The Arbor Lodge Shelter in North Portland will reopen with 106 beds this summer.
The former Rite Aid pharmacy on North Lombard Street operated as a bare-boned congregate shelter for nearly a year starting in fall 2021. Cots were placed around the store, where shelves and cash registers had previously sat. Temporary chain link fencing surrounded the building and a dozen pods in the parking lot.
After a $9.4 million renovation, the building has bunk beds divided between dorm rooms, with privacy walls separating groups, along with laundry, storage, restrooms, a kitchen, offices and common spaces. Outside the building, the property now has 18 individual sleeping pods, bike parking, outdoor common space and a small parking lot.
“Until we have a safe, decent home for everyone, we need shelters of all types to get people off the streets and into housing,” Multnomah County District 2 Commissioner Jesse Beason said in a June 27 press release. “While we depend on other jurisdictions to expedite housing production, the vital services we’re opening today — like the beds here at Arbor Lodge or the new drop-in center that will soon open down the street — are needed across the region, including here in North Portland.”