SquareOne NEWS     | March 2024 |

Peace Village Co-op Moves-in

All of the 70 memberships of the limited-equity co-op have now been sold, and as the initial residents have moved in over the past couple months, Peace Village has been coming to life!

No sooner had the first villagers arrived than they got socked with a multi-day power outage during the big January ice storm. Folks maintained excellent goodwill and helped each other out a lot. When the first community meeting was held that week to check in on how everyone was doing, one parent offered that for any resident who felt nervous at walking over to the community room during icy conditions to participate, her kids would bring them via sled!

Villagers wasted no time setting up their own Discord channel to communicate and get to know each other. Within the first month of move-in, they were using the online platform to organize community potlucks and game nights in the common house, submit requests for help from neighbors, and announce offers of extra furniture or other resources. More than a dozen teams are taking responsibility for various areas of community life such as accessibility, gardening, safety and security, and conflict resolution.

Peace Village has also, in this short time, suffered the loss of one member, Rudolph "Pancho" Grunwald, who passed away unexpectedly in his sleep due to preexisting health conditions. As his dear friend wrote in a remembrance, "He died on his own terms, warm, and in his own home." While we were sad to lose Pancho, all of us someday go on that final journey, and it’s much better to have it happen in a safe, warm place.

NOW HIRING!

Project Manager - Real Estate Development

Want to help us develop more housing like Peace Village Co-op?

We're looking to expand our staff capacity to take on more permanently affordable housing developments, and are seeking a motivated individual to join a growing team dedicated to building the next phase of SquareOne Villages! Specifically, we're looking for a Project Manager that will be responsible for advancing our new housing developments from concept through stabilization.

If you or someone you know may be interested, please see and share the job posting at the link below!

Rosa Village Update

Plans are now complete for our next development, Rosa Village Co-op, which includes 52 new units of permanently affordable housing located adjacent to the new Opportunity Village site. We are currently seeking funding for this project in an effort to achieve affordability goals similar to our recently completed Peace Village.

In the process, we are also continuing to advocate for adapting existing funding programs to be inclusive of the limited-equity cooperative ownership model. Many programs assume either rental housing or single-family homeownership, and co-op ownership fall somewhere in between. We've summarized two possible solutions for adapting Oregon's Local Innovation and Fast Track (LIFT) program to better accommodate limited-equity co-ops, which would allow this model to be implemented at scale. And we're also currently working on an article to be published in Shelterforce that we are excited to share in our next newsletter.

Seeking New Shop Space

Our build team is currently in search of shop space in order to continue our tiny home building program that provides both construction training to youth and non-congregate shelter to people experiencing homelessness.

The lease on our existing 2,000 square foot shop expires in August, and we're looking for a similar or larger sized space. Please contact us with any leads!

The video below highlights a tiny home that was recently built in partnership with Looking Glass.