Meyer’s focus on equity over the past few years has brought a powerful intention to our grantmaking and opened the door for community-serving organizations and institutions across the state to build their own equity infrastructure. This has been especially evident in rural Oregon communities. To tell the story of where and how equity has emerged, and operates, in three rural Oregon counties, we sat down with Kelly Poe, director of community based services at Malheur Education Service District.

Education service districts across Oregon are designed to provide services and programs that meet the specific needs of their local school districts. Like school districts, their purpose is to assure that all students have the educational opportunities that will prepare them for success beyond high school. Malheur Education Service District defines its work as a crucial ingredient across the entire education continuum, from birth to college and/or career.

Meyer:

Tell us about yourself and your work at Malheur Education Service District.

Kelly Poe:

I’m the director of community based services, and I serve Malheur, Baker and Wallowa counties. The position was created when the Commission on Children and Families went away, and the education service district chose to fully embrace the zero to 20 continuum of education. My job was to focus on those things outside K-12 walls. The Early Learning Division was formed (in the Oregon Department of Education), and they created hubs and regional hubs.

The Early Learning Division also required us to provide eight hours of structural racism training. I knew it was coming about a year before it actually was a requirement. I also knew that every time I talked about equity to our community advisory groups, cradle-to-career partners or one of the three counties, I could feel the tension in the room. People stiffened up and got ready to defend themselves.

Because it is a much easier conversation talking about equality, rather than equity, I knew it was going to be a challenging conversation. We could require people to attend an eight-hour structural racism training and they would, but behaviors and attitudes would not necessarily change.

Meyer:

Why do you think equality is an easier conversation and equity is a hard conversation?

Kelly Poe:

People don’t understand what equity is right off, and when you say equity, they immediately think you’re saying equality. And they treat everybody the same, because they love everybody. I have to say that in all three of my counties, I have not found a single person that sets out in their day to do bad things. Or to harm people. Or to plan to do disservice to families. They don’t.

I’ve met only really good people who want to do good work. And I am that person, too. I am that person who wakes up every day and sets out to do good work but realized, part way down the road, that my good intent is actually doing harm, and the sooner I find out, the better for everyone. So I have that lens when I look at other people and I think: They intend to do good, so let’s get informed of what equity is.

Meyer:

How do you start an equity conversation?

Kelly Poe:

One of the things that we’ve been saying is, “equity begins where equality leaves off,” and that’s been a good opener for some of our conversations.

I heard Dr. Bill Grace speak at a Ford Family Foundation workshop. He creates a space where people relax their guard and can have authentic, genuine conversations. He calls it “gracious space.” And I knew that’s what we needed.

We needed somebody to come to our communities who used common language, who could get people to that place of having a conversation and not be defensive. I called Bill and said, “This is what’s going on, we’re going to have to do this training, and I don’t think we’re prepared. It’s not going to make a difference. I want to do something that’s going to make a difference.” I know we have huge disparities in our communities and three counties that are extremely different from one another. As much as you say eastern Oregon is different from Portland, Wallowa County is different from Malheur County, and Baker County is different from either of the other two. You can’t do the same thing in each one of the counties; it has to be different.

Through a technical assistance grant from Ford, we paid for Bill to help us develop our plan and facilitate focus groups and a three-county workshop. After we completed the focus groups, it was clear that a three-county workshop would not be successful, so we had three workshops.

Our focus groups defined “gracious space.” We also came to a common definition of equity. We talked about our values. About two months later, we picked up on those themes and did a community assessment, asking: “So where do you think you are, as a community, in advancing equity? Are you at a place where you really are just crossing the threshold of raising awareness? Or is your community aware but they’re not dissatisfied? Do we need to raise the dissatisfaction? Or are you at the place, community is aware, people are dissatisfied, and we want to take action?” We started in Wallowa County, then Baker, then Malheur. After we finished all three, we said, “Well, we have to make three plans. We can’t do one, three-county plan for anything.”

So, we have three plans. It took us nearly a year to raise the money. Meyer was first. (Meyer program officer) Sally Yee believed in us. She said, “This is the conversation that we need to have.”

Meyer:

Meyer invested in this work in August 2016. How is it going so far?

Kelly Poe:

We have a really great group in Malheur County that meets with Bill once a month either in-person or we all get together in a room and he Skypes in. There’s 18 of us, including elders, members of the faith community, education and social services. We have nonprofits, health care, mental health; it’s just across the spectrum.

