Project name: Francis + Clare Place

Location: Portland

Completion: September 2024

Size: 35,844 square feet

Owner/Developer: Catholic Charities

Architect: Holst Architecture

Engineers: Valar Consulting Engineering, Vega Civil Engineering, O’Neill Construction Group

General Contractor: O’Neill Walsh Community Builders

Submitting Company: Walsh Construction

Other Key Associates: Caritas Housing/Catholic Charities of Oregon, Cascadia Health, Edlen & Co., Guardian Property Management, Home Forward, Joint Office of Homeless Services, Native American Rehabilitation Association, Portland Clean Energy Fund, Portland Housing Bureau, St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church

Subcontractors: Academy Specialties, Ambrose Glass, American Heating, Andres Landscape, Asbestos Abatement Contracting, Axiom Roofing Oregon, Bridgeport Interiors, Brothers Construction, Brown’s Architectural Sheetmetal, Bryker Enterprises, Builders Appliance Supply, Burgener’s Woodworking, Central City Concern, Christenson Electric, Civic Construction, Compaction and Recycling Equipment, Contemporary Visions Signs & Wayfinding, Elemental Energy, Grant Painting, Hillebrand Construction, Interior Technology, Kodiak Pacific Construction, Kone, Lanz Cabinet Shop, Lauzon Contracting, Mid-Valley Glass & Millwork, MLS Interiors, Northstar CG, Northwest Millwork, O’Neill Construction Group, PARCA Floors, Pioneer Waterproofing, Precision Countertops, RDF Builders, Tikka Masonry, Triad Fire Protection, Ultra Quiet Floors, Vale Insulation Group, VPI Quality Windows, Zion Metal Work,

Francis + Clare Place, a new 61-unit supportive housing development in Portland’s Central Eastside, is working to redefine the transition out of homelessness by combining stable housing with extensive wraparound services.

The development provides permanent homes for adults with complex physical and behavioral health challenges, featuring 54 studios and seven one-bedroom apartments. All units receive rent subsidies through Project-Based Section 8 vouchers.

Francis + Clare Place serves households who may face challenges finding and maintaining stable housing in the private rental market. The project aims to help residents settle into a stable and comfortable home they can call their own. What distinguishes the development is its comprehensive approach to ending homelessness. The ground floor houses offices for supportive services and property management, along with a food pantry, bike room and community room that serves as a gathering space with a communal kitchen.

Catholic Charities partnered with Native American Rehabilitation Association (NARA), which specializes in culturally-specific recovery services, and Cascadia Health, which focuses on behavioral health. Together, the organizations provide case management, housing stabilization and peer support.

The new building goes beyond giving people a room. Residents have direct access to case managers who provide one-on-one support and connect them to outside resources. Through donations from local organizations and funding from the Joint Office of Homeless Services, Catholic Charities provides residents access to healthy food, clothing, household supplies, hygiene products and other necessities.

Community activities are central to the project’s mission. The communal area hosts daily events including morning coffee gatherings, bingo, movie nights, open mics, arts and crafts, and potluck dinners.

The building’s design incorporates trauma-informed elements featuring ample light, clear wayfinding, soothing colors and connections to nature. All residents are referred through Multnomah County’s Coordinated Access system.

Catholic Charities used Portland Clean Energy Fund dollars to install heat pumps and a photovoltaic solar array to ensure energy efficiency and eliminate electrical billing for residents. Each unit includes air conditioning.

The L-shaped building maximizes units on the tight site, which was purchased from St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. The project complements the adjacent public courtyard and St. Francis Park Apartments, also developed by Catholic Charities.

To enhance on-site safety and improve operational efficiency on the jobsite, Walsh Construction developed a proprietary AI-powered chatbot app specifically for the construction field. This tool offered instant, real-time answers to safety-related questions.

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Construction crews have broken ground in Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood on a 110-unit affordable housing development. Cathedral Village will house low and very low-income families as well as people either chronically homeless or at risk of homelessness.

The four-story building is being erected on a 1.2-acre lot at 8614 N. Crawford St. The site is within walking distance of Cathedral Park, grocery stores and retail outlets.

Related Northwest and Catholic Charities of Oregon are co-owners of the project. MWA Architects is the architect, and LMC Construction is the contractor.

