Portland Community Reinvestment
Initiatives (PCRI)

 

Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives (PCRI) was formed in 1990 as a long-term solution to a housing crisis of growing number of vacant, neglected, and plummeting values of housing properties in North and Northeast neighborhoods of Portland. This circumstance was a result of years of redlining by financial institutions that left families unable to secure conventional mortgages. Hundreds of families were forced to leave the house, people, and community that they grew up in. Neighborhood and government leaders were determined to turn this around by establishing PCRI with a goal of acquiring endangered homes, help families secure conventional mortgages to buy them back, and retain long-term affordable rentals.

Today, PCRI tackles new challenges – gentrification and displacement. PCRI works to preserve, expand, and manage affordable housing in Portland so that their residents can achieve family stability, self-sufficiency, and resident wealth creation.

PCRI established Pathway 1000 as a displacement mitigation initiative with a goal of producing strategic and implementation plans to develop 1,000 new, affordable homes in ten years. The project focuses on preserving, maintaining, and reversing displacement in North and Northeast Portland, especially for the African-American community who has most heavily borne the impact of gentrification and displacement. Through this project, PCRI is working towards restoring housing justice for those who are harmed, using homeownership as a stabilizing solution to ensure that low-income families experiences stability, safety, and dignity that a home provides.

Each completed house will be a great opportunity for some family that has been displaced so that they’d be able to come back.

— Cameo Whitney, Property Manager

As Pathway 1000 grows, PCRI also continues to grow their partnerships with community organizations to enhance services to ensure stability and success for residents and community members. Beneficial State is proud to partner with PCRI in financing the construction of homes as part of their Pathway 1000 initiative and continue working with them to address gentrification and displacement issues.