We Could Stop Policing Homelessness and Start Helping

The "Hygiene Hub" in Portland was the result of conversations with people experiencing homelessness who are now paid to help run the service.

Many business districts hire security to “solve” homelessness. But a group of Portland advocates argues less money should be spent on security and more on an idea for helping: a hygiene hub, which anyone can visit to get cleaned up, throw out trash or even just use the bathroom.

In this episode of the podcast, Next City Executive Director Lucas Grindley talks with Sandra Comstock about opening the hub on city land underneath a bridge in Portland’s Central East Side, and offering bathrooms, laundry service and more despite not having access to running water or electricity.

Comstock says that, among its benefits, the Hygiene Hub is an “informal way for people to ease into getting the help they need without having to fill out a bunch of paperwork and feel the fear of rejection — which is a huge problem for folks because they're rejected so often.” 

Also on this episode, Next City talks with correspondent Emily Nonko, who first reported this story, about what makes this solution uncommon. Faced with a newly formed business improvement district that was spending on added security, these advocates collaborated with people experiencing homelessness and pushed ahead to launch the Hygiene Hub without money from the district. 

Listen to this episode below, or subscribe to Next City’s podcast on Apple and Spotify.

"Small Gestures of Trust": What Was Learned and Lost in Creating Portland's Emergency Homeless Villages

By: ALEX ZIELINSKI in Portland Mercury

Like many programs that materialized in spring of 2020, the three city-sanctioned tent camps that appeared in central Portland in April of last year were born out of a crisis.

Oregon’s COVID-19 pandemic social distancing rules had just fallen into place. The mandate forced homeless shelters to immediately reduce capacity, leaving hundreds of vulnerable Portlanders to shelter-in-place outdoors in the midst of a still-mysterious pandemic. At the same time, places that unhoused people relied on for basic human needs, like the bathrooms of coffee shops or libraries, shuttered.

In response, homeless advocacy groups partnered with the city to cobble together three outdoor shelters on city property: two along SE Water in the Central Eastside and another in Old Town, near NW Glisan and Broadway. Each fenced-in location hosted 45 tents atop wooden pallets, and offered resources for residents to do laundry, use the bathroom, wash their hands, and cook meals. Much of the supplies were donated, and volunteers helped get the camps off the ground. Within two weeks, the camps—cleverly dubbed Creating Conscious Communities with People Outside, or C3PO—were welcoming residents.

“These three temporary campsite villages demonstrate that we can be creative and constructive in pursuit of public health,” wrote Street Roots Director Kaia Sands in an editorial about the camps’ opening. “It makes me hopeful for what more we can do.”

The C3PO villages were only meant to last three months. Now, more than a year after opening their gates, the trio of villages are transitioning into a more permanent respite for unhoused Portlanders.

The transformation hasn’t been without growing pains.

The camps were originally structured to be self-governed villages, where residents set the rules and largely ran the site’s operations in exchange for tenancy. Now, to continue receiving public funding as outdoor shelters, the villages must be overseen by a nonprofit whose staff call the shots and collect paychecks. Some villagers who felt empowered by the previous structure say the switch is "demoralizing,” while volunteers who helped C3PO get off the ground feel like their hard work to forge a new alternative for homeless Portlanders has been erased. Government agencies, meanwhile, are hopeful that C3PO’s next chapter will offer a road map for future outdoor shelters to follow.

The transition is an opportunity for city leaders—and the community at large—to consider how city-run homeless villages best fit into the region’s response to homelessness.

"We built bonds through just being around each other each day, making big decisions that affect all of us together." —Dregs, QA Village resident

Victory LaFara was one of the first people brought in to set up C3PO villages in April of 2020. LaFara works for homeless service provider JOIN as a support specialist for Dignity Village, the 21-year-old village for unhoused Portlanders in far Northeast Portland. As program director for C3PO, LaFara brought in leadership from Right 2 Dream, Too (R2DToo), another village of unhoused Portlanders located in the Rose Quarter, to collaborate on the emergency project. R2DToo eventually became the lead operator of C3PO through a contract with the city.

