Runaway Train 2: Meet the Winners

Plaintiffs will split the recent $8.5 City Council Albina "settlement." Their federal lawsuit, now moot, will never face cross-examination. But questions remain.

The dogs bark; the caravan moves on. The city council’s gift of $8.5 million to people related, often vaguely, to families bought out in the Emanuel Hospital urban renewal fiasco decades ago—no, make that “ethnic cleansing of Albina”—will be getting their checks soon, thanks to the prodding of Councilor Loretta Smith. (Who now owns the title of Queen of Race Resentment and Reparations.)

The city had other better things to do, such as marching around with signs and trashing the ICE HQ, so the giveaway was quickly forgotten. Which—as always—left all kinds of fascinating bits ‘n’ pieces on the plate. Let’s take a nibble, if we dare…

What was the real cost?

Assuming the one private law firm¹ in the platoon of “Emanuel Displaced Persons Association” litigators doesn’t cream off the standard 33-percent of the settlement, the council’s money-bomb pencils out to $326,923.08 per person.²

Unfortunately, the big settlement only paid off a tiny percentage³ of the families who were bought out in the ill-fated hospital expansion. (Why they weren’t included in the lawsuit is a fascinating question.⁴)

At least 156 other individuals were bought out by the city back in the bad old days. So, based on what the city dropped on the Albina 26, that pencils out to a total exposure of $51-million.⁵ And that’s just for one rather small urban renewal project: South Auditorium and Mt. Hood freeway and I-405 survivors are waiting in the wings, summoned by councilor Sameer Kanal, readying their “deprived of intergenerational wealth” arguments.

What happened to the houses?

The lucky 25 (one plaintiff was the group’s association) were grouped into 14 families in the 54-page federal suit, each family described in lengthy, novelistic chapters full of touching personal anecdotes (which a skeptical lawyer might term “hearsay”), each concluding with an estimate (no source given, typical of the suit’s allegations) of what their demolished houses would be worth as of 2021. (The suit was first filed in 2022, Portland’s annus horribilis.)

But here’s what the suit left unsaid: each family was given the appraised value of their houses, plus up to $15,000 (substantial money 60 years ago), plus moving expenses and other fees, plus assistance by the Portland Development Commission (PDC) workers in finding replacement housing.

They bought another house. In many cases without spending a cent of their own money.

No one was rendered homeless. No one, as the suit alleges, had to flee to another state.

Those houses—like any other in Portland—gained value as the city matured from a corrupt, dingy nowhere to a city attracting people, jobs, cute restaurants, “weirdness,” and money.

This is the central fact left unsaid in the federal suit. While the complaint mentions what the Albina homes would be worth today, there is no mention—none—of what happened to the value of the houses that the Albina 26 moved into with the financial help of the PDC.

It’s significant that there is only one “replacement” house still occupied by a plaintiff. And that house (see below) has ridden the escalator to a current, stratospheric value.

Which undercuts another basic premise: that for six decades, each of the families would have remained in Albina, never selling, never moving into different neighborhoods as the city integrated and blacks moved from menial jobs to, well…a position with enough cloout to stampede a city council.

In this corner, the winnahs!

In all, the plaintiffs are: 12 children, six grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, and four great-nephews/nieces. Each is said to be “harmed by the defendant’s actions and inactions.”

The families fall into two chapters in the complaint, since the hospital was making deals with residents before it became a city project.⁶ Those first families are not part of a massive city archive that preserves every scrap of paper, down to handwritten field-notes, generated by the city’s role in the project.

The first tranche contains some of the suit’s most lurid accusations, part of the argument that this really wasn’t for the benefit of the hospital (and the people it served) but an excuse to ethnically cleanse the city’s black neighborhood.⁷

Whether the allegations can be independently supported is another question. That’s because Emanuel Hospital has settled the lawsuit with the platoon of public-interest law firms and its terms are now marked “confidential.”

The Campbell Family – 523 N. Knott

Plaintiff Gloria Campbell-Cash, daughter of Ivy and Lillian Campbell, joined by brothers Isaac Campbell and Izeal Campbell, charges…

In 1963, under intimidation and threats from Emanuel, the Campbells were forced to sell their interest in the property to a real estate agent for a mere $10, thereby relinquishing all of the home equity that they had worked hard to build over the preceding 12 years.

