‘Red house’ family reaches deal with city; barricades coming down in North Portland – By Shane Dixon Kavanaugh and Catalina Gaitán (The Oregonian/OregonLive) / Dec 13 2020
Barricades that had blocked a stretch of North Mississippi Avenue were slowly coming down Sunday afternoon after a Black and Indigenous family fighting to save their North Portland house lost to foreclosure struck a tentative deal with city officials.
Activists on Sunday put out a call on Twitter asking for people to return to what’s become known as the “red house” and help clear the street, saying police had agreed not to force the family to leave while those negotiations were ongoing — so long as the street was cleared by Monday night.
Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office said that, under a deal reached late Saturday, the streets and sidewalks near the house would be cleared. There was no indication of an agreement in place to sell the home back to the Kinney family, its owners of more than six decades.
In a letter addressed to the Kinney family that was released to The Oregonian/OregonLive, Wheeler and Police Chief Chuck Lovell apologized for statements the two leaders had made earlier in the week. In one series of posts on Twitter, Wheeler referred to the encampment as an “autonomous zone” and said police were authorized to use “all lawful means” to end the occupation of the house and street.
