Abigail Court Grand Opening
Did you know that by being associated with MHCC, you are participating at the forefront of community innovation? In fact, we are a part of a community movement that has potential to change our country.
The opening of the Abigail Court residences last autumn marks not only a first in student housing for our local community, but a first in the nation. College students don’t traditionally qualify for off-campus housing support, even though 20% of those enrolled in community colleges across the U.S. face houselessness, as officials noted in their speeches. Could this be the model for more communities to take similar action and help address this underserved segment of our society?
What makes this unique?
Abigail Court, located on Northeast Cleveland Avenue in Gresham, replaces the Pony Soldier Inn hotel that was purchased and retrofitted to make 75 units of affordable housing for students in the greater Portland area, only a short 10-minute bus ride from MHCC.
Two-thirds of the units are a part of the ARCS (Affordable Rents for College Students) program sponsored by the College Housing Northwest (CHNW) coalition.
The small units each have air conditioning and the rent includes utilities and wifi. Primarily composed of studio apartments, the Abigail site offers only one one-bedroom apartment, but there is also a workout room, several common areas, an on-site laundry, and a common-area courtyard.
There are several events scheduled for the residents to encourage them to relax and get to know each other. The communal areas are used for arts and crafts, pizza nights, and other group bonding activities.
What happened at this event?
Although students began moving in this past fall, the official opening was celebrated with a formal event on Jan. 9.
Several community members were on site for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Many of the seen and unseen heroes supporting this transformation were present, including Oregon state Sen. Chris Gorsek, James Rader, of CHNW, among others.
MHCC President Lisa Skari posed the question of how will this act transform the stories of these students in the next 20 years? Won’t it be great if they come back to share these stories with us? she added.
How can I live there?
If a referred Mt. Hood student qualifies, they could live rent-free for one year. Students must be at least half-time at school.
If you are interested, head to the Equity and Community Resource Center on the Gresham campus to get more information, or check out the website at https://chnw.org/properties/abigail-court/.
Although the site doesn’t allow pets, Emotional Support Animals are allowed.
How did this happen?
A houseless student at MHCC, Bakr Alkarawi, pushed the issue in 2020-21 and helped inspire this effort. Many organizations collaborated to bring this vision to life, including Project Turnkey, the Oregon Community Foundation, CHNW and ARCS.
The group purchased the hotel for around $6 million and planned to invest another $4 million in the retrofit. The latter cost had doubled to $8 million by the end. Luckily the hotel was built in 1979-80 after new building codes restricted the use of asbestos, so no costly removal was required, but the property was tested for asbestos anyway and found to be safe.
The Abigail collaborators replaced the roof, windows, and siding and installed air conditioning. Wifi repeaters are found throughout the hotel, so strong signals can be found in all the rooms. The original flooring remains throughout the hotel, except for some that needed to be replaced after flooding that occurred during last winter’s ice storm.
What next?
It could be a neat showcase, to make this a touchpoint that we at Mt. Hood and/or The Advocate could use to come back in 10 or 20 years to find how this affordable housing helped transform these students’ lives, and made their contributions to the community in their own way.
We don’t know who the next Mozart or da Vinci will be, but how amazing it is to know these actions could greatly impact the people who could shape our world.
Community Editor. Interim News Editor / A&E Editor
Leave a comment