PCRI Launches the Pathway 1000 Implementation Plan

Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, Inc. (PCRI) is pleased to invite the press and the community to celebrate the completion of the Pathway 1000 Implementation Plan on Tuesday, April 17th at 9:30 am the PCRI offices at 6329 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Prepared by PCRI, its partners and collaborators and informed by a participatory community engagement process, the Plan contains collaborative, inclusive and integrated goals, strategies and actions to raise and invest $300 million over the next ten years to create 1,000 affordable homes for Blacks and others displaced or in danger of displacement from North and Northeast Portland, of which 800 will be sold to new homeowners. The initiative will create hundreds of living wage jobs and spur significant business growth and development.

Formed twenty-five years ago in response to a housing crisis created by redlining and predatory lending practices, PCRI is a non-profit community development corporation with a mission to preserve, expand and manage affordable housing in the City of Portland and provide access to and advocacy for services to residents. As the executive director of PCRI for over 24 years, Maxine Fitzpatrick has been a tireless advocate for affordable housing and culturally responsive support services for households in the N/NE Portland community:

“We need only to examine promises made, and apologies received, to know what is needed is more than words containing promises and apologies can provide. Action is required…Pathway 1000 will go beyond apologies and promises. We are addressing the housing issues caused by income disparities in the City of Portland and State of Oregon. We are offering corrective measures and long-term solutions. The Plan addresses unemployment, underemployment, wage disparities and the unequal treatment that led to these disparate outcomes.”

Pathway 1000 differs from community development initiatives planned by local public agencies because it is community driven, community informed, community advocated and community built and focuses on housing stability, wealth creation through homeownership, and subsequently a reduction in poverty, specifically the generational poverty that exists in Portland’s Black community. Moreover, Pathway 1000 has intentionally developed strategies that are not reliant on deep and ongoing public funding to catalyze construction and sustain the momentum – We believe our approach can be a model for other communities in Portland and elsewhere in the country that are impacted by gentrification and displacement.

Information on Pathway 1000 is available at https://pcrihome.org/archives/category/pathway-1000.