In Baker and Wallowa counties, we’re creating leadership groups, and they want to go deep.

People are passionate about this, but then when the work begins, it gets hard. One of the first things that Bill does is walk us through an exercise that helps us identify our own core values, and then we find common group values. So each county has a list of core, common values, and we can hold each other accountable to those. Love and family are core values that are in all three counties. Integrity and community, too. They’re all good values, but to be able to hold each other accountable, it requires us to go deep. It requires you to make this work meaningful.

Meyer:

What evidence are you seeing that work is taking shape in communities?

Kelly Poe:

They’re taking it in, and they are stepping up, but the reality of it is that some conversations are really challenging. Each community has a little bit different feel to it; there are three separate answers.

In Wallowa County, the workshops are complete and received really positive feedback. Conversations have ranged from creating a sense of belonging to the increasing fear of the newest members of the community. Our work with values-based leadership has been occuring at the same time as other diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) trainings through the Northeast Oregon Economic Development District, so the local effort is on multiple fronts.

In Baker County, there’s a small group of people, about 15-20, who really caught on to values-based leadership as a tool in their own organizations. They are actively working toward embedding the values conversation into a plan to move work forward. They’ve created a monthly meeting that explores the book “Sharing the Rock: Shaping Our Future through Leadership for the Common Good” and creates a support network for sharing challenges and progress on how each participant, and organization they represent, is advancing equity. This group has great leadership and diversity. They’ve also done a deep dive into the history of Baker County, which is very complex. They’re continuing to build a deeper understanding of the work, what they believe and what their organizations can do collectively in preparation for moving forward larger community impact.

In Malheur County, we really felt the urgency, and we were ready to take action quickly, but we still focused on the need for relationship building. We initially intended to do a project, but because there is so much work to do, we couldn’t agree on one. Instead, we decided to create a movement, and that’s what the proclamation is: The Malheur County Compact for Advancing Equity is an effort to get institutions on board for proclaiming the need to advance equity throughout the whole community. Each of the organizations that signed the compact designated someone to attend and participate in the monthly, three-hour equity team meetings.

Another example of how the work is taking shape is a gathering of equity team members and community members focused on the topic of safety concerns for the refugees arriving in the Ontario area. This group, now known as Newcomers Support Committee, had no idea what they needed to do or how they were going to do it at first, but through their collaborative effort to authentically engage community, they developed a strategy, wrote a concept and submitted a proposal to the Oregon Immigrant and Refugee Funders Collaborative for consideration. Right now, we’re planning our second equity summit, scheduled for Nov. 1, 2018, and we hope it will be an opportunity for local institutions to “raise the bar” by showcasing their equity work.

In each community, the pace is appropriate, and in each situation, the community is working together to create a sense of belonging. I know people are going to say, “Oh, we’re not like them.” And they’re right. But this is just an example of something that could happen, and it only happened because local people drove it.

Meyer:

How do you think this will impact your work and the communities you serve?

Kelly Poe:

The commonality across all three counties is our ultimate goal of people who live in the community feeling like they belong and are welcome. We acknowledge now there are people in our community who don’t feel welcome, so knowing that, how do we create a community where there is a sense of belonging? In Malheur County, they call it “hope”; everyone should have a sense of hope. In every community, the end game is that everyone feels like they belong.

The Newcomers Support Committee learned this when they discovered there are refugees who arrive here and never feel like they are a part of the community. They’re required to stay one year, but after that, they leave. So how do we create a community that makes them want to stay? It’s huge for a community to say, “We want you to stay. You add to the fabric of our community; your culture makes us better.” It’s a shift in all three counties to say, “You think differently than I do and you believe differently than I do, and we need you to be here. Our differences make our community better.” That’s what we’re hoping to accomplish.

Meyer:

Very well said, Kelly. Thank you for your time!

*While listening to Kelly describe the equity journey of Malheur, Baker and Wallowa counties, I was struck by the importance of communities to firmly establish their core beliefs and common values. As Meyer staff travel around the state, we often hear, “We’re different than them. That won’t work here.” And they’re right; of course communities are different. In our interview with Kelly, she artfully described exactly how different seemingly similar communities can actually be. But that’s not the reason something, equity in this case, might work in one community and not the other. The real barrier is a community’s lack of clarity — or identity — around the subject matter. If you’ve never ventured into the conversation, and you look at what someone else has accomplished, it’s understandable that your first response might be, “We’re different than them.”

