Blanchet House, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, has begun the demolition of the Yamaguchi Hotel, a historic but vacant and decaying building in Portland, OR. Located at the corner of Northwest 4th Avenue and Glisan Street, the 130 year-old former mixed-use hotel is slated to become a health clinic for people experiencing homelessness and housing units for low-income women.

According to OPB, Portland’s Japantown neighborhood has a history of over 300 businesses, schools and churches of Japanese Americans that were forced to live there due to racism and redlining. In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which authorized the removal of all people of Japanese ancestry, effectively gutting Japantown.

The history explains why there has been years of pushback on the Yamaguchi Hotel demolition, but Blanchet House has agreed to preserve and restore some elements of the building, and incorporate them into the new facility.

Photo courtesy of Oregon Historical Society