Jolene’s First Cousin is a two-story, 6,600 square foot retail and residential building in Portland, Oregon with three small retail spaces, two one-bedroom apartments, and 13 bedrooms leased to a transitional housing service provider. Its equity investors, both accredited and unaccredited, accepted a lower current return in order to contribute to the building’s social mission.
The largest and most comprehensive housing development for the homeless in Orange County, the Village of Hope is located on a five-acre (two-hectare) site of the former Tustin Marine Corps Air Station in Tustin, California. A truly comprehensive facility, the shelter provides housing for 192 homeless men, women, and children and includes child care, health, job-training, and educational services on a single site. The product of a partnership between two nonprofits, HomeAid Orange County and the Orange County Rescue Mission, the US$33 million community asset was developed debt-free over 14 years, largely through in-kind and cash donations from homebuilders, architects, and engineers around the region.
Celadon at 9th & Broadway is a mixed-use project that provides 250 units of affordable housing plus commercial space in downtown San Diego. The affordable units are targeted to a range of age groups and housing needs. It is notable for its complex arrangement for financing the affordable units, since it was the first project in the state of California to stack two low-income housing tax credit (LIHTC) allocations into one building. Celadon also incorporates a number of sustainable features, including a rooftop eco-garden, solar photovoltaic walls, and a solar hot water system. The project opened for occupancy in May 2015 and is certified Gold under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.
On the morning of October 8, 2005, an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale devastated Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province and the Pakistani-administered entities of Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas in the Jammu and Kashmir region, remote areas characterized by rugged, mountainous landscapes and scattered rural communities. The eventual death toll was estimated at between 70,000 and 80,000, and the quake left upward of 3 million people homeless. The victims’ homes, often poorly constructed or sited near hazardous slopes, were vulnerable not only to the tremor and its aftershocks but also to landslides triggered by the quake. Article 25, a London-based charitable disaster relief organization, has designed and overseen the ongoing reconstruction of 82 homes in the affected regions, using local materials, employing local labor, and educating the local population on sustainable and seismically resistant construction techniques.