The Community Housing Fund
Building Affordable Solutions

Innovative Investments Get Involved

The Community Housing Fund is a community-based 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that provides new resources for proposed affordable housing communities for individuals and families living in Washington County, Oregon. Our goal is to build a trust fund to help local affordable housing experts build and remodel affordable housing units. The people who will live in these homes include working families struggling to make ends meet, seniors and people with disabilities and special needs who cannot afford to pay local market rents.

A recent study by Washington County and the City of Beaverton states that one in five households in the county lacked affordable housing and that nearly 7000 households were paying more than half of their income for housing. (According to the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, housing must cost a household no more than 30% of its income in order to be considered affordable.)

The Community Housing Fund was born after the Vision Action Network, a local non-profit that facilitates community-based problem solving, convened a group of housing experts to create a plan modeled after successful housing trust funds in other parts of the nation. The Fund was incorporated in 2003 as a response to the community’s call for action.

The Community Housing Fund distributes low interest loans to community development organizations that construct and remodel affordable housing units. Eligible uses of Fund investments include rental housing production/preservation and special needs housing. The Fund strives to be innovative in its approach to deliver flexible capital to leverage, complement and support existing affordable housing efforts.

The Fund invites members of the community who value affordable housing to help build the Fund as a long term community asset for Washington County. The Fund’s fundraising efforts will focus on generating new sources of income that will not compete for existing funding available for affordable housing projects.

For more information, please visit the Fund’s website at www.thecommunityhousingfund.org or send an e-mail to info@thecommunityhousingfund.org.