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At the new location of Kenton Women’s Village, a collection of tiny homes for homeless women, space is waiting to be filled.

On April 5, representatives of teams building 21 new modular homes will unveil their creations. Thirteen of them will be chosen for installation at Kenton Women’s Village, while the remaining eight will go to another site overseen by Catholic Charities.

The Pod Build Challenge is being led by Andersen Construction to help populate the village at 2420 N. Columbia Blvd.

鈥淲e are still fleshing out some of the competition details,鈥� Maddy Stolowitz, director of philanthropy for the Andersen Construction Foundation, the main sponsor of the Pod Build Challenge, said last month. 鈥淏ut I’m hoping that we can ask some of the women from the village to be the judges.鈥�

Recently, a 鈥淏uild Out Event鈥� took place. Professional Women in Building teamed with the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland to help roof four of the new modular homes at the Mods PDX warehouse in North Portland.

鈥淭his is just a way for the residential building community to come together and give back to the community doing what they already know how to do,鈥� said Brenda Ketah, executive director of the Home Builders Foundation, a Portland nonprofit dedicated to building new housing for the homeless. 鈥淪o they are leveraging their relationships by getting donated labor and materials.鈥�

The contractors building those four homes in partnership are Stephens Homes and Legend Homes.聽Other contractors involved in the roofing effort included BC Homes and Elite Development.听贰惫别苍 Integrity Insurance and Bonding, a company that specializes in representing contractors, had staff volunteers involved.

ABC Roofing, Columbia Roofing and Sheet Metal and Bliss Roofing each sent a group of employees to help roof the new modular homes. Metal panels were donated by Taylor Metal.

鈥淚t just felt like a good opportunity for (National) Women in Roofing to partner with Professional Women in Building to provide temporary housing for homeless women,鈥� said Stephanie Baird, general manager of Clackamas-based Bliss Roofing and co-chairwoman of the Oregon chapter of the National Women in Roofing. 鈥淚t just felt like full circle to me.鈥�

The new homes being built are next-generation models in both design and construction.

鈥淪everal architecture firms around town came together, so there are three pod designs that were randomly given to the builders,鈥� Ketah said. 鈥淭here’s a little bit of a variation in the village and they won’t all look exactly the same, but they’re all put together using best practices based on what has and has not worked at the previous Kenton Women’s Village.鈥�

The original Kenton Women’s Village, at 2221 N. Argyle St., was intended to be temporary. The community, sponsored by Catholic Charities, was built on property that is now being developed by nonprofit Reach Community Development Corporation. Ground was broken there in January on a three-building, 189-unit affordable housing project designed by MWA Architects and scheduled for completion in spring 2020.

Kenton Women’s Village homebuilders:

Andersen Construction
Associated General Contractors’ Oregon-Columbia chapter
BC Custom Homes
Bremik Construction (sponsoring Constructing Hope)
Builders FirstSource
DR Horton
Legend Homes (sponsoring Professional Women in Building)
LMC Construction
O’Neill/Walsh Community Builders
P&C Construction
R&H Construction
The ReBuilding Center
Skanska USA Building
Stephens Homes (sponsoring Professional Women in Building)
Turner Construction