The suit doesn’t cite any county records or mention the name of the “agent.”

The Davis Family – 319 and 320 N. Monroe

Plaintiffs Marilyn Hasan and Rosie Taylor’s parents, Hanson and Willie C. Davis, owned a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house with an unfinished basement.

Says the suit…

Although her parents did not discuss “grownup issues” with the children, Ms. Taylor knows that her parents were not fairly compensated for their home’s worth.

The McCauley Family – 106 N. Graham

Plaintiff Valda McCauley was the granddaughter of Amanda Warren, who owned a house at 106 N. Graham. Ms. McCauley and her mother and siblings lived with her grandmother “for about four years.”

Another curious bit of claiming damages…

The youngest three McCauley children were bussed to an all-white school in Portland’s southwest suburbs, and her grandmother worked as a house cleaner for rich white people.

The Fouther/Williams Family – 3222 N. Gantenbein

Plaintiff Elizabeth Fouther-Branch’s great-aunt was Della Mae Williams, who...

Around 1949, the Williams deeded the home to their daughter Gertrude and son-in-law Arvoll Rae. After Mr. Rae went into real estate and bought another house, the Williams deeded their home to the next generation, intending to maintain control and ownership within the family with each subsequent generation.

…and…

Growing up, Ms. Fouther-Branch and her brother Bobby spent time at Great-Aunt Della Mae’s house daily, visiting on most weekends and throughout the summer…

…without establishing that Ms. Fouther-Branch (and co-plaintiff Bobby) had any ownership interest in the house beyond visiting it.

The Morris Family – 253 N. Fargo

Plaintiffs Alicia Byrd and Brian Morris are grandchildren of Esther Morris…

When rumors of the demolitions began to swirl, Ms. Morris moved away before her house was taken, leaving a daughter and the daughter’s family to rent the house.

The suit mentions that Brian Morris…

…recalls moving with his mother from his grandmother’s home into a rental property on N. Going that was in poor condition. His mother had to join the military because of this displacement, and he eventually moved in with relatives in California.

Since the transaction was with Emanuel—and Emanuel settled with the EDPA separately (and confidentially)—there is no record of what the family was paid.

Phase Two: “The City and PDC Step Out of the Shadows…”

These families are part of the city archive containing photocopies of every scrap of paper generated by the Portland Development Commission (PDC). Thumbing through the records is almost like following the plotline of a Kafkaesque novel: federal regulations, complex forms, bureaucrats, and puzzled homeowners.

The Bowles Family – 223 N. Cook

Plaintiffs Joanne Bowles-Spires, her brother, Claude Bowles, and sister Mary Bowles Shoals’s…

…grandparents, Evie and Pearlie Mae Bowles, moved to the predominantly Black neighborhood of Central Albina in 1951, where they finally felt settled and at home. The Bowles used their home to assist others relocating from the Deep South in search of a brighter future. They wanted to own their home so that their children would have somewhere to go and something to look forward to when they were older.

Claude Bowles recalls his grandfather Evie Bowles often instructing him…

…to “hold on to this house,” because his sisters might marry a man who did not appreciate them, and they may need somewhere to go. But the family ended up moving to a different neighborhood….the house to which the family relocated was approximately 900 square feet, had an unfinished, leaking basement, and was in worse condition.

The new house, located on NE 12th Ave, was, indeed, 900 square feet. (Their old house was listed at 682 square feet.) They bought it for $12,500. As for the leaking basement, a city of Portland inspector noted in his report that…

The hot water tank lacks an ASME-approved pressure relief valve and drainpipe.

The sales agreement lists an electric range, living room carpet, all drapes and a new water heater, “at no extra cost.”

The PDC paid the Bowles $6,500 for their old Albina house; but to that was added:

• A relocation payment of $400

• Reimbursement for moving expenses, $260

• And an RHP (Replacement Housing Payment) of $6,800.

…which means a back-of-the envelope calculation shows the family made $1,460 on the deal.

