Feature

Building Community, Literally

Kôr Community Land Trust leverages donations and partnerships to help working families build generational wealth

By Nicole Vulcan

As the snow starts to fly and the wind picks up into its November-level bluster, lots is still going on at the construction site near 8th Street and Bennington Lane in Bend. Roofs and windows are already installed. Siding is nearly complete. Inside, some units are already covered with wallboard—a sure sign that the project is nearing completion, with five new homeowners soon to move in, finally realizing that most basic of American Dreams.

In the case of Crescita, the new fiveunit cottage cluster developed by Kôr Community Land Trust, the American Dream includes an energy efficient, net-zero home with one upstairs bedroom, two bathrooms and another flexible office/small bedroom on the ground floor, all for a fraction of the cost of the typical Bend new-construction home. By leveraging community donations and the community land trust model— where the home belongs to the owner, but the land remains in the hands of the trust—people for whom homeownership has been out of reach will soon make these places their own.

“These homebuyers have been selected—the majority of them are local workforce,” said Jackie Keogh, Kôr’s executive director. Among the new homeowners at Crescita are public sector employees and a member of the local media, all earning somewhere between 60 and 120% of the Area Median Income—about $67,973 in Bend, according to the most recent U.S. Census data.

With the other projects in the pipeline, Keogh said the focus will be on homes that can accommodate bigger families or those desiring to live in multi-generational homes.

“We have seven homes being built in southeast Bend—all of them will be three bedrooms and net zero. We’ll be selecting homeowners for those in midyear of 2023, and they’ll be moving by the end of the year,” Keogh said. “Kôr’s goal is not just building for the community but with the community, and what that really means is resident-driven design.”

Meanwhile, Kôr is working on the largest affordable homeownership community ever for the city of Bend, on Simpson Avenue, on Bend’s west side.

The location on the west side is a priority for Kôr, which prizes geographic diversity and the ability for homeowners to have the same access to quality schools, walkable downtowns and other attractive amenities that any other homeowner would look for, Keogh said.

“This is a really new idea in the sense that, when folks go to purchase a home, they typically displace themselves because they have to move further outside of the city core, and with that displacement comes longer commutes to work, change in child care, change in school districts. Our idea is for that not to happen, so that’s why the Simpson site is so important to us,” Keogh said. “Kôr is going to be building 37 affordable, single-family, two and three-bedroom homes there, next to Housing Works’ 59 units of Section 8 housing, with the idea that we will give preference to those Section 8 clients who are able to move into ownership—essentially opening up a rental spot and also helping a local resident with the Section 8 advance through what we call the continuum of affordable housing.”

With the launch of the Source Weekly’s Central Oregon Gives this week, donations given to Kôr between Nov. 9 and Dec. 31 will go to the construction of a Kôr home, with all donations to be matched by a local family to raise a total of at least $50,000. That $50,000 is something of a “magic number,” representing the gap between the cost to build each home and what the local workforce can currently afford. So in that sense, Kôr’s efforts are quite literally “building a community” in, for and with Bend.

Nicole Vulcan

Kor Executive Director Jackie Keogh stands behind the company's mission of building diverse, affordable housing.

Shepherd’s House After The Lighthouse

Shepherd’s House opened up its navigation center in June, and has been expanding services since. Next stop: Redmond

By Jack Harvel

Shepherd’s House opened the Lighthouse Navigation Center in July, just four months after the City of Bend approved plans to convert its overnight shelter into a full-fledged 24-hour service center. The renovated shelter has more sleeping space, a lounge area for meals and meetings and a computer lab. About 100 people can stay during the nighttime, and during the day people can walk in and get connected to local services.

The Lighthouse is the latest complement to the suite of services Shepherd’s House offers. A project called the Project S.H.A.R.E. van tours around Bend with basic supplies like food, clothes and toiletries to the tent communities around town.

“They don't really trust a lot of people, it's a very hostile environment. To build that trust back in the community that kind of also outcasts them, they don't really trust a lot of people. Project S.H.A.R.E. heads out there, and the job is just to be there, and just to be a resource for them, not trying to push or sell anything to them,” said Aaron Mitchel, communications director at Shepherd’s House.

Sometimes the van is followed by the Shepherd’s House shower truck, which has four stops a week at areas with nearby homeless populations. In addition to outreach, Shepherd’s House also runs shelters besides the Navigation Center. On Nov. 15 Shepherd’s House will open its winter warming shelter in Redmond at the Mountain View Fellowship Church. It also has higher barrier shelters where residents must stay sober while living there. Drugs and alcohol aren’t allowed in the

Navigation Center or warming shelter, but it accepts people who use drugs and alcohol.

“We also have basically our recovery program. It's a clean, sober living environment. We have a men’s center that holds 30 people, 30 men, and that's what they do on Division Street. And we have a woman at Children's Center at this undisclosed location for safety,” Mitchel said. “Unfortunately, it only takes nine women and children total going through that program because that is in a house.”