The building will hold one-, two-, and three-bedroom units ranging from 384 square feet to 1,051 square feet. It will also feature a community room with a kitchen, a shared laundry, a teen room, a courtyard with a barbecue area, a “tot lot” with a garden for children, and bicycle parking.

The building’s exterior will be a brick skin with metal cladding; an art installation will be added to the panels facing Crawford Street. The building’s other side will have views of the St. Johns Bridge.

“I think it’ll be a handsome building when done,” said Stef Kondor, vice president of development at Related Northwest.

The location was selected as part of an effort to ensure there are affordable housing opportunities throughout the city, said Travis Phillips, director of community development and housing at Catholic Charities.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit midway through the design phase, Phillips said, and main elements had already been established. The design team then looked at how to make sure residents would be able to both live and work in their units.

“I think that (need for individual space) elevated this year with the pandemic – the fact that more people are spending more time in their individual spaces,” he said.

Many meetings took place, Phillips said, concerning whether a cabinet would be installed in one place, or shelving units would go in another.

Affordable housing units often have limited storage space in individual rooms, Kondor said. A big initiative, she added, was to make sure each unit would have enough pantry and linen storage.

Team members also spent a long time configuring the community spaces, Kondor said. Wi-Fi was included in all of those spaces to make them more inviting and able to facilitate children’s schoolwork.

Catholic Charities will provide residential services and support within the building. It was important for those spaces to be placed near the community ones, Phillips said, in order to encourage face-to-face interactions between staffers and tenants.

A point of emphasis for Kondor, she said, was location of building entry and exit points allowing high visibility to ensure security. The design team used a crime-prevention-through-environmental-design model to make sure residents would feel safe. Landscape and lighting were given special attention. There will be no hidden corners, and security cameras will be placed in all common areas, Kondor said.

The aim of the support services within the building is to help people adjust to living inside if they’ve been homeless. Staffers also will help tenants understand the health care coverage system and how to navigate it.

With Cathedral Park hosting one of the longest-running jazz festivals west of the Mississippi River, music is an integral part of the St. Johns neighborhood, Kondor said. The project team wanted that to be reflected in Cathedral Village with a music room. It’s also working with a local high school to provide an after-school music program for children.

The development’s estimated cost is $37.7 million. Funding is coming from Umpqua Bank, Red Stone Equity Partners, the 2016 Portland affordable housing bond, Oregon Housing and Community Services, The Collins Foundation and the Hedco Foundation.

The project team is adhering to PHB (Portland Housing Bureau) green building standards and aiming for Earth Advantage gold certification.

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A cluster of tiny homes in North Portland that serves as a shelter for homeless women has been moved to a new location thanks to the efforts of a small army of volunteers and the support of the local building industry.

Kenton Women’s Village opened in summer 2017 as a one-year pilot project on a city-owned lot in the Kenton neighborhood. The idea was to create a transitional housing community for women experiencing homelessness without the constraints of a traditional overnight shelter environment, where women’s safety can be at risk and a sense of permanence is lacking.

“This is more individual; it’s their home,” said Deborah Kamprath, development project manager with Catholic Charities, which operates the shelter. “They have privacy and a place to put their stuff, where with shelters you don’t have that. You’re just going in for the night and leaving in the morning.”

The original village had capacity for 14 residents, all whom were housed in small sleeping “pods” designed and built by the Partners On Dwelling Initiative, which included Portland State University’s Center for Public Interest Design and several local architecture firms. The goal was to create a replicable model for tackling the homelessness issue by building small, inexpensive housing units that would be easy to mass-produce and transport.

The village proved to be a success, and when the yearlong trial period expired the Kenton Neighborhood Association voted overwhelmingly to allow it to stay in operation. Imminent construction of a low-income housing development on the village site meant a new location had to be found, and a suitable one on another city-owned parcel just a few hundred feet away was chosen.

LMC Construction has spearheaded the effort to prepare the new site, an approximately three-quarters-acre parcel at 2420 N. Columbia Blvd., for the move. The firm has been working pro bono since this past fall to build concrete pads for the housing pods, grade and landscape the site, and install electrical, plumbing and sanitary service.