There’s no record in the suit of how long the Bowles family held the 1948 house, which still stands (with no major exterior alterations) with a new owner…

Portland Maps’s only recorded sale since records went online in 2019 was for $482,000 in 2021.

The Smith Family – 222 N. Cook

We told the saga of Plaintiff Karen Smith here, in part one. Yet another echo of the suit’s position on whites pops up in…

They were forcefully relocated to a predominantly white neighborhood in the early 1970s…

Ms. Smith was among the early leaders of the Emanuel Displaced Persons Association, and yet—even taking the suit’s estimates at face value—Ms. Smith made out well: Had the Smiths remained in Albina, the suit claims, their old house would now be worth $445,943.77 as of 2021.

The county assessor’s records indicate that, in 2024, the replacement house (purchased with federal compensation funds) had a Real Market Value of $606,550.

This is the only replacement house occupied by a plaintiff; the suit offers no accounting of how long plaintiffs remained in their other government-financed “equivalent” houses and what they sold those houses for over the years.

The Marshall Family – 2740 N. Vancouver and 247 N. Fargo

Plaintiff Donna Marshall’s parents, Louie Edison Jr. and Beatrice Green Marshall, owned houses on N. Vancouver and around the corner, where they ran a family carpentry business called L&J Marshall Brothers.

In the suit, Ms. Marshall recalls…

We did not want to move, but we had no choice. PDC was forcing us out, and there were no resources left. Pharaoh’s army was behind us, and the Red Sea was in front of us.

A PDC memo on April 14, 1974,notes…

This was a most difficult relocation. At the onset, clients refused assistance, believed they were discriminated against because of race origin during an offer to purchase a dwelling and made an appeal. They refused PDC offer to purchase their dwelling. In the Emanuel site, property was acquired by court judgment….After much delay and lack of cooperation on client’s part, they did receive a maximum RHP of $15,000 toward purchase of their replacement dwelling.

The transaction generated a flood of paper…

…and a reference to an unexplained civil rights beef between the Marshalls and the seller of their relocation property in the Northeast, which led to PDC officials writing off rent charged to the Marshalls for remaining in their old house while the hassles were resolved. ⁸

That property, as it turned out, was last purchased in 2016 for $320,000. Its current Real Market value: $513,950. The lawsuit claims…

The estimated value of the N. Fargo house was $333,354.31 as of April 2021.

The Skipper Family – 3103 N. Vancouver

Plaintiffs Rahsaan Muhammad and his cousin, Royal Harris’s great-aunt and great-uncle, Alberdia and General Skipper, owned a home at 3103 N. Vancouver. The suit alleges…

Although the Skippers had no biological children of their own, multiple generations of younger family members, including the eldest child of Mr. Muhammad’s grandmother, had resided at their home before Emanuel acquired and demolished it….

The Skippers—by then two retirees raising a four-year-old niece as their child—were able to purchase a new house only after supplementing the money from the forced, undervalued sale of their N. Vancouver home with their personal savings.”

Here’s what’s in the archive:

The Skippers bought the 774 square foot house in 1956. There’s no record in the suit of the original purchase price. The PDC’s “market value data” gave a value of the home at the time of the city’s purchase of $3,170; however, the PDC paid the Skippers $6,500 plus $8494 for replacement; total of $14,994, plus assorted moving expenses. The family’s replacement house cost $14,500.

Here’s how PDC worker Chet Daniels summed up the transaction in 1971…

Went by Mr. Skippers to deliver their moving payment. They went on and on about how we had performed In their behalf. They had nothing but praise for the way things went and I was proud to have been able to be of service to these people. They were forthright and honest In their desire for a home. What they said they wanted in the beginning held true throughout. Very nice people, very understanding, only needed someone to explain the program.

The Mack Family – 2732 N. Kerby

Plaintiff Connie Mack is the only child of Ferrell A. Mack and Vashti C. Mack, who owned a home at 2732 N. Kerby. Her son, Travante Franklin was also a plaintiff. According to the suit…

The demolition of their family home forced Mr. Mack to use his G.I. loan to help pay for a house in a white neighborhood thirteen miles away.

The suit doesn’t mention (nor do PDC records) what the Macks paid for their house originally. The city acquired it for $12,000, then added a replacement payment of $15,000 (the federal limit at the time).

