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Three Central City Concern mixed-use projects now under way in Portland may not be dazzling examples of engineering or construction, but they’re already making an impression.

The Blackburn Building, the Stark Street Apartments and Charlotte B. Rutherford Place 鈥� all part of the Housing Is Health initiative 鈥� are expected to help get homeless individuals into housing units and provide health care resources to people without insurance.

鈥淚 think this one’s different, in that it’s going to be a real service to the community,鈥� said Brian Ames, a project engineer with Walsh Construction, the general contractor for the six-story Blackburn Building at East Burnside Street and 122nd Avenue. 鈥淚t’s definitely something that we need right now with the housing crisis, and we’re providing housing and a critical need to people who really need it.鈥�

The Blackburn Building is the flagship of 鈥� a unique effort that has received a total of $21.5 million in financial support from nonprofit organization CareOregon and five major hospitals (Adventist Health-Portland, Kaiser Permanente Northwest, Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Science University and Providence Health & Services-Oregon). An additional $9 million for the initiative is coming from the Portland Housing Bureau, and private fundraising efforts will supplement investments.

All told, Housing Is Health this year alone will provide local low-income residents with 382 new housing units, along with health care and other facilities.

Besides 186 housing units, the Blackburn Building will have a health care clinic, a pharmacy and commercial space. Central City Concern, which runs 23 other facilities around the Portland area, will provide on-site support including services focusing on employment, addiction recovery and mental health treatment.

Ground was broken last year on all three projects. The Stark Street Apartments will be a 153-unit complex at the corner of Southeast Stark Street and 127th Avenue, and Charlotte B. Rutherford Place will be a 51-unit complex on North Interstate Avenue.

Recognizing substantial needs

Sean Hubert, Central City Concern’s chief housing and strategy officer, said the nonprofit has been engaged with a range of health systems in the Portland area since the early 2000s. In 2007, it established at its Old Town clinic on Burnside Street a recuperative care program that pairs houseless persons with housing and social services needed to return them to work.

鈥淲e put them in housing and stabilize them and give them primary care and help them resolve their acute health conditions,鈥� he said.

The program, in turn, allowed the types of partnerships, Hubert said, that have resulted in initiatives like Housing Is Health.

鈥淎t this point we have聽a decade’s worth of data showing the reduction of recidivism and emergency room admission rates,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e’re finding housing stability and a standard of care for that population, and all that was already enabled when we started talking about these projects.鈥�

The other factor driving development of Housing Is Health is the ongoing lack of affordable housing. Coupled with increasingly expensive rents in the metro area, it has turned out to be a time bomb for persons with substance abuse or other acute health issues.

Even hospitals accustomed to handing out hotel vouchers to patients without homes began to feel the pinch when their own employees began to struggle with the same issue.

鈥淢ore generally, housing was on their radar,鈥� Hubert said.

Central City Concern has operated transitional housing for decades now. But these days, that process is not nearly as cost-effective as it once was.

鈥淚t worked well when rent is $600 or $700 a month,鈥� Hubert said. 鈥淏ut now, at $1,400 a month, that really has had an impact on our partner organizations’ ability to leverage that. The amount of people we could serve was declining and the hospitals were seeing the results of that.鈥�

Busy building affordable units

At the $52 million Blackburn Building project site, concrete support columns extend upward two stories from ground level as the elevator shaft and other superstructure features take shape. The building’s bottom two stories will be reinforced concrete post-tension decks, while the upper four stories will be wood-framed, Ames said.

The location next to TriMet‘s 122nd Avenue MAX light-rail platform also is ideal for the target population. Coincidentally, most of TriMet’s blue line platforms are being renovated by California-based Stacy & Witbeck at present.

鈥淭his whole corridor is now zoned for high-density residential, and you’ll see a lot of that continue to change, as it already has along Burnside,鈥� Ames said. 鈥淚t should be a big face-lift for this area.鈥�

Just around the corner from the Blackburn Building, crews of framers swarm over the wooden skeleton of the Stark Street Apartments. Consisting of two primary wings, the $29.9 million complex was designed by Ankrom Moisan Architects. Central City Concern expects tenants to come from the immediate neighborhood, while rents will range from just $412 up to $995 per month depending on household income. There will be playground amenities for children and at least 88 solar panels.

TEAM Construction of Vancouver, Washington, is the general contractor for the project. Senior Project Manager Mack Thames said the company has a track record of working on similar projects benefiting low-income residents.

鈥淲e do a lot of projects with REACH (Community Development),鈥� Thames said, in reference to the Portland nonprofit affordable housing development and property management company. 鈥淏ut this is our first one in recent memory with Central City (Concern). We certainly work with the Vancouver Housing Authority and with Catholic Charities, so we do a fair amount on the nonprofit side.鈥�

Thames showed off the four-story complex, which will feature 91 one-bedroom and 62 two-bedroom apartments. The design provides for interlocking fields of view and communal courtyards and playground spaces. The main feature will be an exterior elevator that allows residents to access either side of the south building via a sky-bridge. Exterior walkways will be built on each floor in other recessed courtyard areas, providing residents with an unusual overhead perspective.

Meanwhile, the $9.9 million, 51-unit Charlotte B. Rutherford Place complex in North Portland is on track to finish first 鈥� possibly by the end of the year.

鈥淭his will be the first time where we really brought our clinical services together with our housing in the same project,鈥� Hubert said. 鈥淭his is very exciting for us. It allows us to take all of our knowledge and put it into one projects, and to design the best model of care from a client’s perspective.鈥