Development > Special Development Initiatives

Special Development Initiatives

Public Housing Preservation Initiative

Home Forward owns more than 2,600 units of public housing throughout Multnomah County. Federal funding has not kept pace with the growing needs of day-to-day operations, maintenance, and capital improvements for these properties. In order to protect and enhance our community’s public housing resource, Home Forward adopted the Public Housing Preservation Initiative, with four primary objectives:

  • Replace public housing units that are inherently inefficient to operate with more efficient public housing;
  • Address unmet and unfunded capital needs across the portfolio;
  • Bring back unused public housing subsidy, or "banked units," to increase the current public housing supply;
  • Pursue a plan to change the type of operating subsidy from the traditional federal Annual Contributions Contract (ACC) to project-based Section 8 funding while maintaining the same resident protections and Home Forward ownership of properties.

For more information, please read the following document:

Sweet 16 Capital Improvements

Capital improvement of existing properties is one of the goals of our Public Housing Preservation Initiative.  The “Sweet 16” project was intended to ensure that priority construction projects on 16 of our public housing properties would be ready-to-build within the timeframe necessary for use of funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

Home Forward renovated 295 apartments throughout Portland and Gresham. Upgrades included energy-efficiency measures, updated appliances and flooring, landscape and playground improvements, and interior and exterior repairs.

This $12 million project was completed in 17 months, utilizing:

  • $6.4 million in federal 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act economic stimulus funds
  • $4.2 million in public housing capital grant funds
  • $1.0 million in Home Forward’s PHPI funds
  • $0.4 million contribution from Multnomah County’s weatherization program

The regional economic stimulus impact included over 32% ($3 million) of contracts awarded to qualified minority-owned, women-owned, and emerging small businesses with over 11,344 hours worked by women and minorities.

For more information on Sweet 16 Capital Improvements, read or download our final project report.