For nearly four decades, Rita Grady has transformed obstacles into opportunity for Polk County’s most vulnerable residents. As founding Executive Director of Polk CDC, she has held to one mission: safe, stable, affordable homes for families who deserve nothing less. She built a countywide housing rehabilitation revolving loan fund from the ground up, now touching the lives of more than 800 low-income homeowners. Behind every number is a senior who aged with dignity, a veteran who found solid ground, a family who finally had a place to call home.

Advocates for Life Skills and Opportunities is advancing a future where Oregonians with intellectual and developmental disabilities live with greater independence, dignity, and connection in their communities. The Montage in Gresham is that future taking shape, with apartments reserved for people with IDD, Universal Design throughout, and on-site support services for residents ALSO serves. Through person-centered residential, supported living, employment, and in-home services statewide, ALSO pairs inclusive housing with individualized support, creating a model that promotes stability, belonging, and full community inclusion.

King City Commons opens homeownership to sixteen families in a suburb where prices keep climbing. The family-sized townhomes surround a shared green space with an outdoor water play feature, developed in just two and a half years with $1.72 million in LIFT for Homeownership funding and land acquired by the Willamette West Habitat affiliate before the merger. Certified Earth Advantage Platinum and kept permanently affordable through Proud Ground Community Land Trust, the homes ensure families can remain rooted in King City for generations to come.

For more than three decades, NOAH has supported affordable housing development and preservation across Oregon through lending, loan services, and advocacy. In recent years, as properties have faced rising operating costs and greater financial pressure, NOAH has helped lead industry conversations about solutions for struggling properties and carried those solutions to state and local policymakers. Its work has been instrumental in establishing and maintaining preservation and property stabilization funding, helping protect safe, affordable homes for residents throughout the state.

When chemicals used during protests outside the Portland ICE facility entered Gray’s Landing, residents experienced serious physical effects inside the place that should have felt safest: their homes. The conflict was not theirs, and no one with the power to stop it did. The residents and staff of REACH Community Development responded together, raising concerns and pursuing legal action. Their persistence reflects the spirit of the Gretchen Kafoury Award: residents speaking up for their community, and an organization standing alongside them to protect the dignity and security of home.

For decades, Walsh Construction Co. has embedded equity into how projects are pursued, built, and delivered, with deep roots in affordable housing, supportive housing, behavioral health, education, and community development. Afton Walsh has led much of that work through intentional outreach, inclusive workforce development, MWESB and COBID engagement, and authentic relationship-building with historically underserved communities. Mentorship, strategic bid packaging, and early outreach build lasting capacity for historically underrepresented businesses, women- and minority-owned subcontractors, and emerging firms. For Walsh, construction is a means of creating opportunity, access, and long-term community investment.