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New low-income apartments in Fruit Valley to help fill need

By Cami Joner
Published: December 22, 2010, 12:00am
2 Photos
Construction continues on McCallister Village, a 48-unit low-income housing community near Fruit Valley Road.
Construction continues on McCallister Village, a 48-unit low-income housing community near Fruit Valley Road. Photo Gallery

Construction is under way on a low-income apartment complex set to open this April in Vancouver’s Fruit Valley neighborhood.

But the $10 million McCallister Village, on the southwest corner of Fruit Valley Road and Firestone Lane, will provide only a fraction of the “affordable” housing stock needed in Clark County, according to its nonprofit developer, Affordable Community Environments, which operates 147 low-income housing units in the county.

Nearly half of the new development’s 48 units will be dedicated to extremely low-income renters, those making 30 percent or less of Portland-Vancouver’s annual median income. For a family of four, the median income is $71,200— so a four-member family would need to make $21,360 per year or less to qualify. The other half of the units will be for people making 50 percent or less of the area’s annual median income.

The need for such housing continues to grow, said Leah Greenwood, housing development manager for Affordable Community Environments (ACE). Her agency’s apartment waiting list includes about 800 households, up from 400 households two years ago, Greenwood said.

“The majority of those on the list, about 75 percent, are waiting for our lowest-rent units,” she said.

A two-bedroom apartment in the new two-building McCallister Village will rent for a starting rate of about $395 per month.

“I anticipate those low-income units will all be leased up by day one,” Greenwood said.

In all, ACE estimates a need for about 7,000 housing units for county residents making the lowest level of income, Greenwood said.

That’s due in part to Clark County’s high jobless rate — 13.1 percent in November — and its high rate of home foreclosure. One out of every 513 houses is in some stage of default or bank repossession.

“Obviously, the economy is one of the factors. As things get tight and people lose jobs or get moved to half-time (employment), it creates a much higher need for our housing,” said Bryan Cole, a landscape architect for MacKay & Sposito Inc. in Vancouver and board president of ACE.

However, Cole also interpreted the wait list as a sign of the growing reputation of the nonprofit ACE, founded in 1998 to develop and support housing for low-income families and people with special needs. The agency’s first 51-unit apartment project opened in Orchards in 2003.

“When we brought on new projects, our waiting list grew. The word got around and we had more housing to offer people,” he said.

ACE recently bought and remodeled the 32-unit Bethea Park Estates apartment complex in Washougal, off state Highway 14 on the southwest corner of 45th and Addy streets.

Cole said ACE does not have any new projects on the drawing board after McCallister Village, named for neighborhood activist Lee McCallister.

Grants to build the community came from federal, state, county and city low-income housing tax credits.

The 10-month construction project is expected to generate about 250 jobs for 46 regional contractors under general contractor, Vancouver-based Team Construction, Greenwood said.

“People normally don’t think of affordable housing as being much of an economic generator, but we have to hire all the same folks to do all of the same work,” she said.

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