The project has come to fruition thanks to the help of multiple contractors, suppliers, design and engineering firms who have donated labor and materials to make the move happen. Scott Kotlarz, a superintendent with LMC Construction, said he has received overwhelming support from firms that are eager to support the effort.

“I don’t have submittals (and) I don’t have contracts with anybody, but everybody has stepped up,” he said. “They’re here no matter when I call. It’s been great.”

The Northwest College of Construction (NWCOC) has been instrumental in supplying labor, Kotlarz said. Students have helped with multiple scopes of work, including concrete, framing, site work and landscaping. Late last month, students in a Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center pre-apprenticeship program, led by a NWCOC instructor, helped put the finishing touches on the new site by framing a trash enclosure, laying hog’s fuel paths and building decks.

Residents are expected to return this week to the village, which will reopen with six of the original pods, one donated tiny house and two donated temporary tiny homes on wheels. A second phase of work will bring the site up to its capacity of 20 pods; volunteers last week kicked off an effort to build additional units.

A total of 21 commercial and residential builders have committed to participation in the Pod Build Challenge, during which they will each construct a unit over the course of the next couple of months before installation on site in April. The units will be installed with the help of Andersen Construction. The remaining eight units will be installed at a second village location later this year.

For Kotlarz, whose work on the project will be wrapping up with the completion of this phase, it has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of his nearly 40-year career.

“It’s been neat to see this process develop as it goes,” he said. “It’s not so much a job; it’s more an honor to be present and be a part of this.”

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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify the status of Clackamas County‘s zoning amendment.

Village transitional housing developments like Kenton Women’s Village can face challenges due to zoning and land use restrictions.

When Clackamas County sought a site for a transitional housing project, officials chose a parcel on the far reaches of the Portland-metro area: on Southeast 115th Avenue, along a stretch of distribution warehouses for companies such as Fred Meyer, Bob’s Red Mill and Dave’s Killer Bread.

The property in an unincorporated area is owned by the county and zoned for industrial uses.

The site is far from ideal for transitional housing for a number of reasons. It’s remote from social services and employment centers, and poorly served by public transit.

Yet for local governments looking for somewhere to establish a site for homeless individuals, the options are few. In addition to frequent objections from neighbors, zoning and land use regulations are common obstacles.

Zoning schemes meant to separate industrial areas and residential neighborhoods, or apartments and single-family homes, make it difficult to find a home for the homeless.

“Traditional zoning approaches aren’t always set up for dealing with houselessness, so sometimes it takes some creativity in developing new tools,” said Andrew Yaden, a Clackamas County planner.

Clackamas County’s Board of Commissioners on June 27 approved moving forward with negotiations with Catholic Charities to operate a transitional housing facility.

Concurrently, the Planning Commission and Board of County Commissioners are considering a zoning ordinance amendment to allow for transitional housing.

“The county’s current land use regulations do not provide a clear pathway for organizations that would like to develop a transitional shelter community for houseless people,” county staff members wrote in a memo to commissioners.

Clackamas County is looking to house veterans at the site. The facility will be equipped with a community kitchen, showers, restrooms, a community room and a work shed. Catholic Charities will operate the site. Officials with the nonprofit are looking into what issues the location could present.

“We’re looking into that right now to see what challenges that’s going to pose to us in terms of managing the community,” spokesman Heli Del Moral said.

The county will bring plumbing and electricity to the 2-acre lot, clear blackberries and erect a new fence.

Yaden said the improvements are “pretty minimal because the site is realistically ready to go.” The changes also will give the county more flexibility if the site is ever sold.

“These are improvements that will make the site more marketable in the future,” Yaden said.

Fifteen sleeping pods will be ready to accommodate people by December. The remaining 15 pods will be built on-site by residents, who will gain basic carpentry skill, county spokesman Scott Anderson stated in a news release. The pods will be weather resistant and fully insulated and ventilated.

The sleeping-pod camp is just one response to homelessness, Yaden said. Clackamas County has formed a policy group of elected officials and department heads to examine other options.

“We’re trying to take a holistic approach, and this particular zoning amendment is hopefully just one of the tools we’ll be able to employ,” Yaden said. “We don’t think of this as the only site or only solution or only answer.”

