Mamook Tokatee, located in the Cully neighborhood, is an affordable housing development operated by The Native American Youth and Family Center. Credit: Photo by Melanie Henshaw
On Nov. 20, 2024, FPI management, began filing a series of notices against tenants of Mamook Tokatee, totaling 11 cases at the time of publication.
Native American Youth and Family Center, or NAYA provides numerous services for Native Americans in the Portland area, including housing. FPI manages the Mamook Tokatee building itself.
Mamook Tokatee is a tribal and artist preference project that was developed between 2019 and 2022, according to NAYA’s website. The building is one of three projects developed in the Cully neighborhood between 2017 and 2022. Together, the three buildings provide 165 affordable housing units, all close to NAYA’s campus, according to the site.
All notices at Mamook Tokatee were due to nonpayment of rent, according to court records.
Tenants and Don’t Evict PDX, or DEPDX, a local coalition working to prevent Portland evictions, suspect bad faith management. Their suspicions stem from residents’ experiences, court documents and other financial reports.
DEPDX says Mamook Tokatee tenants’ nonpayment of rent is due to various factors, such as negligent record-keeping and property management’s failure to apply rental assistance to tenants’ balances.
Street Roots has covered DEPDX in the past. The coalition works to prevent evictions and habitually keeps track of eviction court cases. DEPDX is run for tenants, by tenants, against evictors, according to their website. They define evictors as people holding structural power in the eviction process, such as landlords, police officers, judges and lawyers who represent landlords.
The organization came to be involved when they saw members from Mamook Tokatee posting on social media about evictions, according to co-founding member of DEPDX Cecilia Powers. It rang a bell with other DEPDX members who had noticed many evictions coming from NAYA, according to Powers. NAYA does not issue eviction notices, but they are issued by the property management company FPI.
“A trusted friend of one of our members knew someone who was trying to help their relatives at MT and asked if they could connect them with us because they knew about our practice and expertise in eviction defense,” Powers said.
On Feb. 10, residents of the building also staged a protest outside, holding signs that read “Stop the evictions. Keep Natives housed” and “Stop unjust eviction.”
NAYA and Community Development Partners, or CDP, are co-owners of the property. Representatives from both entities said they are willing to work with residents to resolve non-payment of rent and want to work to avoid evicting tenants if possible.
DEPDX drafted an initial statement outlining tenant complaints. The complaints range from failure to apply rent assistance to tenants’ balances to unresponsive management to insensitivity to cultural practices.
Among these complaints is that NAYA changed property management companies during a timeframe that aligns with the initiation of the non-payment notices, according to sources from both NAYA and DEPDX. FPI Management is the current property management company, taking over from Viridian as of spring of 2023. Holly Benelli, CDP senior asset manager, said the change was initiated when Viridian, based in Eastern Oregon, decided to take itself out of the Portland market. In other words, it was not a decision made by NAYA, according to Benelli.
NAYA says the notices are fair. Tenants claim otherwise.
Tenant experiences
Richard Scott is one Mamook Tokatee tenant who received a notice but could provide a complete rent payment record.
Scott, who is not currently facing an eviction, said he has received three notices of nonpayment of rent since the new management took over.
The first one was received roughly a year ago, indicating he owed a month’s full rent, according to Scott.
“Which was not factual at all,” Scott said. “And I was able to produce the receipts necessary to show them that I did, in fact, pay things.”
But then it happened again six months later. Scott was notified that he was short of funds when he said he had clearly paid. At that point, Scott went to the office and insisted that the manager photocopy all of his records and put them in his file, he told Street Roots.
A poster left at Mamook Tokatee threatening tenants with eviction if they propped doors open.
Then, in January of this year, Scott received a third notice.
“At that point, I got livid,” he said.
Scott then spent nearly three hours crafting a letter that he sent to FPI’s local and regional management, the main office of Mamook Tokatee and NAYA management.
He said this got some results, and the FPI portfolio manager, Lindsey Pykonen, was held accountable.
Since then, Scott has not received any additional notices, he said.
The same is not true for Buzz Berry, another tenant.
Berry has had several problems with management since moving in a few years ago. A disabled veteran, Berry relies on Section 8 vouchers for housing and always pays his rent on time, he said.
His biggest problem came when his Section 8 funding was canceled after the previous building manager, who wasn’t keeping sound track of his records, was fired. After a new manager was hired, Berry found out from the new manager that he had been terminated two years ago from the program.
Berry said he suspects the old manager took his Section 8 housing vouchers and never gave them to the new management so they could be re-submitted to the local Housing Authority for approval.
NAYA’s side
Non-payment notices are “meant to create a dialogue between the residents and our housing staff, our resident services staff and property management company to come up with a plan to resolve this,” Oscar Arana, NAYA CEO, said.
Arana also said he couldn’t speak to any individual’s circumstances because of tenant privacy.
He did, however, speak in general terms.
“I think that there’s challenges in terms of, even though these are subsidized units, and even though they’re considered more affordable, sometimes the rents are still out of reach for some of the residents that are living here,” Arana said.
Arana would not specifically address issues with the transition in property management companies and how they might pertain to tenant rent issues.
“We’re aware that some of these requests may not be getting addressed as quickly as our residents would want, as quickly as our residents deserve, and as quickly as we would want them to be addressed,” Arana said. “Those are industry-level challenges.”
Pykonen declined an interview or official comment, stating an interest in upholding residents’ privacy.
Other records
Other records show that what’s happening at NAYA may not be a simple miscommunication from new management.
At a Nov. 8, 2024 gala event, NAYA raised over $800,000 for wraparound services, according to its website. These funds could easily be used to support tenants facing evictions, according to DEPDX.
“We follow a process that ensures we are in compliance with Fair Housing regulations,” NAYA director of development and communications Ann Takamoto said. “Again, we can’t comment on specific situations in order to maintain privacy for our residents.”
Additional records show staggered court dates for Mamook Tokatee tenants facing eviction. Staggered court dates indicate a desire on the part of management to reduce the likelihood of tenants gathering to organize, according to DEPDX’s experience.
Neither FPI nor the attorneys have control over the court dates, according to Benelli.
“It is possible that people could be at different phases in the eviction process,” Benelli said.
Yet more records indicate substantial fees for the lawyer involved in the eviction process. One record indicates the landlord spent more than $1,000 on legal fees for an eviction case.
Mamook Tokatee tenants began appearing in eviction court in early February and will continue to do so through March, according to court records.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated which entity issued the eviction notices at Mamook Tokatee. Street Roots regrets this error.
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