PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — A few dozen descendants of a historically Black Portland neighborhood who had their homes seized and demolished under threat of eminent domain are set to get a $2 million payout and some land back as part of a proposed settlement in a civil rights lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed in 2022 by the Oregon Law Center on behalf of 26 Black plaintiffs whose families owned property in the Albina neighborhood near Legacy Emanuel Medical Center and were displaced by racist policies starting in the late 1950s into the 1970s.
It alleges that the city of Portland and its economic branch, Prosper Portland, conspired with Legacy to expand the hospital by forcing hundreds of Black families from the neighborhood, demolishing their homes under the guise of urban renewal. The lawsuit claims the Black homeowners were not justly compensated for the value of the homes they were forced from and lost millions in generational wealth as a result…