City of Portland to Buy Joyce Hotel for $4.22 Million

Portland Housing Bureau is seeking to keep the hotel affordable.

By Julia Comnes

The Portland Housing Bureau announced Wednesday that it is purchasing the Joyce Hotel, a downtown building that's long served as a low-cost housing option for Portland's homeless and low-income population.

The City will pay $4.22 million for the hotel, which the city says is the last weekly-stay hotel of its kind in Portland.

The future of the hotel, whose 69 rooms are priced from $19 to $50 a night, has been uncertain since December, when tenants received 90-day eviction notices.

The city's purchase of the building is part of an effort to fulfill its promise to maintain 8,286 affordable rental units in Central City.

"The Joyce has long provided transitional housing and a last resort for very vulnerable people with few other options," says Kurt Creager, director of the Portland Housing Bureau. "The loss of such units during a housing and homelessness emergency would create a real humanitarian crisis."

After the purchase, the 20 tenants who remain in the building will be temporarily relocated as the city "rehabilitates the hotel and addresses exigent health and safety issues," according to a PHB press release.

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