A prominent low-income housing developer took more than a year to fix potentially dangerous code violations at its Milepost 5 building, even after receiving millions in public funds to improve living conditions.
Records obtained by Street Roots show 25 code violations remained open for 15 months at Milepost 5, a troubled affordable housing development once lauded as a live-work space for artists in the Montavilla neighborhood. The initial $1,810 fine went unpaid and ballooned to more than $33,000 with penalties and interest, resulting in the city placing a lien.
A city inspector issued the violations in October 2023, which included asbestos, electrical system hazards and non-functioning bathrooms. They came just months after a state council in charge of distributing housing funds reluctantly agreed to direct $3.3 million to Community Development Partners, a for-profit affordable housing developer based in California, to improve conditions at the century-old building.
That council — the Oregon Housing Stability Council — heard for months from tenants and community members about how the building was deteriorating and becoming a magnet for crime. Additional records show a state housing official scolded Community Development Partners a year earlier about the lack of improvements at Milepost 5.
The delayed repairs fall on long-simmering frustration about a building that’s proven especially hard to manage and finance. The delays also raise questions about how the state holds private developers accountable, even as Oregon relies on them to increase the supply of badly needed affordable housing.
“They failed up,” Neil Whitacre, a housing inspector and Montavilla resident, said of Community Development Partners.
A persistent critic of the company and the state’s handling of the property, Whitacre said he is baffled that the company took so long to make repairs, despite receiving the money.
Eric Paine, Community Development Partners CEO, said Milepost 5 is among the most challenging of the 55 housing projects the company has worked on. He said the challenges include the building’s age, as well as it being a single-room occupancy where residents share bathrooms, kitchens and other common areas. Making the recent upgrades to the building has been “all hands on deck,” Paine said.
Company officials say they’ve made progress in stabilizing the building to keep it as an affordable housing option and are actively engaging with tenants on their concerns.
“There will always be something to address,” Julia Doty, the company’s services programs manager, said.
15 months
The violations at Milepost 5 were triggered by complaints of overflowing plumbing, bed bugs, dirty hallways and a general lack of maintenance, Portland Permitting and Development spokesperson Ken Ray said in an email.
Records show the October 2023 code violations at Milepost 5 included at least two breakers connected to more than one circuit conductor, which can cause overheating and fires, as well as improperly wired electrical outlets that were not grounded. Other violations included tenants being unable to use the building’s shared bathrooms because they were either closed or not working.
Records show the inspector gave property management 60 days to fix the violations, which also included asbestos in the attic, an uncovered electrical junction box and missing shock protection devices on outlets, among others.
The building’s management was mostly unresponsive to city staff’s inquiries in 2024 about repairs and scheduling a follow-up inspection, Ray said. Community Development Partners uses a property management company, FPI Management, to oversee day-to-day operations.
“Almost all of the violations were in the common areas and a result of poor maintenance and cleaning,” Beth Benton, city compliance manager, wrote in an October 2024 email obtained by Street Roots.
But Paine said the work was much more complicated.
He said the 2023 rehabilitation funds weren’t released until the middle of the year. It’s unclear if the company had funds to address the issues prior to the state releasing the money, due to for-profit companies’ tax and finance information not being public record.
Upgrading the building’s obsolete electrical system was a drawn-out process that meant contracting the work and getting it approved by Portland General Electric, Paine said. The pandemic created a “massive supply chain ripple” that caused a nine-month delay in getting the switchgear, a key component for the building’s electrical system, he said.
“The electrical scope of that project was a massive undertaking from start to finish, and it wasn’t just like a simple fix,” he said. “Sixty days wasn’t enough time.”
He said repairing the shared bathrooms was a “delicate balancing situation” with tenants living in the building, which he said required staggering the work.
Oregon Housing and Community Services spokesperson Jessie Schirrick said in an email it is common for inspections to find code violations and that corrections, at times, have taken longer than a year. Developers could face repercussions from the IRS if they receive federal tax credits and have code violations at their properties, he said.
Records show inspectors signed off on most of the repairs in January 2025. But the follow-up inspection identified a new issue: a cockroach infestation.
‘The resident population has shifted’
Milepost 5 opened its doors to tenants in 2011 with the backing of then-Mayor Sam Adams. Formerly a Baptist nursing home off of Northeast 82nd Avenue, it offered rooms to artists who were willing to share kitchens and bathrooms in exchange for cheap rents. The building included a theater, artist workspaces and a coffee shop.
The building was also in need of repairs. In 2019, Oregon Housing and Community Services awarded Community Development Partners nearly $10 million to rehabilitate the aging building, with seismic upgrades taking most of the funding, according to Schirrick. Construction concluded in 2021, he said.
The funding used federal low-income housing tax credits, which meant tenants who made too much had to move and were paid relocation assistance.
Paine said that converting Milepost 5 from market-rate housing to subsidized affordable housing came at a challenging time. He said making upgrades to a building with shared bathrooms and kitchens during the pandemic was difficult, on top of delays from supply chain issues.
The building had high vacancy, and some tenants felt like upgrades weren’t happening fast enough despite the efforts, Paine said.
“It’s like the plan all made sense, until the pandemic happened,” he said.
In December 2022, Community Development Partners approached the state housing agency with a financial restructuring proposal describing the declining situation of Milepost 5 and how “the resident population has shifted from a primarily artist community to individuals with high needs.”
“The new tenant base has increased the level of staffing, repairs & maintenance, cleaning, turnover, security and services,” the document states
Since then, tenants have complained to the press and at Housing Stability Council meetings of squatters living in the building, drug dealing and faulty locks on doors that leave the building unsecured.