But here’s the real difference between communities that have embraced equity and those that haven’t: When a community establishes its equity identity (i.e., common language, values, beliefs, accountability structures and protocols), they’re free to explore what other organizations and communities have done to advance equity and say, “That might not be exactly what we need, but it looks interesting and we might be able to modify it so we can accomplish our own goals.”

Once you’ve established the key foundational elements of your equity identity, you can then bring in new partners and new ideas and not relinquish or sacrifice any of what makes you, your organization or your community unique in the process. Your identity stays intact, and as Kelly suggests, new relationships and new information simply add to the “fabric of the community.”

— Matt

 

This month’s newsletter spotlights a guest column by Alison McIntosh, deputy director of policy and communications at Neighborhood Partnerships and coordinator for the Oregon Housing Alliance, which is composed of 85+ member organizations and supporters from around the state.

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Each year in February, the Oregon Legislature convenes to write or balance a budget, to pass laws to improve our state, and to address pressing issues. Each year, housing advocates come together as the Oregon Housing Alliance to present the Legislature with ideas, proposals and requests to help more Oregonians have safe, stable and affordable places to call home.

In 2018, as in all even-numbered years, the legislative session will be quick — only 35 short days. To meet the constitutionally imposed time limit, legislators focus on a small number of issues and impose strict deadlines for committees. To the legislators and advocates, each day may feel like a week, but the session will move incredibly fast. For housing advocates, this gives limited but important opportunities to advance our work this session.

The Oregon Housing Alliance has come together every session since 2005 to ask the Legislature to create housing opportunities for Oregonians. Our coalition talks about a range of topics, including homelessness, tenant protections, increasing access to homeownership, development of new homes and preserving existing homes.

In 2018, the Housing Alliance will  be asking for one big step forward: to increase the document recording fee. This fee is used to ensure more of our neighbors can find safe and affordable homes. The fee is paid when someone buys a new home or property, and it goes to make sure others can have the same. Some of it goes to help our neighbors avoid homelessness through emergency rent assistance, another part goes to build and preserve critical affordable homes throughout Oregon, and a last part goes to help families to afford first homes through down payment assistance or to attend a homeownership education class.

Oregon is facing our biggest housing crisis to date, and we’re glad we have so many tools and partners to meet today’s challenges. We know how to successfully create housing stability and opportunities for families; more resources through the document recording fee will go a long way to address the crisis facing our state. Other priorities will be identified in early 2018, when the Housing Alliance releases its 2018 Housing Opportunity Agenda.

The Housing Alliance is organizing for Feb. 15 another Housing Opportunity Day, a chance for housing advocates and anyone who cares about finding solutions to our housing crisis to go to Salem to learn more about working together to make change. It’s fun and important! Read more here.

Oregon needs us to come together, calling on creativity and innovation, to create housing opportunities that will carry Oregon forward, make families and communities stronger and more vibrant, and build a more equitable foundation for all. Please sign up for our mailing list here to stay in touch with the Housing Alliance and get updates on how you can join this important work.

— Alison McIntosh, deputy director of policy and communications at Neighborhood Partnerships and coordinator for the Oregon Housing Alliance, which is composed of 85+ member organizations and supporters from around the state

Attendees at Housing Opportunity Day 2017 gathered in Salem to advocate to lawmakers for much-needed resources to meet Oregon’s housing needs, including a visit with legislative aides for Rep. Carla Piluso, D-Gresham, and a self advocate with the Oregon C

On-The-Move Community Integration envisions a truly inclusive society in which everyone has a chance to interact with and learn from each other. On-the-Move offers employment guidance for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their support networks, and educates and partners with community members, organizations and businesses to organize meaningful activities that create relationship-building opportunities.

On-The-Move’s efforts align with the Building Community portfolio’s goal of dismantling inequities and creating opportunities to advance equity.

The Portland-based organization advances its diversity, equity and inclusion goals in four ways. First, it highlights the contributions people with developmental disabilities make in their communities. In addition, it flips the notion of inclusion on its head: The broader community benefits from the opportunity to interact with and learn from people with disabilities as much as people with disabilities benefit from contributing to and being active members of their community. Further, it creates community-integrated spaces that are inclusive of people with developmental disabilities. And finally, it intentionally designs its programs and services to ensure clients are able to express their individuality, have autonomy and direct their own lives.

