When Community of Hope had the opportunity to expand their existing program that offers shelter to houseless, single parent families, they reached out to Convergence to help them envision what was possible. The available land wraps around their current building, but they wanted to preserve some space for a playground and to maintain visibility of their donated mural. We developed a list of space and future resident population needs. The facility was to focus on affordable housing for families, so the units needed to have more bedrooms than a typical building. The design was kept at 3 stories tall to make it work better as a walk-up and to keep costs down. All entrances were kept along the streets to promote neighbor interaction and resident safety. Convergence did the schematic design work free of charge as one of our major pro bono projects.

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The Great Scott Trio

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Starting with a site two blocks from our office and the goal of getting people off the street and on the path toward permanent supportive housing, we were able to donate our services to help lead the design process for the City of Portland/Multnomah County/Do Good Multnomah joint client with space programming, site/building design, project budgeting, and permitting. To do this, we gathered a team of pro bono professionals: Rachel Hill Landscape Architect and WCL Engineering from our neighborhood, and PAE from downtown Portland. Our neighbors Gene Darco Painting and Placecraft joined in supporting the project, as well as major involvement by the Homebuilders Foundation. Our vision was to use lessons learned from the two other managed transitional housing villages in the state (the Veterans Village and Kenton Women’s Village) and build on those successes to help the residents thrive in a space that prioritizes accessibility and uses biophilic design to support their mental and physical well-being. For more information on the project, visit A Home For Everyone or read our blog post.

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