The Macks found another home for sale on NE 70th Ave; price $33,950. It had a living/dining room, kitchen, five bedrooms, fireplace, finished basement with pool table. It was one of three houses the city had found for the family’s consideration.

Negotiations, as recorded in the archive, were lengthy—and contentious. The FHA appraised the new house at $34,000, whereupon the record says the Macks demanded that the owner lower the price by $500. That didn’t go down well with the sellers. According to the PDC worker’s notes…

The owner and his wife had recently installed an electrical filter unit for $700; they had paid $500 in closing costs; and they might have to pay points on the Macks’ GI loan. He requested that I explain this to the Macks in a pleasant manner…

There were more last minute issues: Mr. Mack delayed applying for the GI loan; there was a hangup over $325 that Macks hadn’t paid for closing costs; another last-minute surprise that the Macks hadn’t signed the paperwork releasing their old house, causing the PDC advisor to dash to a courtroom to keep the deal alive.

The suit claims the old house would be worth $554,627 in 2021. The replacement house now has an assessor’s value of $640,310.

The Garnett Family – 529 N. Monroe

Plaintiff Beverly Hunter’s parents, Albert L. and Annie Garnett, owned a house on N. Monroe St…

In 1971, defendants forced the Garnetts from their family home and then demolished it, shattering the symbol of success that Ms. Hunter’s parents had laboriously built and scattering the members of a once tightly bonded family.”

…and…

Ms. Hunter never thought something like that would happen, and to date, things have never been the same for the family.

The city acquired the house in 1971, after the Garnetts made a plea for the PDC to consider that “our house is not typical of houses in the Portland area…” and listed improvements they’d made, including more bedrooms and a basement apartment, along with a hand-drawn blueprint…

.

The PDC’s Ben Webb agreed and in a memo to his bosses said…

The house is very nice, 15 years old, three bedrooms, full cement basement with finished party room….We must work this out on a comparable basis.

…and…

The neighborhood to which the Garnetts want to move is a good, old, and very stable neighborhood. Houses are seldom for sale there. In our judgment, the house that they have selected is the most representative of the three homes…for sale at the time that the Garnetts were looking.

Case closed. The replacement house, for which the Garnetts paid (with PDC settlement money) $28,950 now has a market value of $716,780.

The Burns Family – 3233 N. Vancouver

Plaintiff Juanita Biggs is the granddaughter of Ecker and Mabel Burns, who owned a house located on N. Vancouver Ave.

The acquisition payment for the old house was $6250; the replacement house payment was $13,900, plus a “differential payment” of $6,650, plus a “relocation payment” of $260, and a “dislocation allowance” of $200.

According to the PDC notes…

Visited with Mrs. Burns and family to discuss signing of option. She wanted [her children] to understand what she was signing. She was satisfied but wanted them to give their blessings. They were very pleased and satisfied with what Mrs. Burns had done up to now, and agreed that she should go ahead and sign.

After Mrs. Burns moved into the new house on Junior St., and despite a city of Portland inspection that found no issues with the property, she discovered a roof leak. The PDC picked up the tab for a new roof for $400.

The house sold for $51,000 in 2002; its market value is now $519,520.

The Hepburn Family – 410-412 N. Knott

Plaintiff Mike Hepburn’s grandparents, Donald and Elizabeth Hepburn, owned a duplex property and, says the suit…

…the family was kicked out by defendants’ abuse of the powers of urban renewal and eminent domain, and they received zero compensation.

Unless the archived notes—and there are scads—are forgeries, the suit’s claim is untrue.

Records indicate the Hepburns got $8500 for their 1902 house, plus the full replacement payment (RHP) of $15,000, plus $500 moving expenses. They bought a replacement house on 22d Ave. for $27,000.

Mrs. Hepburn was a tough case, as PDC worker Betty Burns noted in January 1971…

As file will reflect, Mrs. Hepburn has used a great deal of many persons time in finding a home suitable to her wishes. She seems to have a distrust of most everyone and is difficult in that she keeps changing her mind and breaking appointments.

A note for the file in September noted that PDC staff had located and proposed ten possible houses for purchase…

Mrs. Hepburn had not started to look.

