Created to help alleviate Oregon’s current housing crisis, the Housing Innovation Partnership consists of innovative leaders from the private, public, and civic sectors who are dedicated to finding new ways to increase housing production.

Oregon is facing one of the worst housing crises in the country with an estimated deficit of 140,000 homes statewide. The lack of adequate and affordable housing in our state poses a major threat to our citizens, communities, and economy. Around 30,000 new housing units will need to be produced each year for the next ten years in order for us to catch up with demand, but current production falls well short of that goal. The Housing Innovation Partners are working to develop a wide range of approaches to accelerate actions in closing Oregon’s dramatic gap in housing.

The HIP has developed four Working Groups to address issues related to Middle Income Housing Financing & Incentives, Modular Housing, Local Capacity, and Research. 

The HIP’s mix of public, private, and civic members have also worked to develop a mix of recommendations for the State Legislature to address Oregon’s underproduction of housing. 

Mass Timber Housing

The Oregon iSector, in partnership with the Oregon Mass Timber Coalition, have been awarded a grant from Business Oregon to plan for the implementation of a Center of Innovation Excellence focused on Mass Timber Housing.

In the upcoming months these partners will work to create a business plan for a Mass Timber Housing Innovation Center of Excellence; exploring regional factory capacity and identifying best practices for mass timber modular housing; examining employment and business opportunities across the entire supply chain from fiber sourcing to on-site assembly; evaluating which rural communities could be candidates for mass timber and modular housing factories; researching how workforce and entrepreneurship opportunities can be targeted to under-served Oregonians; quantifying the public benefits of using mass timber including estimated cost savings, health, and environmental benefits; facilitating strong connections between education and businesses along the supply chain by nurturing and expanding relationships to regularly bring academia and business together, and much more as they uncover what the future holds for mass timber housing in Oregon.

Project Turnkey

In the face of Covid-19, wildfire disasters, and the crisis of homelessness, the need for readily available housing in Oregon became critical. Board members of the Oregon iSector responded to the need and initiated the Turnkey Project. These leaders from the League of Oregon Cities, Association of Oregon Counties, Oregon Community Foundation, and Hacienda CDC joined with Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association and others representing the public, private and civic sectors and formed the Turnkey Partnership to address the need.

The partners determined the best way to provide housing quickly was to acquire existing hotels and motels. Members of the State Legislature were approached and $74.7 million in state money was allocated to purchase hotels and motels. The Oregon Community Foundation took the lead and serves as administrator for the program on behalf of the partnership.

In the first round of Project Turnkey, a total of nineteen properties were acquired in thirteen counties throughout the state, providing 798 units of housing. In the longer term, these facilities will be used as transitional or permanent housing units. Megan Loeb, a co-convener of the Housing Innovation Partnership and Senior Program Officer of Economic Vitality and Housing at the Oregon Community Foundation is now working with those communities to develop local public-private-civic sector partnerships that will provide the wraparound services essential to meet the need for ongoing operations and support services for present and future residents.