Land and Housing Circle Continues Mission Through Housing

At FUMC, our faithful legacy of seeking social justice and housing the unhoused leads us to continually ask: “How can we ensure our neighbors have safe, reliable housing?”

Last year, our Land and Housing Circle brought you six forums featuring local housing experts to gather insights, build partnerships, and answer questions about how best to address our region’s housing crisis.

This year, we hope you’ll join us as we lead and challenge FUMC to pray, study, and work toward a world where homelessness is rare and brief. This year, we’ll be exploring four areas through research meetings with experts in our community.

Partnerships

Wherever our Mission Through Housing takes us, we’ll not be going there alone. The LHC prioritizes working in partnership. Our primary partner focus for the coming year will be supporting Path Home – a nonprofit that began at FUMC – as they empower families with children to get back into housing and stay there.

In addition to regularly sending volunteer groups to Path Home, we’ll be partnering with Path Home to learn what solutions are best for Portland and advocate for those solutions with our officials and policymakers. 

Building on Our Property

There is not enough housing in Portland for everyone who needs a place to call home. To house our neighbors, Portland simply needs more affordable housing. Though FUMC doesn’t have an abundance of resources, we do have land. The LHC will continue to engage in conversations exploring how to use the land resources we have to help solve the housing crisis. 

Conference Center

The conference center is a land asset that FUMC shares with the Conference. The Conference has decided to sell the building. LHC will be exploring if the sale might allow the building to be repurposed to provide more housing for our neighbors.

Gym + Emergency Shelter

The FUMC community is constantly asking ourselves if there’s more that our physical spaces can do to support the unhoused. Though our gym space is currently unusable due to flooding, the LHC continues to explore the best use of existing campus resources. Over the next year, we’ll support the broader FUMC community as we work to clarify our vision for the future and explore how our building and resources can be positioned to help us reach that vision.

Get Involved

The foundation of our work toward housing justice is being in close relationship with one another. As the LHC leads and challenges FUMC in its Mission Toward Housing, we welcome all members to our monthly meetings and participate in research meetings. And we periodically engage the whole congregation in conversations to inform our forward steps.

We hope you’ll join us on the journey to ensure all our neighbors have a safe place to call home.

For more information and to learn about Portland’s housing crisis, visit: fumcpdx.org/serve/land-and-housing