The sleeping-pod camp is a similar approach to an existing facility for homeless women in Portland’s Kenton neighborhood. That facility at 2221 N. Argyle St. is also managed by Catholic Charities. The parcel is zoned R1 for medium-density residential use.

Oregon City officials are also considering building a pod for the homeless in a church parking lot.

“Everyone’s doing it a little bit differently, but this village approach is something that seems to be a common theme throughout the different projects that are finding success,” Yaden said. “There’s neat stuff going on up and down the West Coast.”

New proposals often come into conflict with decades-old land-use regulations.

The broad outlines of Oregon’s land-use system date to 1973, when Senate Bill 100 was signed into law. That legislation was led by Sen. Hector McPherson, a dairy farmer who was concerned about losing agricultural land to suburbanization.

“It’s certainly time to look at this again in a modern context,” said Jennifer Bragar, a Portland land-use attorney.

Existing land-use regulations are often a poor fit for innovative approaches to housing, Bragar said.

“The tiny homes example is one where it’s such a new form of housing that most codes haven’t caught up,” she said. “Are they manufactured homes? Those kinds of models don’t yet exist for tiny homes, so you’re looking at a new kind of use where you’re having to think about the residential infrastructure needed to house them.”

Zoning quashed an attempt by the city of Portland last year to move the Right 2 Dream Too camp from a lot on West Burnside Street to a city-owned parcel in the Central Eastside. The Central Eastside Industrial Council successfully argued the camp is similar in use to a mass shelter, and is prohibited by industrial zoning that is meant to create an industrial sanctuary within the city.

The Land Use Board of Appeals ruled against the city, reasoning that residential uses are generally prohibited in industrial zones such as the IG1 zone proposed for the R2DToo site. The collection of tents used by R2DToo is legally indistinguishable from a mass shelter structure, according to LUBA.

“In our view, it cannot possibly be consistent with the purpose and policy of protecting industrial sanctuaries from residential and similar uses incompatible with those sanctuaries, to categorize as an outright permitted use a use that is functionally similar, if not functionally identical, to a use that is prohibited outright in the city’s industrial zones because of its quasi-residential character,” the appeals board explained in its ruling.

The ruling, Bragar said, was a result of the city trying to adapt existing zoning for a use for which it was never designed.

“The City Council was trying to get pretty creative when the code was pretty clear,” she said. “The code says you can’t have this kind of living, so you can’t just call it something else and try to get away with it.”

R2DToo has since moved to another site near the Moda Center.

In Clackamas County’s case, commissioners are attempting to bring land-use regulations in line with the 115th Avenue parcel’s proposed use. The goal is to be the first fully permitted site of its kind, Yaden said.

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The Portland Development Commission is partnering with Transition Projects Inc. on a 72-unit apartment development, along with 14 tiny houses – all for formerly homeless individuals.

The proposed project is planned for 2221 N. Argyle Street in an industrial corner of the Kenton neighborhood.

The PDC and the developer want to build 36 studio apartments and 36 single-room occupancy units. The single-room units would be clustered in groups of six; each pod would share a common kitchen and two bathrooms.

Three small buildings would have two pods each, for 36 single-room units. The studio apartments, the manager’s unit and a large community room would be part of a separate three-story building.

Also, the tiny houses, designed by several architecture firms and Portland State University architecture students, would be deployed for a minimum of a year. Catholic Charities would manage the tiny house community on contract with the Joint Office of Homeless Services, a collaboration started in 2016 between the city of Portland and Multnomah County.

All of the units are intended to house people earning no more than 60 percent of the median family income, according to a PDC agenda.

The commission’s board voted unanimously Wednesday to authorize selling the 0.99-acre property to Transition Projects. A PDC staff report said a price has not been finalized; it will be set by an appraisal.

A February 2016 analysis estimated the property’s value at $1.33 million, according to the staff report.

A PDC spokesperson could not be reached for comment, and Transition Projects Executive Director George Devendorf was not immediately available for an interview, a spokeswoman said.

The lot is unimproved. If the purchase were to close, crews would break ground in 2018.

Meyer Memorial Trust in January awarded Transition Projects a $500,000 grant for the project. However, the nonprofit developer will need more than a year to secure approximately $11.2 million to finance the project, according to the staff report.

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