Seniors Housing & Healthcare Trends

LOS ANGELES: A pod village concept has been developed to create very low cost housing for seniors, low income families and the dispossessed.

After popping up in Portland and Hillsboro, temporary housing “pods” could be on their way to Forest Grove, along with more low-income apartments.

Washington County is in the process of acquiring property in Forest Grove for use as affordable housing and possibly a temporary pod village. Currently, the county’s primary contender is a 2.92-acre plot of land off Elm Street and Highway 47, and staff are in talks with the sellers to purchase it.

“It’ll take many years to construct affordable housing on the property, but it’s an excellent site from what we can tell,” said Jes Larson, the county’s supportive housing services program manager.

Forest Grove’s budding endeavor is just one of many projects that the county has launched, or will launch, thanks to the $2 billion supportive housing services measure voters in the Metro area passed in May 2020.

“(The measure) gave us the resources to expand our shelter capacity for what was really the first time in Washington County’s history,” Emily Roots, public affairs and communication coordinator for the county’s Department of Housing Services, said via email.

Since then, Washington County has accumulated a total of 320 shelter beds, many through winter, bridge, transitional or other temporary shelters.

Affordable housing, both in Forest Grove and other communities, will help fill a large hole in the system.

“As the planning process (for the measure) was underway, it was immediately clear that we had a significant gap in shelter resources, with no year-round shelters available for adults experiencing homelessness,” Roots said.

Although both Roots and Larson said the county won’t begin to design the Forest Grove site until the property is purchased, they noted that affordable housing complexes share standard characteristics.

For instance, many affordable housing sites include between 30 and 100 apartments, depending on the site’s capacity, and are rent-regulated based on income and other factors, with a required 60-year rate freeze.

Some developments are targeted toward specific populations, such as families, veterans or — as in the case of Cornelius Place, the building that houses the Cornelius Public Library and has apartment homes above the library — seniors.

Currently, Larson estimates that the county government is six months away from determining if it will buy the Elm Street property.

If, for whatever reason the property does not work out, county officials will continue the search in Forest Grove. However, if an agreement is reached, the county will start the due diligence process to investigate where the land is viable for affordable housing and/or a temporary pod village.

“We need to make sure the ground is safe,” Larson said, and whether building there is cost-effective. “The due diligence process will determine if we buy the property.”

She added that if the property is deemed suitable, the pod village would most likely be erected post-acquisition and taken down before work begins on the permanent affordable housing development.

That’s similar to the approach used in Hillsboro, where a pod village with some 30 Conestoga-style huts was created last year. The Safe Rest Pods are expected to be removed to make way for a permanent facility — in Hillsboro’s case, a year-round shelter rather than a housing complex.

Pods or huts to house people without shelter have also been deployed in Portland and other communities, including the Warm Springs Reservation in Central Oregon.

However, Roots made it clear that absolutely nothing will be done to the property in Forest Grove before the county starts an earnest conversation with Forest Grove residents.

“If a sale is finalized, the county will move quickly to engage the surrounding community to discuss potential uses of the site and create a clear and supportive neighbor agreement with the community,” Roots said. “No programming would begin at the site before that community engagement process is completed.”