General Council briefed on Housing Department

By Danielle Harrison

Smoke Signals editor

Housing Department Manager Shonn Leno briefed Tribal members on the department’s various programs and accomplishments during a Sunday, Feb. 2, General Council meeting held at the Monarch Hotel & Convention Center in Clackamas and online via Zoom.

During the meeting, Leno discussed the department’s different services and the addition of new housing units with more planned for 2025.

“Within our department, we provide not only housing but various programs, one of those being the down payment assistance grant,” he said. “We updated it last year to $20,000 with the caveat that if you used if previously, then you are eligible for the remainder of what you haven’t utilized.”

Approximately 50 of those grants are awarded per year and some are income based.

The home improvement matching grant program continues to be a popular program, Leno said. There is a lifetime cap of $5,000 and funds can be used for virtually anything that improves a home’s value. The applicant is required to contribute a dollar-for-dollar amount to receive money.

“We have everything from landscaping to fences to bathroom remodels,” he said. “This one is pretty open because a lot of projects add value to your home.”

Tenant-based rental assistance provides 20 vouchers for Tribal members to participate in a self-sufficiency rental program in Yamhill County. The Housing Department also partners with Polk County for five vouchers.

“If you’re willing to live in Polk or Yamhill counties, these programs are very beneficial and currently there’s vouchers open in both programs,” Leno said.

In Grand Ronde, housing waitlists remain long for certain units, with 49 applicants on the waitlist for one-bedroom units in low-income housing with 38 applicants waiting for market rate, two-bedroom units. In Elder housing, the two-bedroom waitlist is at 36 for low-income and 16 for market rate.

The student rental assistance program was recently increased from $500 to $1,000 per full-time Tribal student to account for rising rental costs. Part-time students receive $500. Students are given checks for three months at a time. There are no income restrictions for the program.

Leno also discussed various housing services such as meeting with tenants who are experiencing financial or other issues, hosting an annual resource fair at Family Night Out with 35 local service providers, the annual Tribal Housing Easter Egg Hunt, booths at the Veterans Powwow and Contest Powwow and hosting ready-to-rent classes for recent high school graduates. The classes are a new offering.

“When you get out of high school, you’re usually 18 years old and you’ve never rented a house,” Leno said. “You don’t really know what the responsibilities of that would be. These classes walk you through what you’re getting yourself into and I have three employees who are certified to teach those classes right here in Grand Ronde.”

Leno also shared a chronology of all the Housing Department construction projects that have been built since 1996. These include 21 different projects ranging from Grand Meadows homeownership community and a family housing playground to Creekside Elder housing, the new Tipsu-ili’i Tribal homeownership development with 20 homes and two new apartment buildings in Tribal Housing.

“Within the last 10 years, we’ve built seven or eight different housing projects, so that’s almost a project a year since I’ve been here,” Leno said. “That’s a lot of work, not just from my department but from the staff and of course nothing gets done with Tribal Council approval.”

A tenant association was formed in 2024, which includes seven representatives who were elected by the tenants. The group will have quarterly meetings and assist with tenant communication and ideas for improvement.

Another method to improve communication with tenants will be the addition of new housing software that provides online access, e-forms, a rent payment portal and waitlist updates, Leno said.

“They can ask for a work order and actually fill out and request their own work orders,” he said. “They can send us emails, look at their own accounts and hopefully we can get online payments for everyone that is in the housing community.”

Leno shared information about a new apartment complex in McMinnville called Stratus Village. The Tribe partnered with the Yamhill County Housing Authority for 20, one- to three-bedroom units set aside for Tribal members. There is also a community center with an office set aside for the Tribe.

“It’s going to be a beautiful when it’s done and it’s going to be great for our current situation with housing,” Leno said. “Hopefully it takes our list way down…The benefit of the McMinnville project is you’ll be next to the hospital and a bus stop, and you can still access services out in Grand Ronde.”

Lastly, Leno shared that the Tipsu-ili’i Tribal homeownership development has 19 of 20 homes occupied.

“The Tribal Council working with our engineering department and myself and we sort of pulled off the impossible,” Leno said. “This is one of my landmarks as a housing director, to get home ownership other than Grand Meadows in Grand Ronde and we actually did it…For the remainder of the property, there is actually room for another 32 homes that are going to be built there.”

Leno anticipates that some of the 32 homes will be built next year.

New apartments will include phase three of the Wind River complex with 12 buildings. There will be 53 total low-income and market rate units. The Housing Department anticipates that groundbreaking will be done in late spring.

Afterward, Leno fielded 11 questions and comments from the audience. Tribal Chairwoman Cheryle A. Kennedy thanked him for the presentation.

“I appreciate the good report,” she said.

The next General Council meeting will be held at 11 a.m. Sunday, March 2. The program report will be Spirit Mountain Gaming Inc. in executive session.

After General Council concluded, a community input meeting followed.

To watch the entire meeting, visit the Tribal government’s website at www.grandronde.org and click on the Videos tab.