Michelle
Obama Coming
to Portland
‘City
of
Roses’
Volume XLVII • Number 47
February date
added; presale
tickets online
Sugar Shack
Comes Down
Blight to give way to
affordable housing
See Local News, page 3
See story, page 16
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • December 12, 2018
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by D anny p eterson /t he p ortlanD o bserver
David Greenidge serves local communities of color by overseeing programs to help struggling people obtain jobs and housing. He is the executive director of the
National Urban Housing and Economic Community Development Corporation, a non-profit operated out of the Genesis Community Fellowship at 5425 N.E. 27th Ave.,
providing construction job training programs and overseeing the development of new affordable homes geared for low income and mid-income residents.
Community
Healing
A jobs and
housing mission grows
D anny p eterson
t he p ortlanD o bserver
A northeast Portland non-profit is breaking down em-
ployment and housing barriers for people of color and
others by providing free and specialized training in con-
struction industry jobs, life skills help, and sponsoring
by
new affordable housing for low to mid-income residents.
With a new $20,000 grant from the Oregon Communi-
ty Foundation awarded last week and the near-completion
of 20 affordable homes that have been under construction
over the past year, the National Urban Housing and Eco-
nomic Community Development Corporation (NUHEC-
DC) is making strides in their public service mission.
“We’re real excited about that,” said David Greenidge,
NUHECD’s executive director, who operates the orga-
nization out of the Genesis Community Fellowship, a
non-denominational church, located at 5425 N.E. 27th
Ave.
The organization was formed a few years ago when
Greenidge and other concerned residents got together to
survey why so many members of the black community in
north and northeast Portland struggled to find work com-
pared to the majority of the community. They found that
African-Americans were over represented in the criminal
justice system and the disparity was hurting them econom-
C ontinueD on p age 2