The River District Navigation Center opened at the end of August to considerable fanfare from local media and public officials — and some skepticism.
Now, the nonprofit behind the shelter is getting into the housing game.
The navigation center — initially funded with $3 million pledged by Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle — broke ground in February 2019 and opened six months later, though not before running $500,000 over budget, in part due to a legal challenge from a neighboring landowner saying the ground for the space was contaminated and therefore not an appropriate site to temporarily house 100 people.
The navigation center model is an adaptation of what other cities, including San Francisco, have done.
Pearl District President Stan Penkin said he was initially shocked when the Joint Office of Homeless Services director called him to say the following day there would be a press conference announcing the navigation center. As he learned more about the concept, he warmed to it.
“Knowing that the impetus behind this was that the private sector was going to contribute a large amount of money to make this happen, I’ve always been a believer that we’re not going to solve the homeless problem unless we have everybody working together,” Penkin told Street Roots.
PHOTO STORY: A peek at the River District Navigation Center
Now six months into its operations, the center on Naito Parkway, just north of the Broadway Bridge, has seemed to become part of the neighborhood with little opposition. The center accepts residents by referral only, which involves clearance through other outreach and public safety programs before they receive a bed at the center.
“I think one of the most positive attributes of that facility — besides what’s happening inside, which is most important — the pre-registration process has meant that there are not lines of people standing outside waiting to get in,” said Don Mazziotti, director and co-founder of Oregon Harbor of Hope, the nonprofit that sponsored the navigation center. “That’s been important in terms of making sure there aren’t lines of people waiting on the street. It’s just ordinary pedestrian and auto traffic and a beautiful facility.”
A place in the continuum
“The biggest relief step (for ending homelessness) is many small navigation centers — which are shelters, but it’s a pejorative term,” said Mazziotti, who co-founded Oregon Harbor of Hope with real estate developer Homer Williams in 2017.
Navigation centers like the River District center include traditional shelter space as well as laundry facilities, showers and other amenities, but also host service providers who aim to help those who stay there stabilize their lives and, ideally, get into permanent housing.
While it’s hard to paint a definitive portrait of the center’s success or failure based on six months of data, the numbers that are available suggest it’s been tough to thread the needle on getting the individuals served into permanent housing.
Stacy Borke, senior director of programs at Transition Projects, which runs the shelter, said that since opening in August, the navigation center has served 245 people, 75% of whom report a disabling condition, 36% report being a survivor of domestic violence and 15% are veterans.
Borke said the average length of stay is 42 days. And of those who have left, 12% have transitioned into permanent housing.
Borke did not break down what types of disabling conditions those at the navigation center experience — including the number who may be in active addiction or have a severe mental illness. Between September 2019 and mid-January 2020, the Transition Projects received 452 referrals for beds.
Transition Projects also did not provide data on the percentage of people at the navigation center who work or how much money they make, but Mazziotti believes about 40% of those who have been served by the center have jobs.
“They’re not high-paying jobs, but they’re jobs,” he told Street Roots.
It’s hard to find good, recent data on the number of unhoused people — in Oregon or elsewhere — who work.
But if Mazziotti’s figure is correct, one can extrapolate that just a fraction of individuals with jobs who go through the navigation center have transitioned to permanent housing.
Those numbers are not out of step with data released by Oregon Metro in 2018, which said the greatest need for affordable housing is felt not by those hovering near or just below median family income, but by individuals in the lowest 30% of earners.
‘The sponsor, not the developer’
At the end of January, Harbor of Hope announced its intention to build a 153-unit apartment complex at 148th and East Burnside in Portland, which it would rent for 60% or below of median family income, or MFI.
According to Portland Housing Bureau, the 2019 MFI for a single adult was $61,530, so a single adult earning up to $36,960 per year would qualify for housing at the new complex, called the Harbor Apartments, and a family of four earning up to $52,740 would qualify.
The complex was described in initial publicity as a rare example of “privately financed affordable housing” for which the organization would receive no direct subsidy.
“This project, we hope, is an example to other developers without an infusion of public funds,” Mazziotti told Street Roots.
The navigation center was also initially touted as a completely private-sector project, but the organization was built on land owned by Prosper Portland and subleased to Oregon Harbor of Hope for a maximum of five years with a final termination date of Dec. 1, 2023. The Joint Office of Homeless Services is providing the first year’s operating budget, about $1 million.
The city also waived construction fees and permits for the navigation center, along with up to $500,000 in state grant money and a forgivable loan from Prosper Portland. Mazziotti hopes the city will waive systems development charges for the apartment complex.
“We’re the sponsor, not the developer,” said Mazziotti, who, like co-founder Williams, has a background in real estate development. The development is slated to begin in the fall.
Harbor of Hope will also seek a low-income housing tax credit, a program launched in 1986 to encourage developers to create affordable housing.
According to the Office of Housing and Urban Development, owners must maintain rents considered affordable according to HUD guidelines — that is, housing costs including utilities must be 30% or less than the renter’s household income. In the second 15 years, owners can leave the low-income housing tax credit program, or LIHTC, and convert their properties to market-rate units.
By contrast, housing funded directly by the Portland Housing Bureau requires a 99-year period of affordability in order to continue receiving direct funding, said Martha Calhoon, a Portland Housing Bureau spokesperson.
Calhoon did not have the exact number of LIHTC-only funded projects there are in Portland — the state agency that manages the program also did not reply to an inquiry about inventory — but said in addition to not having the same duration of affordability, these projects tend not to have the same mix of deeper affordability serving individuals at 30% or below of MFI.
Mazziotti said Harbor of Hope is planning to have one-third of its apartments available to those at 30% or below MFI. The average cost of a studio apartment would be $800 or $900, he said, but they would range from $400 to $1,200.
The development is projected to cost $39 million.
Mazziotti said it will be financed by a bank loan, which will be paid off through rent — and would accept rental assistance and individuals living on public assistance, and theoretically, Section 8 vouchers, “but the reality is, there aren’t any Section 8 vouchers left.”
Costs are also expected to be lower because the developer — Walter “Skip” Grodahl of DGB Properties, a for-profit Portland developer who frequently works in the affordable-housing space — has pledged to work for a reduced fee.
Many of the details are still up in the air, including the purchase of the land: Portland Maps lists the lot at 208 SE 148th as still belonging to the Northwest Baptist Home Mission, but Nelson Zarfas, the organization’s business manager, confirmed it had a Purchase and Sale Agreement and hoped to close on the property later this year.