In 2023, Milepost 5 tenant Amber Cook sued Guardian Management, the property management then in charge of Milepost 5, for allowing its shared bathrooms and kitchen to go uncleaned to the point of becoming health hazards, in addition to letting trash pile up. The case was later settled.
‘Or else things are going to fall apart’
Officials at Oregon’s housing agency have been aware of complaints against Milepost 5.
Records show that in December 2022, Natasha Detweiler-Daby, the agency’s head of affordable rental housing, wrote to Community Development Partners CEO Eric Paine that the company would lose state support for future funding requests unless it made changes at Milepost 5.
She noted that the company is “an otherwise high performing developer and property owner.” But she wrote that despite its efforts, “there has been no substantial improvement to living conditions for tenants nor any impactful strategies toward building community within the building.”
At the time, Community Development Partners had applied for $3.3 million in state funding to further rehabilitate the building along with its proposal to address its $6 million debt.
Detweiler-Daby wrote that while the agency couldn’t help relieve the debt, it could reserve the $3.3 million in rehabilitation funding if it could make Milepost 5 a “tenant focused, safe, secure and leverage community art with dynamic use of the community space.”
But members of the Oregon Housing Stability Council were reluctant to approve the $3.3 million request that would pay to install new locks with doors, repair the building’s roof and windows, along with other extensive maintenance and renovations.
Mary Ferrell, a member of the council, asked during its April 2023 meeting if the request amounted to throwing “good money after bad money,” given reports that management wasn’t performing even basic janitorial work.
“It’s almost like we have to vote yes, or else things are going to fall apart even more,” then-Councilmember Gerardo Sandoval said.
The council approved the funding with the expectation that Community Development Partners document progress on improving the property.
In July that year, the city housing inspector made his first of three visits to Milepost 5, which would result in code violations.
Ongoing problems at Milepost 5 continued to follow Community Development Partners as it sought funding for other affordable housing projects from the council.
Members of the council in January 2024 nearly held up funding for the Julia West supportive housing project in downtown Portland because of Community Development Partners’ involvement. The company responded with a memo stating it hired a security team, was moving ahead with renovations and repeatedly met with tenants to hear their concerns and meet their needs.
By May 2025, city code enforcement certified Milepost 5 had resolved the cockroach infestation and all other outstanding code issues that began with the violations first flagged in October 2023. Most of the fines have been paid, and the lien balance is $458, according to Ray.
Speaking during the council’s May meeting, Detweiler-Daby said staff reported the building didn’t have signs of deferred maintenance or health and safety concerns after touring it. She added the agency wasn’t hearing “substantial outreach from tenants.”
Walk through
The marquee sign outside of Milepost 5 on 82nd Avenue still advertises the coffee shop that’s now closed.
There’s a sliced-open milk jug on the sidewalk stuffed with cigarette butts blackened from soaking in the rain. The entrances to the red brick building require key fobs, but during a tour with tenants, at least one door on the west side opened without a fob. Another door didn’t close all the way without an additional push.
Inside, signs posted in the hallways proclaim “Not a trash area.” There are signs advertising a free yoga class at a local church and a tenants’ meeting. A dark smear streaks the floor.
In a lounge area on the ground floor, there are tan couches and other new furniture. Art adorns the walls, including a colorful abstract painting and a picture of a red dragon soaring above the earth. A window is unlatched.
Caley Tibbittz, who has lived at Milepost 5 since 2022, said there have always been roaches in the building, though not swarming after pest control treatments.
Roach traps are spread out on the second-floor hallway, where the carpet is littered with debris. There’s a corn chip that tenants say has been there for days. There’s something sticky. There is a trail of dark red drops stained into the carpet. There’s a waft of cannabis.
“Why do we have to live in filth?” Tibbittz said.
Notices are posted to tenants’ doors advising them they need to recertify their eligibility. Tibbittz pointed to one room that had been boarded up after being severely damaged, which is now occupied.
Several bathrooms were open and show signs they’ve been remodeled. In one, there’s a plastic strip lining a bath tub in place of caulking. The window is held open with a can.
While walking past the front office, Tibbittz pointed out a window with a broken latch. A staff member hurried out of her office and said she would get it fixed.
Anna Kornfeld, company spokesperson, said Milepost 5 is still a home for artists and it recently used a state grant to help a resident-led arts group get certified as a public benefit corporation. She added that the company has a productive relationship with the tenants association and is responsive to concerns. Management recently replaced a door with a broken lock earlier this month, she said.
“We’ve worked closely with Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) since 2021 to address tenant concerns at MP5,” she said. “With those earlier concerns now resolved, we continue to meet monthly with agency staff to convey updates.”
Just surviving
In 2022, Tibbittz’s landlord was selling the house he was sharing at the time with a roommate, and Milepost 5 was his only option after running out of time.
Tibbittz, 44, wore a cabbie hat and a T-shirt of a grumpy cartoon Garfield. He suffered a concussion years ago and walks with a wooden cane. Before moving into Milepost 5, he made a good portion of his income from commissions drawing comics.
But despite Milepost 5’s start as an artists’ community, he said that it’s been nearly impossible to work while living there. His concussion left him with a severe sensitivity to sounds, which he said triggers dizziness, nausea and fatigue.
Sometimes sound causes him to fall. During a tour, Tibbittz collapsed on his side after a door suddenly slammed. He said the fan from the commercial kitchen located in Milepost 5 leaves him feeling too sick to work.
Tibbittz works as a delivery driver to pay his $761 monthly rent. At times, he said he’s been “trapped” in the building when the yard crew arrives with loud leaf blowers. He said he has not gotten a meaningful response from the building’s management to his reasonable accommodation requests.
“I’m just surviving,” he said.
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This article appears in November 26, 2025.