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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Rarely do architects get to incorporate significant artwork into their designs. But for the Nesika Illahee affordable housing development in Northeast Portland, Carleton Hart Architecture had such an opportunity.

“I think the main inspiration for the design came from the Chinook Tribe, which were local to this region,” said Julia Mollner, a Carleton Hart job captain. “We did a lot of research on the language and how it is dying – there are only a handful of people who can speak the language now – and that became a force in bringing in different tribal traditions into the design.”

Nesika Illahee means “Our Place” in the Chinook language, which is fitting for a collaborative project involving Community Development Partners, the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA), the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest (NARA) and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. This is the first time these groups have partnered to construct affordable housing for tribal members in Portland. The 59 residential units are intended for families and individuals from the Siletz and other Native American tribes.

General contractor LMC Construction built the three-story, wood-framed building at 6370 N.E. 42nd Ave. An exterior plaza and large community room are intended to bring together residents and the surrounding neighborhood, while NARA will offer on-site substance abuse counseling services.

The artwork, meanwhile, is evident both inside and outside of the building. The highlights are a two-story mural on the west-facing façade by artist Toma Villa of the Yakima Nation, and a stone installation of basalt columns embedded with intricate, inlaid glass designs by artist Lillian Pitt.

This sculpture highlights the courtyard, which is accessed using large folding doors that sit beneath a prominent wood trellis intended to bridge the indoor-outdoor transition.

Inside, a third main piece is a large wall mural inside the main entrance crafted by artist Greg Robinson. This incorporates a sculpture mockup Robinson submitted in response to a request for proposals for the project. Though he wasn’t selected, he was asked to retain the wooden mockup for use indoors.

“The big pieces like the sculpture and murals and the wood ceilings, as well as the art piece at the elevator lobby – those were pieces that were integrated into the design from the beginning,” Mollner said.

Meanwhile, dozens of paintings, historic photographs and other visual items can be found throughout the building. All of the artwork, including the largest pieces, were procured through a competitive RFP process run by the development partners through the Kimberly Kent Art Brokerage.

Also, the generous use of several different types of wood in glulam beams and columns, signage, ceiling panels and more was intended to imbue a natural feel to the building. A large Douglas fir, for example, was cut down as part of early site work. Wood from the tree, however, was crafted into tables and other small furniture pieces now in the new building.

“It helps with the whole notion of storytelling, which came from the client side, and how we can touch the land and contribute to the notion of family, which is integral to the site,” said Carleton Hart’s Martin Segura, who recently was promoted to project manager.

Designers were able to join the Siletz Tribe and other development team members for those initial conversations.

“That informed the rest of our decisions in the architecture down to things as small as unit signage,” Mollner said. “And it helped us pick things up that maybe we had not accounted for.”

During early consultations, she added, the importance of textures – particularly those created by traditional basket weaving – was expressed. So three different woven patterns were incorporated.

“That’s a big one that we heard,” Mollner said. “But it fits the culture. So some made it into unit signage – there are some in the elevator signage; some got cast into concrete and some got spray-painted on the lobby floor, which doesn’t look like spray paint at all.”

There are obvious ways the building was designed with large art installations in mind. The main mural by Villa, for instance, is painted not on a flat surface but on an inset portion of the building that was designed to increase the amount of courtyard space in front of the building. This extra space, in turn, allowed room for Pitt’s work.

“The whole side of the building on the west is exposed and one of the ideas was to have it peel away and create a gathering space,” Segura said. “But setting that edge and making it comfortable was always challenging with cars flying by.”

This is the second project the firm has designed for NAYA. The first was the NAYA Generations campus in Southeast Portland. That project also incorporated a large deal of artwork.

“Each project is so unique to the partners and resident population,” Carleton Hart Marketing Director Robin Moodie said. “And having done so many we are still able to say there’s nothing like this one.”

Certainly, the artwork helps make Nesika Illahee truly unique.

“The art has been very central and significant to the population and the partners in creating a place that’s a home,” Mollner added. “There’s a lot of positive energy put into this project and making people feel comfortable and making them feel it’s their place to be.”

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