A North Portland low-income apartment complex that opened in the summer of 2020 was meant to be a way to help some people out of homelessness. Now, three years later tenants are citing filthy conditions, assault and thefts. While some have stayed, others have fled and returned to shelters. Courtney Vaughn is the news editor for the Portland Mercury. She joins us to share more on the habitability issues of the complex.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. A new low- income apartment complex opened in North Portland in the summer of 2020. It was hailed as a way to help some people out of homelessness. One metro councilor called it a remarkable project that had driven down the cost of its housing units. But just three years later, some tenants are fleeing, citing filthy conditions, assault and theft. Courtney Vaughn reported on this as a news editor for the Portland Mercury. She joins us now. Welcome back to the show.
Courtney Vaughn: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.
Miller: Thanks for joining us once again. So to start off, what was the idea behind Argyle Gardens?
Vaughn: I think the idea here was to build housing that could support folks who were living in shelters but may be ready to move on to permanent supportive housing. So it’s built to accommodate folks with very low incomes, which is why it was built with this modular design and a lot of cost efficiency. They wanted to be able to give folks a place that they could live in that was true housing to shelter, but be able to do so affordably.
Miller: And a lot of these were small efficiency units that had their own bathrooms and kitchens, but some of them were just simply bedrooms known as single room occupancy, ‘SROs.’ What made this appealing to residents?
Vaughn: I think residents were drawn here for a number of reasons. First being that deeply affordable housing like this is hard to come by. If you have the opportunity to get a unit like this of any kind, you should probably take it. There aren’t, as you know… we don’t have enough to accommodate everybody who needs housing.
Another perk to Argyle Gardens is it’s really close to transit lines and it also offers basic furniture. So if you’re someone who doesn’t have the money to furnish a place or you don’t have furniture of your own, it does come already equipped with a real small bed and a desk. So theoretically it’s ‘move-in ready’, and then you’ve got amenities, like it offers secure bike storage, access to a full kitchen, and then a chance to build community with neighbors, which is something that you don’t really get if you’re living in a shelter.
Miller: All that was… were the promises… we’ll get to the reality in just a second. But where did the funding for this come from?
Vaughn: So, funding came from a variety of sources, but most of it was public agencies. Argyle Gardens was built with a lot of low- income housing tax credits, I think about $9 million or so, which is the bulk of the cost. So those tax credits really helped them get this thing off the ground. And then the rest came from sources like Metro, I think Metro kicked in about $340,000. They got some money from the Meyer Memorial Trust ‒ about $400,000 ‒ and then a personal loan or a private loan for about $730,000.
Miller: How does the cost per unit, how did it compare to developments where everyone has their own kitchen and bathroom ‒ a more standard version of apartment or condo living?
Vaughn: Yes. At this place, they were able to squeeze in about 71 units for under $12 million, which is pretty incredible. I think that shakes out to about $169,000 per unit if you’re talking about construction costs. Comparatively, places like the Hattie Redmond, which is also a deeply affordable property; they have studio-only apartments, meaning each tenant gets their own kitchen and bathroom. Those shake out to about $423,000 per unit. So there really is a huge cost savings when you’re using this modular design with shared amenities.
Miller: And that’s one of the reasons, one of the big reasons that local governmental and nonprofit leaders were so excited about this model when it opened. What is Argyle Gardens like from the outside when you visit right now?
Vaughn: Yeah, it’s a nice property. It has space for small gardens. The buildings are colorful and a few of the main rooms, like where the property manager’s office is located, they’re tidy. They still look new, and there are a lot of nice features. But a lot of it, when you get inside, it’s just sort of fallen into disrepair or needs a little TLC.
Miller: What was visible on the inside? What did you see?
Vaughn: That’s a good question. What I observed first was the entry door to one of the buildings was sort of propped open with a garden hose. And that was basically so people who didn’t live there and didn’t have a key could still get in. And then, once I was inside, I also noticed that random furniture items and boxes were sort of strewn about in the hallways and the kitchen. Inside one of the shared kitchens, I saw a refrigerator that was just full of months-old, spoiled food, and the floors were pretty grimy, as were the counters. In another building there were dead insects all over one of the countertops, there are bike parts in the kitchen drawers and kind of throughout the kitchen. So it made it really difficult for residents there, or difficult and unwelcoming for residents there, to want to use those spaces. And in the kitchens in particular, there’s often overflowing garbage because the trash receptacles aren’t big enough to accommodate five or six people.
Miller: Can you tell us about one of the residents who you talked to, Joel Leslie? How did he end up at Argyle Gardens?
Vaughn: Joel ended up at Argyle Gardens from a homeless shelter and he ended up in a homeless shelter largely because he just couldn’t make ends meet. He told me that he met a woman online, ended up moving out to Oregon and moving in with her, and they split up and he really couldn’t afford his own apartment. He had a job working at the Moto Center as a Security Guard, but he lost that job when the pandemic hit. And from there, he just ended up at a shelter. So he was at a couple of different shelters. And while he was at one of those shelters, he was approached about this new apartment complex called Argyle Gardens. It was a brand new site at the time, and he was really excited to secure a spot. He was told it would be kind of ‘high barrier,’ a lot of screening of the tenants, and it sounded perfect for him.
Miller: What did he tell you about his experience at the complex?
