75 Years After War Project Financed with FHA loan, NE Portland Project Continues to Provide Affordable Housing,

I recently discovered a 1944 FHA publication with details on West Coast FHA financed projects during World War II. It includes state level details about housing production, and population and employment changes. It also references and includes a picture of Killingsworth Park, a 88 unit (2 phase) project on Alberta in NE Portland that was constructed in 1943-1944. 

I found additional FHA references to Killingsworth Park, including a site layout map and one page project description, AND two 1943 Oregonian stories about the under construction project. I combined these three sources into a single PDF file HERE. (Oregonian stories are PDF pages 11-12).

The August 1943 Oregonian article says the developer had torn down the 20 room/8 fireplace Killlingsworth family home to build this new war housing project, that the first (44 unit) phase had started 30 days ago and that the first phase was already 50% complete. (Article also says that McKinley campaign buttons were found in the Killingsworth home prior to razing).

Today Killingsworth Park is now Park Terrace, with non profit PCRI as the owner. 
[Shout out to retiring PCRI Executive Director Maxine Fitzpatrick, who is speaking at City Club of Portland this Friday].

Seventy five years after it was built Park Terrace continues to provide affordable housing with subsidized tenant rents far below market rents; over 75+ years more than 6,600 years of affordable housing have been provided by this one 88 unit project. 

In 1971 the project was converted to a FHA Section 236 lower income housing project loan (with a HUD Section 8 contract for all units added perhaps at a later date). 

In 2001 the project was converted to a LIHTC tax credit project, and the project now appears to have 35 HUD Section 8 contract units.


The 1941 FHA loan amount was $388,100, $4,411 per unit; this loan was paid off in 1959.

The 1971 FHA loan amount was $819,800, $9,316 per unit; this loan was paid off in 1999.

The 2001 combined loan amounts, including a cash flow contingent City of Portland loan, was $2.1 million, or $24,190 per unit. (Significant equity provided by LIHTC funds and by state and local housing subsidies likely reduced the needed loan amount). 

The most recent HUD Section 8 contract renewal (October 2019) was for 35 one bedroom units at $1,205 [vs the current FMR of  $1,289]; the listed LIHTC rents for 1 bedroom units are $560--43% of the 1 BR FMR.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.