Claudia Limon, program director for housing and homeless services of Community Action Program of East Central Oregon, gives a tour of the laundry facility offered to guests Friday, Oct. 20, 2023, at the Promise Inn in Pendleton. Although the laundry facility is free to use, guests have to clean their bedsheets before checking out.

PENDLETON — Debby Pulse worries about her water bills.

Utility costs here, the Pendleton resident has heard, have shot up. On her fixed retirement income such bumps take a toll on everything.

Pulse’s larger concern, however, is getting a permanent roof over her head.

A few weeks ago she officially became a house renter, ending a period of personal homelessness, the 73-year-old said, and she credits Promise Inn for helping her land on her feet.

This is exactly the kind of story Paula Hall wants to hear. As chief executive officer of CAPECO — Community Action Program of East Central Oregon — Hall has been highly invested in the success of the downtown Pendleton motel-turned-shelter for the past 2-1/2 years.

The clock started when CAPECO was an early beneficiary of the state-funded “Project Turnkey.” A $125M public-private partnership administered by Oregon Community Foundation. In March 2021, the Foundation granted $1.3 million to the Pendleton nonprofit for purchase of the former Whiskey Inn motel to take it from a troubled, run-down property to a facility offering temporary housing to folks in unhoused situations.

Finding new solutions

These were the early days of Project Turnkey, an ambitious approach to bring stakeholders of all kinds and from every corner of the state together to bring new solutions addressing rising rates of homelessness in Oregon.

The premise of this effort was different than others, according to Megan Loeb, OCF’s senior program officer for economic vitality and housing.

Beginning in 2020, the foundation began helping agencies like CAPECO acquire property via one-time grants.

Unlike many philanthropic quests, some of which depend on continued funding for sustainability, the premise of Project Turnkey is acquisition of a property that fits the need of community-based helpers like CAPECO.

The Eastern Oregon organization launched in 1987 to serve Umatilla, Morrow, Gilliam, Wheeler, Sherman, Wasco, and Hood River counties through services aimed at helping vulnerable people. CAPECO’s extensive menu of programs includes food help, respite care, rental and utility assistance, weatherization and case management.

Plus temporary emergency shelter.

There has been strong support from Oregon’s housing officials, Loeb said, for an avenue that gives local experts a tool to tackle local housing challenges.

Not, Loeb pointed out, a single blueprint for all of Oregon but customized for greatest impact.

Take Pendleton. The city’s unhoused folks used to be largely hidden from public view, living on the outskirts of town, noted Paula Hall. With changes in laws and a growing compassion within the community here — and as affordable housing disappeared here and elsewhere — the problem of not having a place for everyone emerged from the shadows, she said.

CAPECO’s team was in the process of looking for ways to bolster what it offers in emergency and transitional housing when Oregon Community Foundation landed on their radar “by pure luck,” Hall said.

The puzzle was quickly coming together. With the former Whiskey Inn property available for purchase and an OCF grant large enough to cover the cost, a whirlwind of activity commenced, Hall recalled with a smile.

“It went really fast,” she said. “We closed in mid-March and by April 1, we opened Promise Inn. It was mind blowing.”

That kind of speed is one of the hallmarks of Project Turnkey, of which there are now 32 total shelter properties throughout 18 Oregon counties and tribes, representing a 36% increase in the state’s supply of emergency year-round shelter beds for people experiencing homelessness, according to OCF.

There’s no time to waste, Loeb said.

“We do have, right now, in our state a crisis when it comes to affordable housing,” she said. “Red or blue, urban or rural, everyone agrees we need to provide affordable housing.”

Anywhere you look, there are people so severely rent- or housing-burdened, she added, “that so many of us are in danger of losing housing. We are one unfortunate incident away.”

Overcoming stigmas

Housing, Loeb said, is now an economic risk to Oregon’s vitality.

Promise Inn is a robust example of the agility of a nonprofit like Oregon Community Foundation to see an opportunity and pounce, whereas more traditional funding processes would require far more time and steps.

“Philanthropy can invest in newer, unproven and innovative responses in a way state dollars can’t. And be able to invest in an untested but promising approach,” Loeb said. “Oregon Community Foundation is often asked to take the first step in those waters.”

In Pendleton and other cities, gaining a debt-free property gives organizations like CAPECO a real leg up, Loeb noted.