Vaughn: He said that when he first moved in, he loved it. It was a really nice property. But quickly he started to notice that things had changed and a lot of the shared amenities were not being fixed or taken care of. I think a year into it, they stopped cleaning it as frequently. They have residential service coordinators that are supposed to be on site helping the residents there. There was a lot of turnover in that position which also led to some issues, and then as things needed fixing or things around the property kind of fell into disrepair, he noticed that I think at one point the management company had maybe changed hands, but he wasn’t getting a response from the management company when he would ask for things or reach out about concerns, security concerns, maintenance concerns, you name it. He was getting nowhere.
Miller: What kinds of safety or security concerns did you hear about?
Vaughn: A couple of the residents that I spoke to talked about a number of things. The safety concerns were, one, the lack of secured access to the building. Other residents had found a way to sort of prop it open so they could let other people in who didn’t live there. And keep in mind these are tiny units. They’re supposed to be for a single person. So there was no secured entry into the building. Some of the tenants had a tendency to become violent with each other.
There were also issues, I think Joel said one of the locks on his door stopped working, and maintenance or property management was no longer going to fix it. And then of course, they’ve had a couple of repeated instances with bedbugs and they’ve been trying to work through those. But those things have sort of culminated into an experience for residents that’s been difficult to manage and made them feel unsafe.
Miller: What did you hear from Transition Projects about the building? They are the nonprofit that created it.
Vaughn: So, initially, Transition Projects was really proud of the project and it was like you said, it was sort of appraised as this model that could be replicated easily and as a very affordable model. Since our reporting, they have definitely acknowledged some of the issues on site. They take issue with the way that we categorize some things. You know, we are pretty confident that what we reported is accurate. I’ve been on site a few times. But ultimately, they acknowledge the challenges they have.They say they’re working through them and they claim that they have been addressing those issues little by little and things have gotten better. But residents sort of paint a different picture.
Miller: One of the more shocking revelations in your article is a voicemail from a City of Portland inspector to one of the tenants. Can you give us a sense for what the inspector said?
Vaughn: It was surprising because the inspector’s observation sort of mirrored what the residents said in terms of not being able to get a response from management. So, that city inspector said that he had tried to reach out to the property management company, Quantum Residential. And he had also tried to reach out to Transition Projects and couldn’t get a hold of either of those companies, and said he kind of found it shocking that even the city inspector couldn’t get someone on the line or get someone to return the messages. So it kind of speaks to the issues that not only city employees are dealing with, but the residents are dealing with constantly.
Miller: But did the city follow up? Don’t they have the authority to compel property owners or managers to respond?
Vaughn: Transition Project said that the city was able to close out one of the complaints regarding bedbugs. But it’s my understanding that that particular inspector has also gotten another city inspector to look into this and it sounds like they are being a little more aggressive about some of the issues that have come out of Argyle Gardens, particularly since our reporting. So it’s my understanding they are trying to pursue resolutions with the property management company and the owner. But you ask a good question. You would think that they would be able to have more authority in that department.
Miller: Where have people who have left this apartment gone?
Vaughn: Some of them are still there and are not likely to make a fuss about the conditions. Others have either found other housing, but a number of them have actually gone back to living at shelters. And so that’s really the heartbreaking component is, at least a couple of them have left. Some of them have been evicted. One of the tenants I spoke to a few months ago was evicted. They essentially gave him about $2,900 to leave the property and not come back. And so he’s now living back at a shelter, because that money is not enough to secure him another apartment long term. So, some of them have moved on but others have not found replacement, stable, permanent housing.
Miller: We have often heard that transitional or supportive housing is one of the strongest ways to help address homelessness. Why do you think that to a great extent it’s failing here?
Vaughn: That’s a really great question. And I think you’re right, but my personal observation is that I think it’s only failing here due to a lack of oversight. And I think it’s important to acknowledge that this particular model of transitional housing, which uses the SRO single room occupancy model ‒ it can work. Experts have said this model, which is a lot cheaper to replicate, can work, but it really requires thoughtful oversight, and thoughtful approaches.
So my observation is just with a little better management, and maybe thoughtful approaches to connecting with those residents more frequently, and potentially even considering the acuity levels of residents in terms of where they get placed, that could really go a long way. And that’s what experts I’ve talked to say, is that this model can work, but it really needs to be done the right way. And you have to… it’s not enough to just build housing, get residents placed in an apartment, and walk away. There still has to be a lot of service and oversight that goes into this to make sure that people can thrive once they’re in those apartments.
Miller: Does it seem like Transition Projects is going to be putting more money towards that? Not just cleaning out refrigerators, but providing those more comprehensive services to foster a safe and clean and pro-social community?
Vaughn: Sure, I think that’s a great question. I think it’s one that remains to be seen. You’re absolutely right that this is about more than just cleaning a kitchen or keeping a common space clean. But I think at its core, it’s about the support of services and providing a level of oversight that would allow that model to work. Transition Projects says they’re going to be putting more effort into regular cleaning and working with the property management company to fix some of these issues. But it’s hard to tell at this point and I think we won’t know probably for another few months whether that extra effort pays off.
Miller: Courtney, thanks very much.
Vaughn: Thank you, Dave.
Miller: Courtney Vaughn is news editor for the Portland Mercury.
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