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The Urban League of Portland received an eviction notice Wednesday afternoon from the landlord of the building that has served for decades as the nonprofit’s headquarters.
Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, the nonprofit organization that owns the building at 10 N Russell St., wrote in the eviction notice that Urban League must vacate the building entirely by March 1.
“The purpose of this correspondence is to notify Tenant that Landlord hereby terminates Tenant’s month-to-month tenancy of the Premises...effective March 1, 2026,” wrote Ryan Hall, an attorney from Miller Nash who represents PCRI. “This letter also constitutes notice to Tenant of Landlord’s intent to file a forcible entry and detainer complaint that seeks to return the legal right of possession of the Premises to Landlord, unless the parties can reach agreement on the terms of a voluntary surrender agreement.”
The eviction letter follows what has become an increasingly public fight between the two nonprofits, both of which primarily serve Black Portlanders, over the condition and ownership of the building. The feud bubbled into public view last month when Urban League declared that the office building was in such disrepair that it had ceased providing any services from inside it and had moved all of its employees out.
Urban League placed the blame at the feet of PCRI.
“After four decades of uninterrupted services, that continuity came to an end in 2025 when the building became uninhabitable due to severe disrepair,” said Urban League’s general counsel, Mike Schmidt, at a brunch in January.
Urban League owned the building from 1985 to the early 2000s, when it fell on hard financial times. PCRI agreed in 2006 to bail out Urban League by buying the building and renting office space back to the nonprofit so it could maintain its headquarters in the Albina neighborhood where it provided many of its services. For the next 20 years, PCRI and Urban League maintained that setup. For the past few years, unable to reach an extended lease agreement, the two nonprofits have operated on a month-by-month agreement.
However, a misunderstanding between the two nonprofits over what exactly they agreed to in the handshake deal in 2006 became a point of contention in recent years. Urban League says it was always its understanding that PCRI would sell the building back to Urban League once the organization regained its financial footing; PCRI disagrees with that, saying there was never any agreement for a sale back to the original owner, though PCRI’s general counsel, Ernest Warren, told WW last month that PCRI’s former executive director was hopeful that one day the transfer would happen. (The two nonprofits engaged in sales talks but ultimately failed to broker a deal. The two nonprofits disagree on basic facts about the nature of those discussions.)
Now, PCRI has said it intends to evict Urban League entirely.
Schmidt sent an email to Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the Portland City Council on Thursday afternoon urging it to step in to stop what Schmidt wrote was a “retaliatory” move by PCRI.
“In direct retaliation for shining a public light on the state of Urban Plaza—a building supported by $1.5 million in city loan dollars to PCRI—the Urban League has been served with a notice of eviction,” Schmidt wrote. “The irony is sharp and unmistakable. An organization that was once formed to combat gentrification in North and Northeast Portland has now given Portland’s oldest civil rights organization until the end of Black History Month to vacate the home we have occupied for decades. This is not an abstraction. This is what systemic racism looks like in practice—quiet, procedural, and devastatingly effective."
Schmidt asked city elected officials to do something, saying it was a “public failure” that PCRI no longer housed low-income tenants in the 24 apartments that sit atop the office building. (PCRI previously told WW that all previous tenants were moved into other PCRI homes.)
“This is not a private dispute. It is a public failure with public consequences,” Schmidt added. “The question before you is simple and unavoidable: Will you take action and use your leverage to preserve a historic and iconic home for civil rights in Portland? Or will you allow public dollars to reward neglect and retaliation?”
PCRI general counsel Warren declined to comment on the eviction notice. He wrote that it would be “unethical to comment upon pending litigation and against client confidences and secrets.”
“Attorneys try cases in the courts,” Warren wrote, “and not the media.”
