The Albina neighborhood where the Kinney house sits became a Black enclave only after a devastating flood of the Columbia River in 1948 destroyed a housing project built for Black military workers. Most of Mr. Kinney’s family is Black; his mother, Julie Metcalf Kinney, is from the Upper Skagit Tribe of Washington State. Mr. Kinney said his parents took out a mortgage to pay legal fees when he was arrested and sent to prison following a fatal car crash in 2002. The family stopped paying and put the money into an escrow account, Mr. Kinney said, until the confusion could be sorted out. Mr. Kinney said he and his parents believed that the mortgage lender and investment company wanted them out of the house in order to redevelop the property — part of a general move, protesters said, to edge out the neighborhood’s older Black families.

Source: New York Times December 11, 2020 00:49 UTC