September 25, 2019
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INSIDE L O C A L N E W S
The
Week in Review
M ETRO
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photo by b everly C orbell /t he p ortland o bserver
A groundbreaking for Halsey 106, a new six-story housing complex coming to the Gateway neighbor-
hood of northeast Portland, draws several public dignitaries on Friday, including Mayor Ted Wheeler
and City Council Member Jo Ann Hardesty. Designed to help Portland’s housing crises, the construc-
tion will create 52 new affordable housing units and provide a new public services headquarters for
Human Solutions, a nonprofit.
A Dream Achieved
Major housing complex
to provide affordability
and public services
b everly C orbell
t he p ortland o bserver
It’s been five years in the making, with a lot
of creative financing and multiple partners, but in
about 18 months, northeast Portland will have a
unique new addition to its much needed afford-
able housing stock, a 75-unit apartment complex
in Gateway that also includes a new headquarters
for low- income services.
Coming to 106th and Halsey, next door to the
city’s new Gateway Discovery Park, the building,
named Halsey 106, will provide 52 apartments
in the affordable range, available to incomes be-
tween 30 percent and 60 percent of the area me-
dian income, and also house Human Solutions, a
nonprofit group that provides disadvantaged resi-
dents help to achieve self sufficiency.
Human Solutions currently has over 700 units
by
Arts &
ENTERTAINMENT
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of permanent affordable rental housing across
east Portland, Gresham and Fairview and pro-
vides basic help like assistance to pay utility bills
and comprehensive employment programs and
homeless services.
Andy Miller, executive director of Human
Solutions, said Friday’s groundbreaking felt like
the end, not the beginning, because getting to this
point has been a long and arduous journey.
“It’s the happy end of a period of uncertainty
in which we had to answer some very hard ques-
tions, and like many groundbreakings, we’re hap-
py to say we were able to answer those questions
in the affirmative or we wouldn’t be here today,”
he said.
Funding for the $32.4 million project was the
biggest hurdle, Miller said, which took some cre-
ative financing to pull together. Funding came
from 13 different sources, including government,
banks and nonprofits.
“So we combined a lot of complex funding
sources that don’t always play well together, in a
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Church Vandal Sentenced to Probation
O PINION
C LASSIFIEDS
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F OOD
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A man who drove his SUV into
a church serving Catholics from
Portland’s Southeast Asian com-
munity was sentenced to three
years of probation Friday after ju-
rors in two-day trial in Multnomah
County Circuit Court found him
guilty.
Hieu John Phung, 36, testified
he was in distress because of fam-
ily issues and financial burdens
at home when he drove into the A photo shows some of the damage to Our Lady of Lavange
Our Lady of Lavang Church at Church at 5404 N.E. Alameda after a disgruntled man drove his
SUV into the church on the day before Christmas last year. The
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driver was sentenced Friday to probation.