A community room in the Mercy Greenbrae affordable housing complex in Lake Oswego.

Over the summer, Mercy Northwest and the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary celebrated the opening of Mercy Greenbrae, one of Lake Oswego’s newest affordable housing communities.

Standing among the brick and ivy-covered buildings of the former Marylhurst University campus, the Mercy Greenbrae building provides 100 apartments to families and individuals who make less than 60% of the area’s median income.

More than three-quarters of the community’s apartments are multi-bedroom family units, and with those homes come kids to run in the field outside and play on the new playground in the plaza.

Among the residential services offered to residents of Mercy Greenbrae is Youth Initiatives, which provides extra resources to residents with children as a conduit between home and school.

“We want our youth to know that they have somebody that they can always ask questions of and go to for support, whether it’s things that are happening at home or at school, ” said Lindsey Karas, Mercy Housing Northwest’s housing and education manager.

Building relationships

As the residents of Mercy Greenbrae settled into their new home, the community’s youth initiatives and school liaison Jenessa Higgs began to prepare younger residents for back-to-school season.

“I started at Mercy at the end of April and I started to get connected with the schools in May, before last school year ended,” said Higgs. “I went on-site to the three schools that the kiddos here are closest to for elementary, middle and high school, and all of them, especially Hallinan, they’re incredible there.”

Greenbrae’s students will attend three Lake Oswego School District schools: Hallinan Elementary, Lakeridge Middle School and Lakeridge High School.

As the school year started, Higgs mainly helped families at Mercy Greenbrae get registered for school — a process that isn’t always straightforward in a new school district.

“Since we are a new complex and most people that live here moved from outside of the school district, the most common issue that I’ve been helping the families with is getting their kids registered,” said Higgs. “I anticipate helping older kids figure out their post-secondary plans. With everyone moving in and getting settled, I haven’t had a lot of people coming to me asking me for that kind of support yet, but I am trying to get ahead of it by having career and college panels come and talk to the kids.”

Mercy Housing hopes its community engagement programs can reach 90% of the students who live in their buildings.

“It’s different with each of the schools, just because they have different needs, and the kids are at different ages,” Higgs said. “And honestly, the older kids just don’t want to be seen with me in public, so that’s fine, but at elementary school, we’ve talked about going on field trips with the Greenbrae kids. I’ve heard from my coworkers that kids really love to see people in my role involved in fun stuff that they’re doing at school.”

This fun extends to the Greenbrae community as well. A portion of the new outdoor garden is dedicated to after-school enrichment activities hosted by Higgs.

“Whatever I’m doing I want to make sure is being supported at the schools and vice versa, so the kids kind of see that consistency,” said Higgs.

‘We see that you’re here’

Mercy Housing Northwest’s youth initiatives are relatively new for the organization, starting five years ago. Previously, Mercy Housing would organize after-school programs but didn’t take as much of a hands-on approach to helping improve school outcomes.

“When you took on more of that, it’s not a case management role, but more of direct engagement with youth and schools. It really had a dramatic effect,” said Karas. “This model of seamless home-to-school is really ensuring that we don’t have kids that are falling through the cracks, right? We see you. We see that you’re here. Whether you want to engage is up to you, but we’ll keep knocking at your door.”

Karas added that as the Mercy Scholars program and youth initiatives have grown, they’ve seen over 60% of high school graduates in Mercy Housing communities heading off to post-graduate opportunities.

Some of the groundwork for engagement was laid before any families had even moved in.

“Mercy came to the district and said, ‘We have a certain number of apartments if you have anybody that would qualify’ for referrals. There are some families who qualify for McKinney Vento, which is federal access if you’re homeless,” said Kylie Goertz, Lakeridge Middle School’s social worker. “When Jenessa (Higgs) was hired last spring, there was more coordination. She’s actually starting bi-weekly lunch groups with the kids who live there and who attend our school. That way they can get to know each other.”

Goertz was excited about the possibilities of future partnerships with Mercy Greenbrae’s programming, especially for areas where there’s a need such as a clothing closet.

“I think one reason why I love Mercy Housing so much is because they do have these resident services,” said Higgs. “I think working with the youth in this environment I am able to, without them even really realizing it, through post-secondary planning, help them get out of the cycle of generational poverty. I’ve seen through my career, a lot of the kids that are growing up in generational poverty weren’t able to get ahead and think about their post-secondary plans.”