ABOUT PDX HOUSING SOLIDARITY PROJECT
Organizing to redistribute wealth to Black and Indigenous first-time homebuyers
We are a collective of Portland-based activists and organizers working to redistribute wealth and privilege to interrupt racialized disparities in homeownership and inequitable cycles of intergenerational wealth. According to Oregon Housing and Community Services, 67% of white Oregonians own homes, compared to 36% of Black Oregonians and 48% of American Indian or Alaska Native Oregonians. And according to the Portland Housing Bureau’s State of Housing Report, homeownership is not affordable in any neighborhood in Portland for the average Black or Native American household.
Homeownership and intergenerational wealth are closely linked. Consider: Have you benefited from the rising cost of real estate? Did you have access to intergenerational wealth or relatives who supported you to buy a home? Do you benefit annually from the home mortgage interest deduction on your taxes? Have you inherited money based on your family’s racial or economic access to homeownership? If so, we invite you to consider redistribution!
WHAT WE DO
Community Building
We build community to interrupt racialized disparities in homeownership through education and resource sharing. We seek to fill gaps in our collective knowledge about the racialized history of homeownership in Portland and about how intergenerational wealth benefits many white first-time homebuyers. We also build community to share resources and strategies for redistributing wealth, an act that defies status quo financial advice.
Check out our recorded and upcoming events.
REDISTRIBUTION OPPORTUNITIES
We connect people with financial privilege to redistribution opportunities in support of Black and Indigenous homeownership.
We know that many people interested in acts of reparations, rematriation, and wealth redistribution aren’t sure where to start. Join our listserv to receive bimonthly emails featuring opportunities such as financially supporting a family’s downpayment funds, relieving an individual’s debt to support their mortgage readiness, and other creative home-buying mutual aid.
Resource Navigation
We serve as resource navigators for Black and Indigenous first-time homebuyers.
Our volunteers work with Black and Indigenous first-time homebuyers, at their direction, to develop and implement creative home-buying strategies that meet their needs and goals. We connect homebuyers with redistributors through PDX Housing Solidarity Project – for downpayment funds, debt relief, direct home sales, and more – and also help them navigate other homebuying processes such as federal downpayment grants, mortgage lenders, and realtors. Email us if you’re interested in learning more.
OUR PRINCIPLES
We believe in the need for personal reparations through mutual aid and rematriation.
We believe in individual actions as a step towards systemic change.
We believe decision-making power should lie with Black and Indigenous communities.
SEE IT IN ACTION
OUR FOUNDING STORY: TRANSFERRING A HOME TO BLACK OWNERSHIP
Randal Wyatt, Founder and Executive Director of Taking Ownership PDX, was renting a crummy apartment when he started the organization in July of 2020. But that changed just a few months after the birth of his community- and reparation-based program when Annie Moss reached out to him with inquiries about how to transfer their home in the historically Black neighborhood of Albina (which is now gentrified) to a Black family. Annie explains why they transferred their home to Randal Wyatt and gifted him almost a half a million dollars in equity in this interview.
REDISTRIBUTING PROFITS FROM AN ALBINA HOME
Hear about one PDX Housing Solidarity Member’s motivation and experience redistributing 50% of the profits from the sale of his home. Tommy and his family sold their home in Albina when they moved to Portugal, and they committed to redistributing profits directly to BIPOC individuals buying homes, in addition to organizations focused on housing and racial justice. Tommy and his family were able to support 3 families and give over $100,000 total.
IN THE NEWS
GRASSROOTS GROUPS ARE DOING SMALL-SCALE REPARATIONS IN THE ABSENCE OF FEDERAL ACTION
Journalist Nayanika Guha interviews a Black first-time homebuyer supported by PDX Housing Solidarity Project, and positions our work alongside other grassroots organizations and cities facilitating reparations.
WEST COAST SOJOURN
A four-part series in which Donnell Alexander explores the possibilities of housing reparations via the PDX Housing Solidarity Project. Through written content and video interviews, this series offers an opportunity to hear the stories of homebuyers, redistributors, and co-organizers of this work.
OUR PROCESS
We strive for fairness and also refrain from having unnecessary or rigid rules that could preclude us from fully adhering to our mission and values. We update these guidelines as we learn and evolve.
How We Manage the Homebuyer Waitlist and Redistributions
People are added to the list in the order in which they contacted us.
We work with people once they are on the list, making ourselves available as we’re able to answer questions, recommend resources, make introductions, join them in meetings, do research, etc. We strongly encourage people to seek public resources such as DPAs (down payment assistance grants), apply for bank-specific programs, tribe-specific resources, IDAs (Individual Development Accounts / matching savings programs), etc., as this enables us to redistribute to more people sooner.
We invite redistributors to send resources to specific homebuyers once they reach the top list. We encourage homebuyers to wait to receive redistributions until they have all the other available resources (DPAs, IDAs, bank-specific grants, etc.) in place, since we’ve found that “filling the gap” resonates with redistributors and typically leads to faster and larger redistributions; but it’s up to the homebuyer who reaches the top of the list to decide when to proceed or pass the opportunity to someone down the list.
We consider seeking redistributor resources for people who are farther down the list if they are in an urgent situation (for example, a unique off-market sale or needing to flee domestic violence).
If a homebuyer’s redistribution goal isn’t met after six months, the organizers meet to decide the best course of action, taking into consideration the homebuyer’s needs, feedback from redistributors about their capacities, and the needs of other potential homebuyers. Typically, we’ll seek to move to the next homebuyer on the list after six months from the original redistribution opportunity notice. If we move to the next homebuyer before the current homebuyer’s goal is met, we will do what we can to continue to support that homebuyer in other ways (for example, assisting them in accessing other resources).
OUR PARTNERS
