A local developer planning to create specialized housing for chronically homeless people in the city’s Bayside neighborhood is collaborating with another developer who would build affordable and market-rate apartments as part of the same project, for a total of 123 units.
The proposed project, a collaboration between Avesta Housing and Reveler Development, would total three adjacent buildings on Cedar, Lancaster and Oxford streets at the site of the former Oxford Street Shelter.
Avesta would build its units based on a housing-first model, designed to prevent chronic homelessness by providing permanent, stable housing opportunities with on-site support services, and without sobriety and other requirements that keep some people out of homeless shelters.
“Portland has grappled with the challenges of homelessness now for several years. Housing first is considered the gold standard for addressing chronic homelessness,” said Ryan Fecteau, Avesta’s senior officer of policy and planning and former speaker of the Maine House of Representatives. “The affordable housing side helps us address some of these challenges, as well as Reveler’s market-rate housing, because the need for housing runs across the board for all income levels.”