A year later, January 1972, the file notes…

Mrs. Hepburn signed the earnest money offer, also the claim forms for the RHP in the amount of $15,000 and $500 moving cost and dislocation allowance. Client is not too courteous to PDC Staff who have assisted her; however, she seems cooperative at this point.

The house last sold in 2022 for $1,160,000.

Says the lawsuit…

Today, only the willow tree stands on this still-vacant property. Mr. Hepburn lives in Portland as a renter and has never owned a home of his own.

The Denson Family – 3316 N. Gantenbein

There are a number of plaintiffs in this final case: Plaintiff Barbara Dumas is the granddaughter of Jewel Denson; plaintiff LaKeesha Dumas⁹ is Barbara Dumas’ daughter and the great-granddaughter of Jewel Denson. Plaintiff James Smith Sr. and plaintiff Clifford Tyrone Dumas are Barbara Dumas’ sons.

Says the suit…

Despite Ms. Denson’s wish and efforts to secure a stable future for her family, both the Denson family home and business were tragically lost to and destroyed by defendants, leading Jewel Denson to eventually relocate to Texas.

There was a problem with dealing with Mrs. Denson, as PDC notes from July, 1971 indicate:

Mrs. Denson now lives in property that is owned by her son, Wilbur Denson. Wilbur is now in prison. Mr. Stark is to check out the title situation.

PDC workers shopped around for a house with enough bedrooms to continue Mrs. Denson’s rooming house business; and finally—after sorting out the title—hit on a house on 15th Ave. with five bedrooms. In the end, the PDC paid out $13,900 in acquisition and replacement funds, plus $500 in a dislocation and moving allowance that covered the $13,900 cost of the new house.

The suit adds that LaKeesha Dumas…

…is just learning her family history and the pivotal role that her great-grandmother played in supporting Black families newly arrived in Portland. The recent revelations of her family history highlight the damage caused by defendants’ destruction and erasure of Central Albina…

As for the property that the PDC helped Mrs. Denson buy, it now has a market value of $589,700.

The Emanuel Hospital expansion flamed out when the Congress killed the act that was going to pay for it. It was just as dead as the proposed Mt. Hood freeway that had already started cutting a swath along Powell Bvd—1400 homes and businesses condemned. The city-boosters built a soulless bunch of high rises on the literal ashes of the South Auditorium’s Jewish and Italian communities.

So what sets 26 plaintiffs aside from the thousands damaged in various ways by the urban renewal era?

To ask is to answer, as they say in legal circles.

1. That would be Albies, Stark & Guerriero, LLC, whose website says, “…all of our clients have two things in common: they've been disempowered, and they feel they have to do something about it (even if they’re not sure what).”

2. Which we’d be willing to bet is less than what the “equivalent” replacement houses, largely financed by the feds, would be worth…assuming that any of the litigants had held on to them until now. Only one family member did; that replacement house is now estimated by the county assessor to have a real market value of $606,550.

3. 16.6-percent.

4. …which has to do with a disagreement with another nonprofit trolling to recreate the Albina neighborhood—a long and twisted tale for another time. There are three different nonprofit groups dining on the bones of the neighborhood. More tussles are sure to follow, now that the EDPA has two properties it may want to develop.

5. By contrast, the $23 million reduction in the Parks bureau budget sent the council’s socialist caucus into a tizzy.

6. The lawyers came up with a clever attack: “Phase One (from the late 1950s until the late 1960s) involved Emanuel, acting with the then-unknown sanction of the City and PDC, intimidating people into leaving their homes, which were destroyed one at a time.”

7. Please don’t think about this, because it means that the racist, conniving city would almost certainly have had to move black residents into white neighborhoods. Which it did and even defended some black purchasers from white resistance. The lawsuit hints, heavily, that this was a disservice to the black families. This reminds one of the old arguments for segregation: that it’s really a way to protect blacks from whites and ensure that their “community” will never be broken up. .

8. In every case of white owners balking, the PDC applied pressure to allow blacks to purchase their choice of houses.

9. According to colleague Pam Fitzsimmons, “She and Lakayana Drury were the first co-chairs of the Portland Committee for Community-Engaged Policing. She was gone after about a year.”