On-The-Move recognized that to better serve its community, its diversity, equity and inclusion work needed to continue to evolve and take shape at all organizational levels. A Meyer grant of $137,956 over two years will help its board receive training and consultation to become stronger advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion. The grant will also help its staff review policies, procedures and practices to ensure the implementation of an equity lens throughout the organization, and support On-The-Move’s work with a consultant to implement a community-grounded evaluation process and strengthen its fundraising capacity.

We are thrilled to partner with them to support their important community-based work.

— Violeta

On-The-Move participants, Elizabeth and Spencer, flex their muscles after boxing at a local gym. Photo courtesy of On-The-Move Community Integration

Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette provides, promotes and protects access to sexual and reproductive health care. The Portland-based family planning and reproductive rights organization serves communities across Oregon and Southwest Washington that have few options for health care due to cost, immigration status or need for confidentiality.

Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette, an affiliate of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, recognizes that health care accessibility and delivery have historically been politicized or manipulated to benefit specific populations over others. Planned Parenthood aims to reduce health disparities experienced within its service population. The 54-year-old organization has been exploring how to define, understand and increase equity within its ranks so that it better supports Reproductive Justice and that the health care it provides is more equitable.

Its work dovetails with Meyer’s goal to increase commitment to equity among organizations and improve understanding of how best to advance equity. A Building Community grant of $169,799 over three years helps support the organization as it moves deeper into goals outlined in its existing equity plan. Those include embedding equity principles into its policies and practices, building relationships and accountability mechanisms with community partners, and assessing and strengthening cultural competence within the organization.

The health organization has already committed to advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in a number of specific ways. A cross-functional group of staff and board members began working on the organization’s equity plan in 2016 by conducting an organizational assessment using the Coalition of Communities of Color’s “Protocol for Culturally Responsive Organizations,” which revealed priority areas for growth. In addition to having staff across the organization engaged in different ways, Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette has invested in two staff positions dedicated to leading and supporting this equity work. (The organization employs about 200 people.) PPCW’s director of equity and inclusion, in particular, has positional authority as a member of its executive team and as a direct-report to the CEO. And Planned Parenthood’s board of directors has been supportive of and engaged in the organization’s equity work from the start.

As part of their grant activities over the next three years, the group will further its work in data gathering and institutionalizing practices, measuring its progress on cultural competence by administering an assessment to all staff members, using those results to create differentiated learning opportunities, and administering a follow-up assessment. And it has set a goal of allocating all its health care resources through its equity lens (i.e., in alignment with principles of diversity, equity and inclusion) and plans to create policies over time to support this.

We are thrilled to partner with them to support their efforts to delve deeper into equity.

 

— Erin

Relief Nursery was founded 41 years ago to address child abuse and neglect in Lane County. Their mission: to prevent the cycle of neglect and abuse by providing early intervention that focuses on building successful and resilient children, strengthening parents, and preserving families. The agency offers comprehensive family support services to Lane County families living on low incomes who have a child younger than 6 years old and a family profile that places their children at high risk for child abuse or neglect.

In 2005, Relief Nursery embarked on an effort to better serve the growing number of Latinx families in its region through their "La Familia y los Hijos" program. Recognizing the need to better engage and serve this population, Relief Nursery went beyond providing interpreters and translating materials to establishing a process to engage community to help inform new culturally specific programming, embedding bilingual and bicultural services throughout the organization, and creating opportunities to diversify its workforce. As a result of the work, the number of Latinx families served has increased sixfold over the last decade.  

Lane County has one of the fastest growing American Indian populations in the country, yet Relief Nursery has seen a decline in service utilization by Native families. To address increased need, Relief Nursery draws on the approach used in its successful La Familia y los Hijos program to increase the number of Native families engaging in services such as immediate crisis intervention, home visits, respite care, home safety assessments and parent support.

Meyer is providing a grant of $175,000 over three years to advance our goal of dismantling inequities and creating opportunities to advance equity. Grant funds will be used for staff to conduct outreach and develop and deliver a culturally appropriate program for Native communities.

How their work advances equity

The Building Community team identified some key strategies in Relief Nursery’s proposal that are considered “best practices” to advance equity and increase the likelihood of reducing disparities for Tribal families and for all the communities Relief Nursery serves.

Relief Nursery began by collecting and analyzing disaggregated race and ethnicity service data that revealed service inequities for Native families. The effort helped the Eugene-based organization to hone its focus on the biggest gaps in service. This strategy led to an “equity” approach to developing new services, rather than a “one-size-fits-all” approach that may not be relevant to the specific community Relief Nursery wanted to serve.

