood will see dutch colonial style renovated with the yard to either side built out with new construction detached row homes or “skinny houses.” The houses will have attached garages accessed from the alley in the rear. Max Ritchie, the developer has built four homes nearby that are examples of his building style. They are located in pairs at 4724 N Commercial & 4131 N Albina. Mr. Ritchie says the homes are constructed with great care and sensitivity to direct neighbors and the neighborhood at large, and are Green certified through Earth Advantage.

The homes at NE Garfield may have a slightly different front elevation, so as to more conform to the neighborhood, and paint colors will be selected based on the surrounding homes. Extensive renovations are underway on the existing home on NE Garfield, and Mr. Ritchie says he plans to make it his personal residence.

A land use review concerning the partition of the lot is pending. You can read the notice here: http://www.portlandonline.com/bds/index.cfm?c=42260&a=321970

You can contact Max Ritchie if you have further questions at: oregonocean@gmail.com

What Style Is my House?

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Y’all come! General Meeting of the Sabin Community Association celebrating Sabin’s homes and history:

What Style Is my House? All NECN neighborhoods invited!!

When: October 18th, 2010.
Where: Sabin Elementary School Auditorium, 4013 NE 18th Avenue, Portland 97212.

6-7pm: Social hour.

Special exhibit of Sabin’s rich history of diversity and community service from the archives of Betty Walker; refreshments; Architectural Heritage Center table, with experts on weatherizing your home, researching your house, and more; excellent handouts.

7-8: Special presentation on Sabin architecture:

7-7:30: What Style Is my House? by Bosco-Milligan Foundation/Architectural Heritage Center board member Robert Jordan, as he surveys house styles common to the Portland area and the northwest. If you’ve ever wondered what style to call your home, you will find the answer in this perfect program.

7:30-8 pm: Sabin historian William Youngren presents particular houses representative of the great integrity of Sabin design.

8 pm:. Sabin business meeting.

Tonight’s timely program encourages residents to explore Sabin’s more modest but equally precious architectural heritage in light of the recent application for the Irvington Historic District. Our wonderful community builds its bright future in the context of an illustrious past that is the focus of this evening to which you are all most cordially invited.

We warmly invite our neighbors from the Alameda, Boise, Concordia, Eliot, Grant Park, Humboldt, Irvington, King, Sullivan’s Gulch, Vernon, and Woodlawn neighborhoods to join us for the social hour and the presentations. Much of what will be said is equally applicable to your fine communities. Y’all come!

Shoshana Cohen
Neighborhood Programs Manager
Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods
503-823-4570
www.necoalition.org
Shoshana@necoalition.org

PCRI: Working for a Good Cause but Neighbors Question How Successfully

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If you live in Northeast Portland, chances are that Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives is one of your neighbors. As one of the largest community development corporations in North and Northeast Portland with 700 rental houses and apartments, PCRI helps define what our neighborhood is like.

The non-profit organization was born from the housing discrimination scandals of the ‘60’s through the ‘80’s such as redlining and the abandonment of the area by traditional lenders culminating in the Dominion Capital case where aspiring homeowners were being bilked with excessive interest rates and contracts designed to prevent the accumulation equity. PCRI executive director, Maxine Fitzpatrick sat down with me to discuss PCRI’s mission, operations, and recent incidents at one of their complexes. Ms. Fitzpatrick explained how PCRI set out to keep housing in the long-term, mostly minority residents’ hands and slow the wave of displacement taking place due to gentrification:

“The Oregonian did the exposé that exposed Dominion Capital and their fraudulent practices. After that exposé they filed for bankruptcy so rather than let those 350 families that were living in those properties be displaced and the properties picked up by speculators, they formed PCRI to purchase the homes. At the time about 70 of those properties still had an active land sale contract so our goal was to work with those families to make them legitimate owners and keep the other 272 as affordable rentals because that’s what they were at the time. So that’s how we were formed—to purchase that portfolio.”

King neighborhood, once overwhelmingly African-American and mostly poor by the late ‘80’s, is now much more diverse ethnically, economically, and culturally. With diversity, often comes strain and misunderstanding. While residents generally value the improvements in the housing that has come with the influx of new, younger, residents fixing up older homes, community development corporations strive to provide the most housing for the very limited available dollars. Standards for housing construction, maintenance and upkeep, as well as resident screening and oversight are set by the CDC which has a primary mission to provide housing for the surplus of those who cannot afford market rate options. As a result, homeowners and subsidized housing residents’ dreams of living in safe and peaceful neighborhoods sometime intersect with the jarring realities of life.

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