Two Major Affordable Housing Developments Reach Milestones in Portland

The Strong Family Apartments is the latest development in Alberta Alive, an effort to provide more affordable housing stock in historically Black neighborhoods ravaged by eminent domain efforts and gentrification. The apartments will be reserved for households with incomes from 30% to 60% of the area median income.

Developments like these will “fortify” historically Black neighborhoods of the area, CDC CEO Eric Paine said.

“My mom was a civil rights activist, and also a community activist, and really was responsible for a lot of profound things that happened in North/Northeast Portland,” said former property owner Jackie Strong, who sold the one-acre property to the city. “So we sort of vibed with her spirit…we wanted to make sure, one, our fingerprint is on this neighborhood and secondly, to do something good with the property that would be long-lasting. I realized that the city had this big goal of creating housing in the future…it just matched who we were as the Strong family.”

The nonprofit Self Enhancement, Inc. and Community Development Partners co-own the site, and are working together to develop 21 one-bedroom units, 32 two-bedroom units and 22 three-bedroom units on the property. The residential building is expected to open in March 2026.

A Long, Traumatic Road

For Strong, the development will stand in defiance of gentrification. But the road to Tuesday’s groundbreaking subjected Strong and his brother Luther to many subtle facets of the practice.

“We were limited in what we could do,” Strong told The Skanner.

“That was part of the gentrification that was happening in North/Northeast Portland, because we weren’t able to really get any financing to be able to develop it like we wanted to. In fact, we got fined like all-get-out by a system that was, either consciously or unconsciously, gentrifying the whole neighborhood, and us in particular.”

affordable housing developments med A rendering of what the Strong Family Apartments will look like once complete.
Alongside redlining, the brothers learned firsthand the damaging process of red-tagging.

“They used to have this old policy where they would ‘red tag’ a house in North/Northeast Portland, and once the house got that designation, it went into the city’s database and then there were timelines you had to adhere to be able to get these infractions that the city says were happening with that particular property – you had to get them remedied,” Strong said. “There was this guy who worked for the city who would actually go through North and Northeast Portland, and red-tag these houses, and then on the flipside, either acquire them or find developers to buy them at these incredibly low prices, because the city would sometimes auction the houses off…for pennies on the dollar.

“Those fines would escalate and continue to grow until a person couldn’t hardly pay them. We had to go to great lengths to be able to secure financing to be able to hold onto the properties. They were red-tagged, so that means they needed to be rehabbed, but the banks were part of the problem with gentrification because there was the targeted area of North/Northeast Portland that was sort of redlined, you couldn’t get a loan to rehab the properties.

"That’s another way that gentrification was coming at us that we had to deal with.”

In addition, Strong had to fight for a reclassification of the property under new zoning changes, to allow for higher-capacity development in line with surrounding properties.

The development, Strong said, will be a tribute to him and his brother “for being able to overcome gentrification,” he said.

“That in itself I think is worthy for the community to know,” said Strong, a licensed clinical social worker with a doctorate in social work research. He plans to have continuing input on the supportive services provided in the new residential community.

The Strong building will join Alberta Alive’s three other affordable residential properties named after prominent Black Portlanders, like Paul and Geneva Knauls, Ronnie Herndon and Dr. Darrell Millner.

Ideally, Strong said, he’d like to see the new development named Luther Strong Jr. and Dr. Jackie Strong’s Empowerment Village.

Exiting Homelessness Downtown

On Thursday, the Fairfield Apartments reopened with 75 studio and one-bedroom apartments downtown. New residents receive rent assistance in order to prevent paying more than 30% of their income on housing.

The building at Harvey Milk Street and Southwest 11th Avenue is open to residents exiting homelessness. Home Forward oversaw the completion of seismic upgrades to the more than century-old building, as well as window and elevator replacement and other structural improvements.

The city noted that former Fairfield residents were given relocation benefits during the upgrades, and given the option to return once construction was complete.

Fairfield offers permanent supportive housing, with culturally specific services like peer and mental health support, life skills and housing retention provided by the Urban League of Portland.

In August, the city's housing bureau awarded about $42 million to Home Forward and the Urban League of Portland for a 14-story, 230-unit development on the Broadway corridor. Units will range from studios to three-bedrooms and be designated as either affordable or rent-assisted.