PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Ground was broken for a new 4-story, $23 million project that will house 60 affordable housing units in Portland’s Kenton neighborhood.
When the Hattie Redmond Apartments are complete, each unit will have a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen priced at 30% of the median income — around $18,500.
Home Forward, the Portland-area organization that offers affordable housing and services in the metro area., said there is a “huge demand for housing that serves people of color who comprise a small percentage of the general population but disproportionately experience higher rates of homelessness.”
The organization offered relocation assistance to residents of a pair of duplexes and a 4-plex built in 1945 that must be demolished as the new complex is built along the Yellow Line MAX tracks.
Funding for the project, which is sponsored by the Urban League of Portland, includes $4.5 million in Metro bond funds, $9 million for the Oregon Housing and Community Services Agency, $1 million in deferred development fees and $6 million from low income housing tax credits.
The apartments will be named in honor of Hattie Redmond, a Black woman who became a champion of Oregon’s suffragist movement in the 1880s.