In addition, Relief Nursery devoted time and attention to building authentic relationships with Native community members and leaders. Building trust with and accountability to communities that have been historically marginalized is vital to ensuring that barriers are identified and addressed and that services are utilized.

Relief Nursery also convenes a Native-led project steering committee to help maintain accountability and support continuous improvement strategies through program review. As a result, services are more likely to be culturally appropriate and accountable to the community they serve, which in turn increases engagement and cultural relevancy.

As a result of this “pre-work,” Relief Nursery decided to utilize a culturally appropriate peer support strategy. Peer support services involve trusted community members who bring lived experience and community-level wisdom to their work. This evidence-based practice has been shown to effectively break down barriers to services and improve results for communities that haven’t been well-served by mainstream approaches.

Relief Nursery has demonstrated a commitment to advancing equity through its work, and we are thrilled to partner with them to support Native families.

— Carol

The impact of last September's Eagle Creek wildfire was felt on both sides of the Columbia Gorge: some 50,000 acres were burned, more than 150 hikers were stranded by the flames, businesses were forced to evacuate, landslides made travel unsafe and the ensuing air quality reminded many of the eruptions of Mount St. Helens in 1980. 

Another impact you might not have heard about is elevated food insecurity in the Gorge.

Hood River News tells the story:
 

The need for food assistance has risen in Cascade Locks as the Eagle Creek fire recovery continues. Gorge Grown Food Network was able to offer support by “prescribing” Veggie Rx at the Cascade Locks FISH Food Bank during its January distribution.

Veggie Rx is a fruit and vegetable prescription program designed to address food insecurity and increase accessibility to fresh produce. Packets of vouchers are normally prescribed through social service or healthcare providers, but a grant from Meyer Memorial Trust allowed over $7,000 in vouchers to be distributed to 104 low-income families, supporting healthy choices for more than 250 people. The majority of the vouchers went to seniors, and recipients are reporting sharing food with their neighbors in need.

“Everyone was so thrilled to receive vouchers for fresh fruits and vegetables,” said Cascade Locks Food Bank Site Manager Martha LaMont. “I am hearing comments like, ‘Fresh produce is not something I can usually afford and I am so glad to be able to have a healthy choice of food — I am going to try a new recipe tonight using fresh ingredients.’”

You can read more of Hood River News' piece on Gorge Grown's efforts to combat food insecurity here and learn more about VeggieRX program here.

Albert Choi, owner, and Bobby Young, manager, of Columbia Market in Cascade Locks hold the Veggie Rx vouchers redeemed for fresh fruit and vegetables by local customers. Photo by Silvan Shawe

A feasibility study is underway for an eight acre plot of land owned by a Woodburn church.

Immanuel Lutheran Church originally purchased the land at Evergreen Road and Linfield Avenue to build a new place of worship. A grant is helping them consider other ways to use the land.

The Woodburn Independent reports:
 

Immanuel Lutheran Church has secured funding from the Meyer Memorial Trust to launch a feasibility study for potential uses of its eight acres of land located at Evergreen Road and Linfield Avenue.

The land was originally purchased in 2006 as a future home for Immanuel Lutheran.

According to Terri Gonzalez, chair of Immanuel Lutheran's building team, "Since 2016, we heard from dozens of stakeholders, individually and at two community forums, who called for a multi-cultural, multi-generational community services, spiritual and gathering space. This led to a short list of priority uses, including early learning classrooms, a senior center / meal site, spiritual center, commercial kitchen and meeting hall."

There is strong support for both an indoor and outdoor space for community members to host meetings, events and community gatherings, a press release from the church stated.

To learn more about the church's plans, read on.

Immanuel Lutheran Church purchased this eight acre plot of land, located at Evergreen Road and Linfield Avenue, in 2006, planning to build a new church.

A century ago, a stalwart of the landscape Oregon forests was only an occasional presence in the state's eastern rangelands, covering about a million acres. These days, western juniper trees occupies more than nine million acres in Eastern Oregon.

The Blue Mountain Eagle reports on a recent Meyer grant of $135,000 to Ritter Land Management Team, a collaboration between private landowners in the Ritter and Lower Middle Fork John Day River sub-basin working to restore ecosystem health and create jobs by transforming western juniper trees into a marketable product:
 

Patti Hudson, the group’s executive director, said the money will be used for staffing, maintaining a website and sustaining the group’s operations for the next three years.

“It was a competitive grant, and it was fantastic that we got it,” she said, noting that the trust sent people to look over the group’s operation.

