First meeting of Building Together | Construyendo Juntos convenes
West Tuality Habitat for Humanity and the Forest Grove / Cornelius Chamber of Commerce convened representatives from various agencies and organizations serving Western Washington County in October to discuss ways for greater collaboration and information-sharing towards all of our desires for building and sustaining safe and affordable communities for our diversity of residents.
The name chosen for this coalition is Building Together | Construyendo Juntos, and it is hoped members will meet quarterly, as well as more freely-share information and resources in between meetings.
In addition to the two organizing organizations, the agencies and organizations in attendance for the first meeting in October for the coalition included:
Community Warehouse
Cornelius Public Library
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
City of Forest Grove
Metro
Centro Cultural de Washington County
Open Door Housing Works
The event was facilitated by Basam Tarazi. Meeting participants shared the needs of their clients at their respective organizations and noted what resources they had available or knew about from other agencies.
The goal is for all participants to be able to refer their clients to resources available in Western Washington County, and for all participants to better leverage available resources and partnerships. It’s hoped that additional agencies and organizations will join the next meeting.
Please note that West Tuality Habitat has an extensive list on our web site of resources relating to housing, including temporary shelter, provided by other organizations.
Habitat for Humanity is committed to ensuring that everyone, everywhere, has a decent place to live. We help families build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter in a variety of ways. Habitat helps families access home ownership and we do build new homes - but we seek to transform communities into vibrant, safe places to live for current and future residents. Habitat has a commitment to work locally in coalition with neighborhood residents and partners to improve quality of life through an integrated, collaborative approach to community development. The meeting is a part of that commitment.
West Tuality Habitat will host a second roundtable of these agencies and others in early 2026. If you represent an agency, organization or community of faith serving any area of Western Washington County and would like more information, please call (503) 359-8459 or email development@westtualityhabitat.org and reference the Building Together | Construyendo Juntos coalition.
