PORTLAND, Ore. — Oregon Community Foundation announced Thursday the creation of a new $100 million housing initiative aimed at addressing Oregon’s ongoing housing shortage by investing in middle-income housing developments across the state.
The new initiative, called the Building Hope Fund, was unveiled by Oregon Community Foundation President and CEO Lisa Mensah. The fund is designed to provide flexible loans to developers building homes and rental housing for middle-income Oregonians, with a goal of helping finance 10,000 new housing units over the next decade.
According to the foundation, Oregon is currently producing only about half of the estimated 30,000 housing units needed annually to meet demand, with the shortage particularly severe for middle-income residents.
“We hear it from business owners all the time: Jobs are sitting empty, and opportunities are unrealized because working families cannot find housing,” Mensah said. “We will invest in housing for middle-income Oregonians — restaurant servers, bartenders, nurses, small business owners, construction workers, teachers — and offer reasonable loans to developers so they can get busy building.”
The Building Hope Fund represents an expansion of the foundation’s use of impact investing, which allows charitable organizations to use investment capital alongside traditional grantmaking to address major community challenges.
Mensah said the foundation intends for the initial $100 million investment to attract additional participation from investors, businesses, donors, foundations and financial institutions to expand the fund’s reach in both rural and urban communities.
Home builders across Oregon say the financing gap for middle-income housing has made many projects difficult to complete.
“There’s a reason they call it the ‘missing middle,’” said Anna Mackay of Shortstack, a Portland-area home builder. “Private capital builds market-rate housing; public funding supports deeply affordable homes. But middle-income housing falls through the gap.”
Mackay said builders often must combine numerous funding sources to move a single project forward and described the Building Hope Fund as a major step toward increasing housing production.
In Eastern Oregon, Union County homebuilder Gust Tsiatsos said rural communities are frequently overlooked by large-scale housing developers due to lower incomes and tighter profit margins.
“We would like to reward and serve our working population by building more homes they can afford,” Tsiatsos said.
He noted that proposed housing developments in La Grande, Baker City and Ontario totaling 67 homes remain stalled because of financing challenges.
“Eight years ago, I could build for around $125 a square foot, and now we’re pushing $400 a square foot,” Tsiatsos said. “Affordable financing is one of the biggest challenges.”
The Oregon Community Foundation highlighted its previous housing-related work, including Project Turnkey, a statewide initiative launched after the 2020 pandemic and wildfire disasters. The program distributed $125 million in grants to convert motels into emergency shelters and transitional housing, increasing Oregon’s year-round shelter bed capacity by 30%.
The foundation will also continue operating the Oregon Impact Fund, a $33 million initiative that provides loans to nonprofit organizations, tribal enterprises and for-profit ventures focused on affordable housing, health care access, education and economic development in underserved communities.
The Building Hope Fund is not yet accepting loan applications, but Oregon Community Foundation said more information for developers is expected in the coming months.
Founded in 1973, Oregon Community Foundation distributes more than $200 million annually in grants and scholarships throughout Oregon.
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