BEND, OR -- Bend is doling out more than a million dollars to three affordable housing projects. Mayor Pro Tem Megan Perkins says they’re a mix of rental and homeownership developments. "There’s one that is 59 units, and that’s for Housing Works. That’s the College View apartments that many of you have seen and heard about. That is a rental product. What’s cool about that project is that on the parcel right next to it is a Rooted Homes development, which is an affordable home-ownership project." Perkins tells KBND News, "The other two projects: One is 30 units at Thistle & Nest, and the other is nine units for Bend-Redmond Habitat for Humanity. Those are for downpayment assistance. What I like about this is that this fund is really working on all angles. It’s working for rental, it’s working for services, sometimes it’s funding homeless services, and it’s also focusing on home-ownership, as well." Thistle & Nest (pictured) is a townhome development in southeast Bend.

The money comes from the city’s affordable housing fund, "It’s ? of 1% for building permits. And it’s actually the first affordable housing fund in the state of Oregon," says Perkins. Since its inception in 2006, Bend’s affordable housing fund has contributed to or created more than a thousand units. 

The Committee tasked with narrowing down the list of possible projects, she says, always receives more applications than funds available. "The two projects they did not recommend for funding, they had not secured a lot of the state and federal funding that you need to make these projects be viable. So, it wasn’t that these were bad projects at all, it’s just that they needed to have that secured funding first. And they encouraged them to reapply."

Councilors will distribute more money to low and moderate-income housing projects May first, through the federal Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program.