EUGENE, Ore. — SquareOne Villages has received a $200,000 grant from SELCO Community Credit Union to aid in building the nonprofit’s Rosa Village Co-op affordable-housing project.
The grant — which was made possible in part because SELCO was awarded matching grant funds from The Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines — is the largest single contribution to a nonprofit that SELCO has made in its nearly century-long history and the largest private donation to the Rosa Village project this year, the credit union said.
SELCO’s $200,000 grant also sparked $50,000 in separate funding that had already been pledged to SquareOne through a matching gift made at the bequest of Eugene resident and community leader Priscilla Gould, resulting in a combined contribution of $250,000.
The credit union said the $200,000 grant is part of SELCO’s new SELCO Steps Up community giving program, which was launched earlier this year.
According to SELCO, the Steps Up initiative aims to create positive, innovative, and lasting change through community giving, volunteerism, financial education, and student and educator support.
One of the key goals for SELCO Steps Up is to evolve SELCO’s community-giving programs to meet the community’s changing needs, and few issues in Oregon are more prominent than homelessness, the credit union added.
“There has never been a more important time for organizations like SELCO to step up and support nonprofits such as SquareOne Villages, which is doing incredibly important work to address a critical issue facing all our communities,” said SELCO President and CEo Bob Newcomb. “For SELCO, the return is two-fold. Not only does SELCO help SquareOne’s mission, but it gives our entire team an added sense of purpose knowing that we are all committed to the betterment of every community we serve.”
SquareOne Villages began in 2012 with the mission of creating self-managed communities of cost-effective tiny homes for people in need of housing. Its villages include Opportunity Village Eugene, Cottage Village in Cottage Grove, the C Street Co-op in Springfield, Peace Village Co-op, and more.
SquareOne’s plans for Rosa Village call for 52 permanently affordable, deeply energy-efficient homes — 40 one-bedroom apartments and 12 two-bedroom townhomes — and a 1,600-square-foot common house with shared amenities. The site is spread across 2 acres and is part of a 3.3-acre property at 2243 Roosevelt Blvd., in Eugene, that was donated in 2020.
“Rosa Village’s units will include metal roofs and eventually solar panels, highly insulated wall construction, elevated air tightness measures, fully insulated slab construction, heat pump water heaters, and mini-split heating and cooling,: the credit union said. “The energy-efficient design is intended to become a model for SquareOne’s future developments.”
Construction of Rosa Village is scheduled to begin in 2025.