Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated in the northwestern area of the state at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the county seat of Multnomah County, Oregon's most populous county. As of 2020, Portland's population was 652,503, making it the 26th-most populous city in the United States, the sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and the second-most populous in the Pacific Northwest, after Seattle. Approximately 2.5 million people live in the Portland metropolitan area, making it the 25th-most populous in the United States. About half of Oregon's population resides within the Portland metro area.
The Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) was a government-sponsored corporation created as part of the New Deal. The corporation was established in 1933 by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation Act under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Its purpose was to refinance home mortgages currently in default to prevent foreclosure, as well as to expand home buying opportunities.
Redlining is a discriminatory practice in which financial services are withheld from neighborhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities. Redlining has been most prominent in the United States, and has mostly been directed against African-Americans. The most common examples involve denial of credit and insurance, denial of healthcare, and the development of food deserts in minority neighborhoods.
Predatory lending refers to unethical practices conducted by lending organizations during a loan origination process that are unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent. While there are no internationally agreed legal definitions for predatory lending, a 2006 audit report from the office of inspector general of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) broadly defines predatory lending as "imposing unfair and abusive loan terms on borrowers", though "unfair" and "abusive" were not specifically defined. Though there are laws against some of the specific practices commonly identified as predatory, various federal agencies use the phrase as a catch-all term for many specific illegal activities in the loan industry. Predatory lending should not be confused with predatory mortgage servicing which is mortgage practices described by critics as unfair, deceptive, or fraudulent practices during the loan or mortgage servicing process, post loan origination.
Blockbusting was a business practice in the United States in which real estate agents and building developers convinced residents in a particular area to sell their property at below-market prices. This was achieved by fearmongering the homeowners, telling them that racial minorities would soon be moving into their neighborhoods. The blockbusters would then sell those same houses at inflated prices to black families seeking upward mobility. Blockbusting became prominent after post-World War II bans on explicitly segregationist real estate practices. By the 1980s it had mostly disappeared in the United States after changes to the law and real estate market.
St. Johns is a neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States, located in North Portland on the tip of the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia River. The iconic St. Johns Bridge crosses the Willamette from the south, leading into downtown St. Johns. It was a separate, incorporated city from 1902 until 1915, when citizens of both St. Johns and Portland voted to approve its annexation to Portland, which took effect on July 8, 1915.
Kenton is a neighborhood in the north section of Portland, Oregon, United States. The neighborhood was originally a company town founded in 1911 for the Swift Meat Packing Company.
Alberta Arts District is a commercial district in Portland, Oregon which connects the Concordia, King and Vernon neighborhoods in the Northeast quadrant of the city. The district centers on NE Alberta Street, and stretches approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km), from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to NE 33rd Avenue.
Portland, Oregon is divided into six sections: North Portland, Northeast Portland, Northwest Portland, South Portland, Southeast Portland, and Southwest Portland. There are 95 officially recognized neighborhoods, each of which is represented by a volunteer-based neighborhood association. No neighborhood associations overlap the Willamette River, but a few overlap the addressing sextants. For example, most addresses in the South Portland Neighborhood Association are South, but a portion of the neighborhood is west of SW View Point Terrace where addresses have a SW prefix. Similarly the Buckman Neighborhood Association spans both NE and SE Portland.
The Lloyd District is a primarily commercial neighborhood in the North and Northeast sections of Portland, Oregon, United States. It is named after Ralph Lloyd (1875–1953), a California rancher, oilman, and real estate developer who moved to and was an early commercial developer for the area in 1905.
Woodlawn is a neighborhood in the Northeast section of Portland, Oregon. It borders Sunderland on the north, Concordia on the east, King and Vernon on the south, and Piedmont on the west.
Mortgage discrimination or mortgage lending discrimination is the practice of banks, governments or other lending institutions denying loans to one or more groups of people primarily on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex or religion.
In the United States, housing segregation is the practice of denying African Americans and other minority groups equal access to housing through the process of misinformation, denial of realty and financing services, and racial steering. Housing policy in the United States has influenced housing segregation trends throughout history. Key legislation include the National Housing Act of 1934, the G.I. Bill, and the Fair Housing Act. Factors such as socioeconomic status, spatial assimilation, and immigration contribute to perpetuating housing segregation. The effects of housing segregation include relocation, unequal living standards, and poverty. However, there have been initiatives to combat housing segregation, such as the Section 8 housing program.
The Contract Buyers League (CBL) was a grassroots organization formed in 1968 by residents of North Lawndale, a Chicago, Illinois community. The CBL was founded in order to address the exploitative practices of predatory land contracts in African American communities. The organization played a significant role in raising awareness about the issue and advocating for fair and affordable housing rights. Assisted by Jack Macnamara, a Jesuit seminarian, and twelve white college students based at Presentation Catholic Church, led by Msgr. John "Jack" Egan, the CBL fought the discriminatory real estate practice known as “contract selling.”
Roslyn Hill, sometimes called "The Queen of Alberta Street," was one of the original developers of what became the Alberta Arts District of Portland, Oregon, starting in the early 1990s.
The history of racism in Oregon began before the territory even became a U.S. state. The topic of race was heavily discussed during the convention where the Oregon Constitution was written in 1857. In 1859, Oregon became the only state to enter the Union with a black exclusion law, although there were many other states that had tried before, especially in the Midwest. The Willamette Valley was notorious for hosting white supremacist hate groups. Discrimination and segregation were common occurrences against people of Indigenous, African, Mexican, Hawaiian, and Asian descent.
Albina is a collection of neighborhoods located in the North and Northeast sections of Portland, Oregon, United States. For most of the 20th century it was home to the majority of the city’s African American population. The area derives its name from Albina, Oregon, a historical American city that was consolidated into Portland in 1891. Albina includes the modern Portland neighborhoods of Eliot, Boise, Humboldt, Overlook, and Piedmont.
Northeast Portland is one of the six major divisions of Portland, Oregon.
The Red House eviction defense was an occupation protest at a foreclosed house on North Mississippi Avenue in the Humboldt neighborhood in the Albina district, a historically Black district of Portland, Oregon, United States.
According to the City of Portland, "In all categories, the Eastside is more racially diverse than the Westside. Hispanics are most concentrated in North Portland at nearly 15% of the population. NE Portland has the highest concentration of African Americans at 30%. The concentration of Asians in Portland are mostly within NE, SE, and outer East Portland, with a percent population of 11%, 10%, and 9% respectively. Whites are the most common race group citywide."
