News

An honorable place to live

The Housing Authority of Portland (HAP) was formed in 1941 to provide housing for the estimated 25,000 people moving to Portland to work for the war effort in the new Kaiser Shipyards. With housing tight, workers slept on pool tables in taverns or took turns, one sleeping nights and the other days, in the same bed.

HAP built 18,000 housing units between 1942 and 1944, more than any other housing authority in the nation.

One of those projects, Columbia Villa, became a nationally acclaimed model for its livability.

“The design for Columbia Villa was considered exemplary,” says Karen Gibson, assistant professor of urban studies and planning. “It had the attributes of middle-class life with individual units, lots of open space, and a strong sense of community. . . It was honorable to live in Columbia Villa at that time because people who were living there were working.”

Over time, Columbia Villa went through ups and downs, including the arrival of drugs in the 1980s that resulted in the city’s first drive-by shooting. An influx of social services helped bring those problems under control, but Columbia Villa’s infrastructure—roads, sewers, water mains—was not aging gracefully.

When federal funding became available to demolish Portland’s first public housing project, HAP applied.

Beginning in 2003, the agency razed the 462 public housing units in Columbia Villa. By December 2006, a total of 854 new units should be complete—units that are a mix of public housing (370), elderly housing (66), affordable rental housing (186) and low-cost homes (232).