Thread by @NonHumanMedia1

Bobby & Liz Fouther, shown in the same spot 60 years apart

The Portland Development Commission demolished their home at 3222 N Gantenbein Ave. Emanuel hospital built a parking lot in its place

Then Now

Bobby and Liz Fouther's childhood home

Their land and home was valued at $6,500 in 1969

Had the Portland Development Commission not demolished their home, it is estimated their property would be worth $508,876 today

Gloria Cash says her childhood home was taken through predatory real estate practices for only $10 in the early 1960s

Records show Emanuel Hospital purchased the property for $4,322 in 1965 and paid a contractor $612 to demolish the home

This why reparations must be a robust Federal program

These calculations only account for a few homes in Portland estimating the property wealth appreciation they were denied since the late 1960s

This is just the damages from one phase of "Urban Renewal"

This does not include the original redlining from the 1930s and the multigenerational effects that has on health from being exposed to a high concentration of pollutants or the loss economic opportunities

This also do not include what happend in Vanport, or any of the other numerous historic injustices that Black residents have faced in Portland

Ultimately the Federal government is responsible not just because the city or state can't afford the bill but because the Federal government was actually responsible for these "Urban Renewal" projects

The Federal Housing Act of 1949 which was expanded upon by the Housing Acts of 1954 and 1956 granted authority and funding for local communities to clear "slums" and deal with the problem of "urban blight"

"Urban Renewal" was just "Negro Removal" as James Baldwin called it