PORTLAND — The owner of the apartment building near the North Portland home that served as flashpoint late last year in the gentrification and racial justice movement has sued the owners of the empty lot next to the house.
Ken Vonderach’s lawsuit filed Thursday alleges that the lot is a nuisance that has been transformed into a “major homeless encampment and staging ground for people to trespass” on Vonderach’s property.
Vonderach, who lives outside of Denver, owns the Roux apartment building adjacent to the so-called red house on Mississippi Avenue. He also owns the Ellis apartment building across the street.
His suit names brothers Colin and Bryan McLean, owners of the 7,200-square-foot corner lot adjacent to the red house.
Bryan McLean said Thursday that their company is proceeding with plans to donate the lot to Self Enhancement Inc., a prominent nonprofit that has long served the area’s African American youth and families.
“We are trying to do everything we can to problem solve,” he said.
The brothers bought the lot eight years ago through their company referencing their initials, BCMC Albina. The nearly $1 million property was the site of two homes that were long ago torn down and is now zoned for commercial mixed use.
The lawsuit alleges that the people staying on the lot “continue to harass” Vonderach’s tenants and managers.
They have “brandished weapons threatening” tenants in the apartment building next to the red house, vandalized the building and created “significant health and safety problems,” the suit claims.
People living in the lot have “created an eyesore,” the suit states.
“Defendant has been aware of the action alleged above but has done nothing to stop this wrongful conduct and otherwise remove the occupants from the Defendant’s property and stop them from causing damage to Plaintiffs’ properties,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit seeks $6 million in damages.
Vonderach this week told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the empty lot — not the red house next door — is the focus of his concern.
The Kinneys, a Black and Indigenous family, lived in the house for generations before losing the home to foreclosure in 2018.
Protesters decrying Portland’s history of systemic racism and housing discrimination began camping outside the home several months ago to prevent the family from being forced to leave, even though they haven’t owned the home for two years.
The situation came to a head in December when Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies moved to enforce a court-ordered eviction.
Police, faced with a large and volatile crowd, fell back after making several arrests. People who gathered built barricades that closed off several blocks.
Activists stacked wooden boards, nail-studded spike strips, tires and other materials around their protest site, then dismantled the blockade six days later after the Kinneys struck a tentative deal with city officials.
More than a month later, the house remains boarded up and the path to the front door is blocked with a tangle of wire and rope. A Moorish sovereign flag, representing a fringe belief system embraced by adherents who profess they are above the law, flies from the house.
On a recent day this week, tents and tarps were up in the rear of the property. A man and dog played in the empty lot. A woman stocked a community fridge along the edge of the empty lot with carrots.
Signs were posted at the property announcing the “red house eviction defense” and offering “warm vegan food” for anyone “except cops.”
At one point in December, the real estate investor who bought the house through a foreclosure sale in 2018 said he had offered to sell the property back to the Kinneys at cost. One fundraiser alone raised more than $300,000 on the Kinney family’s behalf.
However, the status of the house is unclear. An email sent to the online address for activists supporting the Kinneys was not returned late Thursday. The investor and owner, Roman Ozeruga, did not respond to a text message from The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Vonderach said he spoke with Ozeruga’s brother Edward on Wednesday. He said Ozeruga told him that he has not heard from the Kinney family, representatives for the family or the mayor’s office regarding selling the house back to the family.
Bryan McLean, owner of the empty lot, said he had not read the lawsuit. He said he and his brother “have done everything reasonable that we can under the circumstances.”
He said they have on three occasions had trash cleared from the parcel. He said neighbors have asked for the land to be cleared of debris.
He said the deal to donate the lot is going to be taken up by the directors of Self Enhancement Inc. on Friday and is expected to be finalized soon.
“Meanwhile, we are trying to do everything that we can,” he said. “It’s a very sensitive situation.
“We are trying to do the right thing,” said McLean, who said he grew up in North and Northeast Portland.
Meanwhile, Vonderach said Mayor Ted Wheeler and the Portland Police Bureau have effectively abandoned the neighborhood and walked away from the wide range of problems that have persisted since the barricades came down.
He and neighbors surrounding the area said the property has become an entrenched homeless camp.
Multiple neighbors, who declined to be identified out of fear for their personal safety, said they continue to be harassed by people staying on the property and at the red house.
One frustrated neighbor said the city has offered no timelines to resolve the situation and has failed to come up with a “clear plan” since the barricades came down.
“Every conversation we have with the city basically consist of them apologizing, admitting something should have been done months ago, acknowledging that people’s health and safety is in danger, then pointing the finger and saying they don’t have the authority or resources to resolve this,” the resident said in a text message to The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Vonderach said police have told him they won’t respond to calls to the lot.
“They’re all afraid,” he said. “The people on those lots are heavily fortified and this is what the police are telling us. They have ammunitions, they have weapons and they have no reason not to use them.”
Vonderach said police have told him that they worry if they “try to go in and do a removal of these people, there will be loss of life and it will either be police or protesters.”
Portland police did not respond to an email late Thursday seeking comment.
Reached late Thursday, Jim Middaugh, a spokesman for Wheeler, said he had not seen the lawsuit and was not prepared to comment.
Vonderach said residents and his tenants are on their own.
“They have put it back on the residents of that neighborhood in essence because they’re not going to act,” he said. “They told us they’re not going to act.”