Shepherd’s House’s has about 50 employees but it also depends on hundreds of volunteers to help out. Volunteers help around in the day-to-day operation by shuttling around the shower truck, prepping and serving meals or doling out basic goods from the Project S.H.A.R.E van. Volunteers even help with some of the more administrative tasks like soliciting donations, working on the website or writing social media content.

“If you could think of it, we need it,” Mitchel said. “Every location department we have has room for volunteers,” Mitchel said.

In the future Shepherd’s House is hoping to grow its presence in Redmond. Redmond’s homeless population was recorded at 127 in the 2022 Point In Time Count survey of unsheltered people.

“The idea is to kind of duplicate what we have going on and moving it to Redmond,” Mitchel said. “We're hoping by next year, we could really start making way for construction and have that operational.”

Courtesy Shepherd's House

Shepherd’s House employees, supporters and clients celebrate the grand opening of The Lighthouse Navigation Center.

Shepherd’s House Ministries

Shepherdshouseministries.org

WSCAT is Making Strides

The Warm Springs Community Action Team empowers community members and promotes community development

By Allie Noland

In 2001, Warm Springs leaders created a community development organization called the Warm Springs Community Action Team. The project was official- Photo courtesy of WSCAT ly established as a nonprofit in 2008 and has been serving the Warm Springs community ever since.

WSCAT is putting successful, supported programs into action and empowering individuals living on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation.

Chris Watson is the executive director of WSCAT and has been with the nonprofit since 2013. When Watson joined the team, he was managing the Individual Development Account Program, which serves to assist people living with low incomes and low assets move toward financial independence and self-sufficiency. The program helps people achieve those goals by helping them accumulate savings, manage finances wisely and purchase long-term assets. The IDA program is operated by Oregon Housing and Community Services and has grown to be the largest IDA program in all Indian country, according to Watson.

After determining which programs they qualify for, participants of the program are responsible for depositing savings into their accounts, and for each dollar deposited, the IDA program will match $5 to go toward purchasing an asset. Funding for this program comes from state, federal, and private funders. To receive the 5:1 matching in savings, participants must also attend financial skills courses and asset specific education.

“Participants gain not just financial capital to operate a business, but also intellectual capital to enable them to be really successful and have a fighting chance,” Watson said.

Many IDA program participants are looking to open and promote businesses. Watson said land access makes it hard for people on the reservation to acquire brick-and-mortar locations. Almost all the land on the reservation is federal trust land, and it is difficult to acquire and maintain. Right now, there are only 12 brickand-mortar businesses on the Warm Springs reservation, according to Watson.

“It's a leasing system,” Waston said. “So, people get these long-term leases, but they actually don’t own the land on which their homes (or businesses) rest, which means they don't build that asset in the same way someone does in Madras or Redmond or Bend, towards their home.”

That’s where the idea for the Commissary Project came to life and into action. Because of complications with geographic isolation, commercial codes and outside entities setting up businesses, WSCAT decided to construct a commissary building that is expected to be completed in 2025.

“Why does a nonprofit organization decide that we're going to build a business

Hacker Architects is Warm Springs Community Action Team’s architectural partner and created their design for the new building, expected to be completed in 2025.

incubator with retail and office space and a food cart pod and a commercial kitchen?” Watson said. “It is because really, it's such a hard process for individuals.” This project will provide a space for Warm Springs businesses to start, grow and thrive without the stress of finding a piece of land to start a brick-andmortar, according to Starla Green, tribal member and general manager for the project. Green is involved in every piece of making the building a success, from the building of the structure to the interior design to the policy writing to all the operations of businesses entering the final project. After WSCAT met with tribal leaders about what the community wanted out of this project, they decided the historic 5,000 square-foot historic wooden commissary structure should include a food cart pod, shared workspace, business office rentals, a full commercial kitchen, a coffee shop/deli, pop-up business space, public bathrooms, a salon and a gathering space.

Green is also the food cart manager/trainer for WSCAT. She founded, owns and manages a training program for the popular food cart in Warm Springs, the Twisted Teepee, which serves traditional foods from the region, including huckleberry butter, dried wild game, canned salmon dishes, fry bread and more. The cart will one day be a part of the commissary food cart pod.

Another area of focus for WSCAT is expanding its youth programs. Over 40% of the population on the Warm Springs reservation is under the age of 18, and it's a growing community, according to Watson.

For the past two years, WSCAT has held summer youth programs to provide a safe learning space for children and access to outside opportunities. Last year the program learned about financial skills, CPR training, cooking traditional foods and future careers. Participants also went to the Moda Center for Trail Blazers games, visited regional organic farms and attended the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs Conference where kids got to do their own micro business planning and pitches.

With more funding and planning, WSCAT expects to have more youth programs next year, according to Watson.

More information on the Warm Springs Community Action Team Commissary Project is available on its website at wscat.org.