September 13, 2021
New Affordable Housing 🏗️ + Ways to Support Shelters
We’re building in Rosewood, sharing new volunteer resources, introducing our staff and more.
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We’re wishing you and yours well, and whether you feel like you’re thriving or surviving right now, we hope you’re finding all the resources, support and community connection you need.
As our housing crisis continues, we keep working hard to provide solutions to the people of East Portland and East Multnomah County: We’re breaking ground on yet more affordable housing. We’re creating even more socially distanced ways to get involved in our emergency shelters. We’re sharing out about our pandemic precautions (because transparency matters!). And we’re introducing some of our staff, who you may already know and adore, or maybe you’re meeting them for the first time. Plus, volunteer orientation is this week. 🎉
Join us as we get to work! Let’s dive in.
We’re Building 93 Affordable Apartments in Rosewood
A rendering of the new housing community we’re building at SE 160th and Stark
This June, we said final goodbyes to the building that once housed our family shelter and began construction on our newest affordable housing community. Located at 160th and SE Stark, this new space will bring 93 apartments to the Rosewood neighborhood, with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units for people with 30% to 60% of the area median income.
Wraparound services, free high-speed internet, 27 on-site parking spaces, a children’s play area, preserved and new trees, safety upgrades to public spaces around the building (via community partners), and robust community engagement make this an exciting new venture. Pre-leasing begins in fall 2022, with early 2023 move-in. Visit our project page to learn more, and make sure to get in touch if you want to share your knowledge and history of this site.
How We’re Operating in Response to COVID-19
As a social service provider, we have an elevated responsibility to foster a culture and build environments that help protect against the spread of COVID 19 while meeting the urgent needs of program participants. We’re still operating in a hybrid model, with staff working remotely where possible and masking up when in-person services are required. We offer free masks to all staff and participants at all locations. Our service centers at Rockwood and Gateway (yes, that brand new building at Gateway Discovery Park is us!) are still closed to the public but offering our full array of programs.
As ever, we heartily encourage vaccination to anyone who is eligible and able. In case you or your loved ones are still considering your options, here’s Multnomah County’s latest information about where to get vaccinated and why to get vaccinated in multiple languages.
Get Involved! All the Ways You Can Support Our Shelters
Register now to be a host for our upcoming winter coat drive
Our emergency shelters need your energy and dedicated volunteering to be the warm and vibrant spaces where participants can create their own stability and build their futures. To make it easier to engage, we have oodles of new online tools to guide folks who want to volunteer or financially support the work happening in our shelters. You can host a donation drive, sponsor a shelter dinner, make sack lunches and donate a shelter meal – plus the perennial socially distanced favorite way to volunteer, our drop-off potlucks!
We also have a coat drive coming up in October, and we need businesses and community groups to register to participate! Do you work or have connection somewhere that would love to host a donation box? Whether you have a great-public facing space for people to donate or an office culture that knows how to show out for their community, we want to hear from you. Check out our call for hosts and share with your networks. Sign up soon to be a host and reach out to volunteer@humansolutions.org for more info.
Meet Our Staff 😊
Mukhtara Yusuf, equitable design coordinator at Human Solutions
It’s been a while since we’ve been able to see you all in person – we miss you! – so our leadership team and board have shared more about themselves on our website. For our participants, donors and volunteers, it’s critical to know who’s running the services you’re accessing, funding or otherwise supporting. We have welcomed a bunch of new folks to our board in recent months, with new leadership, too.
We also have a special highlight on the blog, featuring equitable design coordinator Mukhtara Yusuf, a decolonial designer who began a two-year fellowship with us in October 2020. The work they are doing is impactful, heartful and deeply placemaking. Mukhtara’s time with us is a gift, and if you get the chance to work with them, we know you’ll agree.
Happening Now: It’s Volunteer Orientation Time!
Our quarterly volunteer orientation is this Thursday! The community’s response to the pandemic has been strong, so we have a host of folks newly helping with crucial tasks like driving to collect and deliver donations, making meals for shelter residents, hosting donation drives and more. Let’s take the chance to meet and build our network the best way we know how – together. We’re meeting over Zoom and hope to see you there.
Please, take care out there! While our world may feel chaotic and unpredictable right now, the team at Human Solutions believes deeply in the power of community to care for each other in times of need.
Warmly,
Your friends at Human Solutions
PS – Want to learn more about how income inequality affects our communities? Listen in on the latest podcast from Policy for the People, hosted by the Oregon Center for Public Policy.
