[Above: Brianna Williams at age 10, in the 2002 film "NorthEast Passage" and at age 27 in the sequel "Priced Out." See what happened to the Williams family after the neighborhood experienced 15 years of gentrification.]
Complexities of Gentrification: "Black Families Didn't Want to Live Here"
Documentary gets working title: PRICED OUT: 15 Years of Gentrification in North/Northeast Portland
The Portland gentrification documentary project that began filming in March of 2015 now has a working title – Priced Out: 15 Years of Gentrification in North/Northeast Portland. Nearly 15 years have passed since the release of Northeast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream, a documentary focused on gentrification and affordable housing in the then mostly black neighborhoods of Portland, Ore. Change has been stark.
WATCH: NorthEast Passage on Amazon Streaming
Cornelius Swart, an established reporter and Spencer Wolf are partnering once again on the production. The original film centers around Nikki Williams, a single black mother who welcomed gentrification at the time as a means to rid her street of flagrant crime. Now, most of the black and low-income community has been out-priced from Northeast Portland. Williams herself is leaving.
Priced Out will combine some of the original project’s 125 hours of footage with new material, retracing the journey of Williams and the neighborhood, creating a time lapse illustrating Northeast Portland’s rapid and extensive development. They intend to make the finished project free for distribution and released in fall of 2015. The filmmakers are launching a Kickstarter campaign for the film with a goal of $10,000. Early contributions are essential, the more people who contribute on Day One, even in very small amounts, the greater the publicity from Kickstarter.
“Priced Out” Wants to Raise 30 Percent of Kickstarter Funds on Wednesday
In “Priced Out,” Nikki Williams, the focus of original film, leaves Portland in search of a new black community.
We’re all set to launch our Kickstarter campaign this Wednesday, July 22, and we have to raise 30 percent of our goal on the very first day.
Priced Out: 15 Years of Gentrification in North/Northeast Portland is the sequel to our 2002 film NorthEast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream.
Read the review of the original film in the Willamette Week: HERE
I started filming in March of this year, doing everything out of pocket and on a shoestring budget. Co-producer Spencer Wolf and I hope to raise $10,000 with Kickstarter. That money would go to pay off equipment loans and give us the ability to hire some folks to help out. Wolf and I intend to volunteer our time as much as possible.
The trick will be raising at least $3,350 on the very first day. Kickstarter likes to see projects raise a third of their money on day one. If they do, it’s more likely that Kickstarter will promote the project on its own website and network.
Either way, we’ve got 30 days to raise all the funds. If we fall short, all the money goes back to the funders. It’s all or nothing with Kickstarter. Wolf and I are keeping our fingers crossed.
Read more about the project: HERE
If you haven’t already, please sign up for our email updates. We’ll send you a note when we launch. If you get it, please pass it along.
Now the countdown begins.
Looking for early commitments to Kickstarter campaign
Below is the letter I just emailed out to a few hundred folks I know. Even though I’ve been filming and reporting for the documentary for weeks, I have yet to launch the fundraising campaign for the project.
When I do, I hope the Kickstarter funds will be enough to repay equipment and labor expenses.
As I’ve said, the project is aimed at a local audience and I want to eventually make it available for free. So raising a Kickstarter fund is the best way to go about it. If it’s successful, I won’t have to worry so much about making money off of a theatrical release of the film or through a distribution deal, as we did with the first film.
Hope you can make a contributions. Let me know if I can put you down for a few bucks. Email me at cornelius.rex@gmail.com
Here’s the letter:
Hi there,
If you are receiving this email, it’s because you are interested in the subject of gentrification in North/Northeast Portland or know Cornelius Swart (that’s me.)
I’m currently producing a sequel to my 2002 documentary on gentrification and affordable housing.
I’m about to launch a Kickstarter campaign to help defray the costs of the production and I was hoping you would be willing to make an early commitment to donate to the production.
To make a successful Kickstarter campaign will be key. I’m looking to raise $10,000 to pay for equipment and labor. Kickstarter, an Internet service, allows you to crowdsource a project through hundreds of very small contributions.
A Kickstarter campaign usually needs to raise 30 percent of its total funding on the very first day. I’m asking a handful of people if they can commit to making a small contribution on the day we launch (in about 2 weeks).
If you can make a pledge from $5 to $50, send me a note at cornelius.rex@gmail.com and I can plan out my campaign. Early contributors will be eligible for donation rewards ranging from tickets to screenings of the work in progress to an ironic T-shirt (of course).
Northeast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream was a critically acclaimed and prescient documentary that showed what life was like in the black neighborhoods of North and Northeast Portland in the late 1990s as gentrification was making early inroads into the neighborhood.
