A six-unit apartment community will soon be available to provide safe, affordable housing in Redmond for homeless adults with mental illnesses announced Housing Works today. Oregon Housing and Community Services awarded $690,000 to the regional housing authority last Friday at the State Housing Council for the construction of Barbara’s Place, the first Housing PLUS development in Central Oregon.
“We are very pleased to be able to move forward with this project,” says Cyndy Cook, Executive Director of Housing Works. "This is one more step toward fulfilling a vision we and our community partners have in providing a quality continuum of care for our friends and neighbors who have mental illnesses and are homeless."
Barbara’s Place will employ the Housing PLUS (Permanent Living Utilizing Services) model. The permanent supportive housing model is widely considered to be a successful, cost-effective combination. The principal objectives for Housing PLUS include moving homeless individuals into safe housing and providing them with case management support to help them access needed comprehensive social services. It is a tool being offered in communities across the country in an effort to end and prevent homelessness, by working with very low-income people who cannot obtain or continue their housing because of other complex challenges they might face.
“Housing and homelessness are not just urban issues,” says Scott Cooper, member of the Oregon State Housing Council. “The State is committed to increasing its housing investment throughout Oregon, including this latest project in Redmond, in an effort to ensure that compassion and essential services are shared equitably in counties stretching from Multnomah to Malheur and all points in between.”
In addition to the Housing PLUS award from Oregon Housing and Community Services, funding for the project will include an $85,000 grant from the Oregon Department of Human Services Addictions and Mental Health and leveraged dollars from Housing Works. The total project cost is estimated at $875,000.
Housing Works will partner with Deschutes County Health Services to provide ongoing support services to Barbara’s Place residents.
"Creating safe, affordable housing options for people with mental illness is so important to their recovery remarked Scott Johnson, Director at Deschutes County Health Services. “Barbara's Place will be a welcomed addition and we're particularly pleased that affordable housing will be coming to the Redmond community. We can't thank the State and Housing Works enough for making this a priority."
Using Emma's Place, Housing Works' award winning Bend residence for adults with mental illnesses, and Prairie House, a very successful supportive housing community for adults with severe mental illness in Prineville, as models, Barbara’s Place will consist of a single two-story structure and follow the Craftsman design that is common to Central Oregon. The design of the six one-bedroom apartment complex will include washers and dryers, dishwashers, and air conditioning in each unit. The apartments will feature an open living floor plan with a great room concept. To enhance the units and extend the living area, each will have a private patio or deck to create an inviting and functional outdoor space. Site amenities will include a community room, a computer room with internet, and landscaped grounds with an area for a community garden.
Barbara’s Place was named for a retired Housing Works’ Board member who championed special needs housing in the region. The apartment community was designed by Pinnacle Architecture of Bend. Construction is expected to begin this November with a completion date of June of 2010.
The site for project is located on Timber Avenue off of South Canal Blvd in Redmond on land acquired by Housing Works in 1993. The property is contiguous to an affordable housing community built in 1984.
Housing Works serves over 1,600 households throughout Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. With a mission to ‘foster dignity through housing’, the organization addresses a continuum of the housing needs of lower income households and vulnerable citizens, such as seniors and the disabled. Housing Works offers award-winning affordable rental communities, special needs/supportive housing, homeownership opportunities, a family self-sufficiency program, savings programs, and a rental assistance program which serves almost 1,100 households.
