Prominent developers, executives help raise $300K for Terminal 1 homeless shelter
October 11, 2016
The effort to launch a mass homeless shelter on the city’s Terminal 1 property along the Willamette River has raised close to $300,000, much of which has come from a list of prominent Portland developers and businesses.
The non-profit Harbor of Hope, the brainchild of developer Homer Williams, issued a status update this week, which included a list of supporters who have made “significant cash contributions” thus far. Some of those contributions have ranged from $10,000 to $25,000.
The list includes:
- Walter Bowen, the developer behind Pearl West and Broadway Tower.
- Tom Brenneke of Guardian Real Estate Services
- Ray Davis, CEO of Umpqua Bank
- Clyde Holland of Holland Partners Group.
- Patrick Kessi of PHK Development, which is behind the Wizer Block development in downtown Lake Oswego.
- Lance Killian of Killian Pacific.
- Robert Scanlan of ScanlanKemperBard.
- Stephen Shepard of M Benefit Solutions.
- Pearl District developer Al Solheim.
- St. Luke Lutheran Church.
- Howard S. Wright Construction.
The list also includes Williams and his business partner, Dike Dame, and Don and Alexandra Mazziotti. Don Mazziotti is the former head of the Portland Development Commission who Williams hired to head up the Harbor of Hope project.
In an earlier interview with the Business Journal, Williams said developers and businesses in Portland realize that something needs to be done about the growing homeless crisis in Portland.
“They know there’s a problem,” he said. “It’s very high on the radar, and it has to get solved.”
Williams first got the idea for Harbor of Hope while on a visit to San Antonio, where he came across the Haven for Hope, a homeless campus that offers everything from housing and temporary shelter to social services and job training. He and his supporters have been working since earlier this year to create such a campus here in Portland. This summer, focus turned to the city-owned Terminal 1 site, a 14-acre property that’s home to a 96,000-square-foot warehouse.
Despite opposition, Williams managed to get the city to temporarily abandon plans to sell the site and instead work on a lease agreement with Harbor of Hope. In its update, Harbor of Hope noted that it is also “intensely focused on finalizing a lease for the T-1 location and preparing to quickly adapt the site to provide services before winter.”