Now, almost 15 years after the film was shot, Governing Magazine has ranked Portland as the “Most Gentrified City in America.” The black communities of North/Northeast Portland have gone from being a majority black to majority white. Rents are climbing, homes are being replaced with apartment blocks, and the word “gentrification” is on everyone’s lips.
The new film, working title Northeast Passage 2, will reconnect with the residents and activists featured in the first film to see what’s happened to the neighborhood and find out what will happen next as the community continues to struggle with its identity and its place in the American Dream.
Please consider giving to this important project [contributions are not tax deductible]. You can sign up for more updates and news here. More about the project here.
Oregon Affordable Housing Bill Might Not Help Portland’s Gentrifying Neighborhoods
Construction this Spring along North Williams Avenue at Mason, where three new multifamily building are in various phases of development.
An affordable housing bill in the Oregon legislature might not have much immediate impact in Portland’s gentrifying neighborhoods.
Even if it passed tomorrow, a new bill allowing the city to create affordable housing units in new multi-family developments would have little impact in fast-gentrifying communities because it wouldn’t impact renters in the market.
LINK: Monday April 27- Inclusionary Zoning Workshop in SE Portland
House Bill 2564 would allow cities in Oregon to create “inclusionary zoning” laws. Cities could get affordable housing built in new developments by waiving certain fees, permits and building restrictions in exchange for the inclusion of below-market units. While advocates see the bill as a major potential victory for affordable housing, HB 2564 would only impact condo developments, or housing units for sale.
Right now, affordable housing can only be created when an entity, like a government agency or nonprofit, can afford to financially subsidize the unit with cash or tax credits.
On Thursday Peter Wong reported that HB 2564 moved from the House to the Senate. The Oregon legislature banned local municipalities from enacting inclusionary zoning laws in 1999. This was during the filming of our original documentary Northeast Passage. At the time, affordable housing advocates saw the ban as a preemptive move by the homebuilder’s lobby, and pushed for Portland to enact an inclusionary zoning law of its own.
WATCH: Original Documentary Available on Amazon Streaming
Oregon and Texas are the only two states with such bans.
Inclusionary zoning is currently used in over 100 cities across the country, including Boston, SF, Denver and San Diego, according to the Chicago-based public policy think tank Business and Professional People for the Public Interest. That said, even if advocates can overturn the 1999 ban, which seems possible given the overwhelming strength of liberals in the statehouse, HB 2564 might not bring immediate relief to renters.
For example, on the rapidly gentrifying North Williams Avenue, once the heart of the state’s African American community, almost all of the new high-end housing is rental.
LINK: Sequel to 2002 Gentrification Documentary
New rentals on Williams Avenue can fetch as much as $2,300 a month for a two bedroom. All the while, the black community has shrunk to less than half of its size as former residents of the North and Northeast Portland get priced out of the area.
Still, the bill represents big progress in breaking an affordable housing policy log jam that has existed in Oregon for a decade and a half.
“HB2564 is critical legislation in our anti-gentrification work because it creates a path to affordable homeownership for first time buyers who currently can’t break into this market,”said Jessica Larson, director of the Welcome Home Coalition.“There are over 1,000 mortgage-approved families who have completed homeownership programs and are waiting to buy their first home but can’t find any homes left in their neighborhoods that they can afford.”
Larson said that while the bill doesn’t impact renter, “indirectly, I believe HB2546 will have a positive impact on affordable rentals by lightening up pressure on the market.”
Larson said there was a long way to go and her own organization is launching a campaign to create stable funding for affordable housing across the region.
This Monday there will be an inclusionary zoning workshop at the offices of the Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Coalition at 7 p.m.
The event drew an overwhelming response when it was announced on the coalition’s Facebook page. Over 100 people are expected to attend.
“I think people are feeling the pinch of not being able to find places to live,” said Katy Asher with Southeast Uplift. “We’re excited even if it’s (HB 2564) not what everyone wants.” The Welcome Home Coalition will be launching their campaign with a kickoff event on April 29th at El Centro Milagro.
Work begins on new gentrification documentary in Portland
Work has begun on a follow-up to the 2002 documentary on gentrification and affordable housing in the black neighborhoods of Portland, Ore., Northeast Passage: The Inner City and the American Dream, which was released at a time when gentrification was only a marginal issue.
Since then, Portland has propelled itself in the national imagination as a place that attracts hordes of creative young people. It’s also become the whitest major city in the country, according to The Oregonian. Portland’s African American community, once centered in North and Northeast Portland, has been dispersed to the fringes of the metro area as new, wealthier whites have moved into the area.
Nikki Williams, an African American woman and focus of the original documentary, has thrown up her hands. She is selling her home in North Portland and moving to Texas in hopes of connecting with black community there.