“These are one-time purchases with long-time benefits. Project Turnkey has transformed the budgets of nonprofits,” she said. “Instead of leasing these buildings at a high rate, they own them and can make the changes to fit the need. You can create a community on an owned property. When you are on a property and you can only rent a few rooms for your clients, there is a stigma.”

Scott Hernandez knows about stigma, including from family.

Hernandez, 39, has been staying at Promise Inn for just over two months. After a recent incarceration over some “legal trouble,” his family told him they were out of patience — it was time to let Hernandez stand on his own.

“They pushed me to do better, really,” he said, chagrinned.

Despite growing up in Pendleton, Hernandez had no idea of where to turn. He’d been homeless for about a week when he learned of CAPECO and, in turn, Promise Inn.

Landing in a safe, clean place with rules and structure has been a gift, Hernandez said.

Even more, residency there has revealed an intricate network of available resources he might never have heard about if not for CAPECO staff.

As his best form of repayment, Hernandez volunteers for the “Good Neighbor” committee, a group of Promise Inn clients who clean and care for the emergency shelter’s grounds. He often finds himself continuing on to gather trash from nearby businesses and church properties, he said.

With about a month left on Promise Inn’s 90-day timeline, Hernandez spends the hours he’s not at work looking for his next place to live.

“It’s hard,” he said. “They want you to make three times the rent … I make about $1,200 a month.”

No shortage of guests

The vacancy rate in Pendleton is 1 to 3%, Hall noted.

“It’s even harder when someone needs a one bedroom,” she said.

There’s been no shortage of guests at Promise Inn, even as its rooms are considered emergency housing only and that boundary is rarely moved.

“We want people to be comfortable here, but not stay here forever,” Hall said, noting rules can shift in extreme weather and some other situations.

It was thanks to the Foundation’s “boots on the ground” work that things fell into place so very quickly, Hall said, like getting the assessor, appraiser and inspector lined up one, two, three.

It’s what Loeb calls the “wind to their sails” approach.

“We aren’t trying to impose something on these (grant) recipients,” she said. “Let the local community closest to the problem come up with the solution. We are making sure we are making grants that fit the need and capacity.”

Getting former hotel rooms ready for residency has provided a learning curve, Hall and director of housing and homeless services, Claudia Limon, said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continued, so did supply shortages. That was a real challenge when redoing electrical, fixing plumbing, putting up new sheetrock and paint, the two recalled.

Fast forward, however, and while such an enterprise will always need ongoing repairs, the agency’s investment is obvious in things like all new windows, an outdoor gathering space, raised garden beds, serene design and laminate flooring.

By the end of the year, 32 rooms will be available to house guests in need of shelter, Hall said, including two rooms that are fully accessible to people with mobility issues.

OCF paid for those conversions, she added, and money was spent to create “important” green space for Promise Inn residents.

Every decision is guided by long-term — but flexible — planning for both the facility and the people, Hall said.

“We’re always looking ahead. Everyone who is staying here tonight …What is their tomorrow?”

For now, at least, Debby Pulse has tomorrow’s address.

‘It’s been a wild year’

After working in banking and as an administrative assistant for decades, Pulse never expected to find herself seeking housing shelter.

But family dynamics can reverse fortune in the blink of an eye, and this past summer she was diagnosed with breast cancer and admitted to the hospital with cardiac failure, she said.

“It’s been a wild year,” Pulse said.

When her home situation fell apart earlier this year, Pulse first slept in her car, she remembered, putting a tissue to her eyes.

Promise Inn offered the promise of sanctuary she needed in that moment.

“To be able to have a roof over my head, and the structure really helped me,” Pulse said. “I didn’t know anybody to turn to.”

But now Pulse knows about the free lunches at Salvation Army and much more.

“It’s made me more aware of the homeless problem here in Pendleton,” she said. “I pray for them.”

Everyone she has encountered has been sympathetic and encouraging, from CAPECO’s staff to her new landlord, who dropped the rent on the house by $100 a month as a favor.

“They did so much for me and I’m so grateful for it,” she said.

That’s part of the “promise” of this project, Hall pointed out.

“It’s two parts,” she said. “The promise to the people we are serving — we promise to help and provide you with decent, non-judgmental space.

“But it’s also a promise to the community, that we weren’t going to create a blighted property, that we are going to take care of it,” she said.

“We want our community to be proud of it, even those who are supportive of services for the homeless. We still want them to be proud of the building.”