PORTLAND, Oregon — On the corner of Portland's North Alberta Street and North Williams Avenue on Tuesday, community members armed with gold shovels broke ground on the future: The Strong Family Apartments.
The new 75-home affordable housing complex will give preference to applicants with historical roots in that part of Portland; people who were involuntarily displaced from it due to gentrification and racist practices. In that vein, those ceremonial shovels were also digging up part of Portland's past.
"Man! Alberta was the spot!" said Tony Hopson Sr. "It was THE street!"
Hopson would know. He grew up in that neighborhood and founded Self Enhancement Inc. The nonprofit co-owns and is developing the complex with Community Development Partners. The Strong family owned the property before selling it to the city of Portland for the project. For the Strong's, it sits at an intersection of joy and pain.
"I experienced a lot of trauma trying to save the property and hold on to it despite the fact that gentrification was happening all throughout North and Northeast Portland," Dr. Jackie Strong said.
Strong and his brother invested in the corner lot some 30 years ago, a time when gentrification was pushing out many Black property owners. As a kid, Strong remembers a city of Portland housing inspector who would post red tags on homes owned by people of color. That often lead to steep fines that owners couldn't pay, which opened the door for developers to buy the homes at a discount.
"I think about the thousands of dollars and manpower hours that my brother and I had to spend to be able to save these properties," said Strong. "I think about the redlining that happened to us in this community where the banks would not give us money so we could fix the properties up so we could keep them."
Now, money from Metro's voter-approved affordable housing bond will help fund The Strong Family Apartments.
"The history that was talked about, the family connections, it's really rich," said Metro Council member Mary Nolan. "It's what the voters voted for when they said, 'Let's let communities take care of their own.'"
For Hopson, Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony felt like a full circle moment for his neighborhood.
"We now have the ability to be a part of going back, but just a little bit, to what it was," he said.