PORTLAND, Ore. — After nearly five decades, a block of dirt and dry grass in North Portland is being returned to Portland’s Black community and will become a site with over 100 affordable homes.
The Williams & Russell project looks to create 85 affordable apartments, 20 townhomes for sale and a new hub for Black-owned businesses, all on a block that the city of Portland once seized for an expansion of Legacy Emanuel Hospital that never fully emerged.
"They came in and they demolished everything with the idea that this would be developed, and it just sat vacant for five decades," said Bryson Davis, president and board chair of Williams and Russell CDC, the nonprofit behind the project.
In the 1970s, around 171 families were displaced, 74% Black, when the city of Portland condemned the blocks around the hospital. Fifty years later, at least two of the blocks sit empty, having never been developed.
The Williams & Russell project would take over the block bordered by North Williams and Vancouver Avenue and Northeast Russell and Knott Street. All of the apartments, which range from one- to three-bedroom units, plan to be designated for those earning between 30%-60% of the area median income, which is nearly $25,000 to $49,600 for a single-person household, for example.
On Friday, Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley announced $1.6 million in secured funding for the affordable housing and small business project. In total, the project has secured around $10.3 million, with over $23 million in funds pending from the Portland Housing Bureau and Prosper Portland, according to the Williams and Russell CDC website.
Longtime North Portland resident John Washington said that Legacy Health has acknowledged some injustices that occurred when the blocks were taken, and "if they could rewrite that injustice down the line, they would do so."
Construction is expected to be in three phases, starting with the townhomes in spring 2025.