Update: This story has been updated to correct inaccurate information provided by Rigler Elementary School.

Olga Castillo and her 10-year-old daughter Evelyn Ku-Castillo cried when they got the news in December.

A letter from a property manager they didn't recognize told them their family's rent will more than double from $600 per month to $1,250 per month in April.

The Ku-Castillos fear they will have to move out of their northeast Portland apartment building, where they celebrate Christmas each year with their extended Mexican family. It's where Eric Ku comes home each weeknight at 11 p.m. after working two kitchen jobs to pay the rent and where pencil marks on a bedroom door document Ku-Castillo and her three younger siblings growth over the past seven years.

"I'll be lonely if I move," Ku-Castillo told her mother. Her aunt and uncle live in the building. Her cousins live nearby. Most of her family and friends attend Rigler Elementary School.

The Ku-Castillos are among about 18 families and 26 Rigler Elementary School students who will be forced to find another place to live due to the rent increase at the Normandy Apartments on NE Killingsworth, according to interviews with families and advocacy groups and the notice letter obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Rent prices are set to increase April 1. As a result, many families will have to leave their homes before the school year ends, said Noelle Studer-Spevak, president of Rigler Elementary School's parent teacher association. The planned evictions were first reported by Willamette Week.

"Kids are struggling in school anyway," Studer-Spevak said. "When they have to leave and they get displaced, it sets them back."

This is especially true at Rigler, where many Spanish-speaking students rely on the school's dual-language immersion program, Studer-Spevak said.

Real estate property owner CPE Killingsworth bought the 18-unit building in December for $2 million dollars, double the amount the previous owner paid for it nine years earlier, according to property records. Manager Ira Virden did not respond to calls and an email request for comment.

First Class Property Management sent the notice to tenants telling them their rent would increase. The company is following the owner's instructions to improve the "poor condition" of the property, said Tom Minnaert, owner of the property management company.

"We weren't raising the rent just to raise the rent," Minnaert said. "They need to be fixed up."

Minnaert encouraged families concerned about the rent increases to contact his company. The property manager hopes to work with families to help them stay and would even consider looking for subsidy options, he said.

"Our goal is not to have people move out," Minnaert said. "We need to qualify them and see what their living situation is. Our goal is to keep people living there as much as we can."

Portland does not regulate or track eviction notices and rent increases, said Portland Housing Bureau Director Kurt Creager.

"The city does not presently stipulate landlords be licensed by or register with the city per se," Creager told the Oregonian/OregonLive in a text. "If tenants raise a concern through legal services or Community Alliance of Tenants, then we are informed."

However, a housing ordinance proposed by Commissioner Chloe Eudaly and Mayor Ted Wheeler on Tuesday would require landlords that raise rent by 10 percent or more in one year to help pay tenants' relocation costs. Wheeler also proposed a resolution Tuesday that would waive fees for certain affordable housing developments.

"The most important thing right now is that people who are in the highest risk of being priced out and moved out are able to stay in their current housing situation," Wheeler said.

--Jessica Floum

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