Read more about the effort to market the invasive native trees that suck up water in the dry landscape and crowd out native plants needed by wildlife and livestock here. 

A juniper stands on a ridge in Eastern Oregon under starlight.

Efforts to re-establish floodplain forest on land that most recently served as farmland are paying off.

The Corvallis Gazette-Times looks closely at the Greenbelt Land Trust's work to restore land near Albany:

Looking out over the carefully tended grass seed fields and hazelnut orchards that cover the bottomlands between Corvallis and Albany like a well-worn quilt, it’s easy to forget all this rich farm country lies in the Willamette floodplain.

But the river remembers. And sometimes, after a heavy winter rain or a spate of spring runoff, it comes back to reclaim some of that territory as its own.

“When the river comes up, it still backfills some of these areas,” said Michael Pope of the Greenbelt Land Trust, pointing out the low spots on a piece of agricultural ground off Riverside Drive.

“When you get an inundation, even a small inundation, you start filling some of these sloughs and side channels, which are like synapses connecting the river to its floodplain.”.

Read the rest of the Corvallis Gazette-Times' article here.

The Corvallis-based Greenbelt Land Trust's latest undertaking is a reforestation project on the Joyce Carnegie property, a 61-acre parcel about three miles south of Albany that the organization purchased in 2013 for $152,000.

As a program officer working in Meyer’s Housing Opportunities portfolio, I‘ve been asking myself what will it take to triage the housing crisis for Portland’s most marginalized homeless populations: people with disabilities, seniors and people of color.

A recent groundbreaking goes a way toward answering my question, one of a handful of new affordable housing developments to break ground in the Portland region.

Last week, on a sweltering summer day, I joined housing advocates, nonprofit leaders, community members and elected officials to celebrate the groundbreaking for a new housing development along North Interstate Avenue in Portland’s historic King neighborhood. And though I’m not a native of this historic African American community, the event touched me deeply. I listened as community members recounted what happened to the King neighborhood and community they called home for 50 years before urban renewal leveled bungalows and family businesses alike.

This new affordable housing complex — Charlotte B. Rutherford Place — reflects an effort to amend decades of gentrification and the subsequent displacement of residents from historic neighborhoods in North and Northeast Portland.

Named after the Hon. Charlotte B. Rutherford — community activist, former civil rights attorney and retired judge — the 51-unit housing development, guided by the City of Portland’s Right to Return housing policy will offer affordable 1- and 2-bedroom units for families who have been displaced by gentrification.

“Hopefully people who wanted to stay in the community would be able to stay in the community,” said Judge Rutherford, who retired in 2010 after serving for 18 years in Oregon’s Office of Administrative Hearings.

Rutherford’s family settled in North Portland to work in the shipyards in the 1940s and over time became one of the leading African American families in Portland during the civil rights movement. Her parents, Otto G. Rutherford and Verdell Burdine, were major figures in Portland’s NAACP chapter in the 1950s and helped shepherd passage of the 1953 Oregon Civil Rights Bill.

Rutherford said she hoped the new building of 34 one-bedroom and 17 two-bedroom units, set along Interstate Avenue steps from a Head Start school and the MAX light rail, would “restore a sense of community to North Portland.”

Charlotte B. Rutherford Place is one of a trio of housing developments in Central City Concern’s Housing is Health Initiative that will provide 379 new units of affordable housing to Portland residents by 2018.

Another building in CCC’s initiative, the Stark Street Apartments, will provide 155-units of critically needed permanent housing for people exiting from transitional programs. Repeat patients who enter local emergency departments often they don't have stable housing, said Dave Underriner, regional chief executive, Providence Health & Services.

“We know that stable housing has a profound impact on health,” Underriner added.

The third CCC project, dubbed the Eastside Health Center, an integrated housing complex that will serve people in recovery from addiction, medically fragile people and people with mental illness. The Eastside center will house 176-units of affordable housing, contain a two-story clinic and offer 24-hour clinical support. A $500,000 grant from Meyer’s Housing Opportunities portfolio supports the Eastside development.

“This housing will remain affordable for generations and it couldn’t come at a better time,” said Ed Blackburn, president and CEO of Central City Concern, Portland’s largest provider of supportive housing and health services targeting homeless adults.

— Sharon

Hon. Charlotte B. Rutherford and Sharon Wade Ellis discussed the importance of community at the groundbreaking of the Interstate Apartments in North Portland, named in honor of the retired administrative judge.