LaFara said that under normal circumstances, an organization would have somewhere between three to six months to set up a new shelter or outdoor village. But the threat of COVID-19 didn’t allow for normal circumstances.

“We had 14 days,” LaFara said. “This required extraordinary flexibility, agility, and strategic forethought to open and respond to unforeseeable, unique, highly unusual challenges. Normally, there would be plenty of time to plan and for villagers to develop their skills and community culture organically with lots of community support.”

To accommodate for this limitation, several grassroots organizations and volunteer groups pitched in their time. Sandra Comstock, director of Hygiene4All, donated hygiene services to the villages and coordinated with other mutual aid and nonprofit groups to get the village operating. Comstock said she was inspired and motivated by the kind of collaboration she witnessed on the ground.

“It was a real opportunity to create a new kind of network to respond to need, and so many organizations were able to tap into it,” said Comstock. “It wasn’t being gatekept by another organization. It allowed for innovation and creativity.”

In planning the new villages, LaFara and others sought feedback from prospective residents on what kind of community would make them feel at home. That input left the spaces with a few characteristics not seen at other city-involved shelters. Specifically, organizers allowed the villages to be self-governed, meaning residents would be responsible for setting community rules and deciding who is allowed to join the village (or who should be kicked out). Big decisions would be made in weekly village meetings, where every resident would have equal input. Each resident would be responsible for contributing 16 hours of volunteer time each week to running the community, whether that meant sanitizing public areas, monitoring the front entrance of the village, or picking up trash. The larger organizational responsibilities fell on staff paid by R2DToo.

The villages also focused on accommodating homeless populations that are uniquely vulnerable living on the streets or in traditional shelter settings. Organizers declared one village on SE Water Ave to be the BIPOC Village, welcoming Black, Indigenous, and people of color, while the other SE Water Ave village—the Queer Affinity Village—was reserved for LGBTQIA+ residents. The third, Old Town Village, didn’t center on any particular identity.

“That was a major factor that attracted us to this project,” said Katie Cox, director of the Equi Institute, a community health organization that focused on LGBTQI+ health care and partnered with C3PO early on.

Many unhoused Portlanders who didn’t feel supported by the region’s larger shelter system were drawn to C3PO villages.

“I never stayed in a shelter, since I had only heard bad things about them,” said Dregs, a resident at the QA Village who asked the Mercury to be identified by his nickname out of privacy concerns. “But after I visited my friend at the QA camp, I applied to live there. As a queer camp, I felt welcome, and I immediately saw the amount of equal control people had there. That was appealing.”

Dregs, who moved into the QA Village in September 2020, has seen the community through many changes. That winter, the tents dotting the property were upgraded to enclosed huts with heat and electricity. By March 2021, Dregs had been offered a job by R2DToo to coordinate the village’s food services. Through the position, Dregs was able to improve the quality of meals for residents with food allergies or restrictions, and create strong bonds with organizations outside of the village eager to donate food. By investing time and energy into the village, Dregs said villagers felt true ownership of their home.

“We built bonds through just being around each other each day, making big decisions that affect all of us together,” said Dregs. “If someone was causing harm to our community, we were quick to address the problem with them… a lot of times it was ‘You either have to quit this or you’re leaving.’ We kept each other safe.”

Other residents told the Mercury that their stay at C3PO villages allowed them a chance to relax for the first time in years after living on the streets. It gave people a chance to craft longer-term plans for their lives that stretched beyond what they were going to eat for dinner or where they’d be able to safely sleep at night.

A year into their creation, it still wasn’t clear how long the once-temporary villages were expected to last. Their fate was made a bit more permanent in June, when Multnomah County and the city funneled a combined $4.5 million in federal American Rescue Plan dollars into the three sites.

Fahad, another QA villager, said this feeling of community was bolstered by the relationship residents had with other homeless people who lived outside near their C3PO property. Fahad is an immigrant seeking asylum in the US, and requested the Mercury not use his last name out of privacy concerns. Fahad found the QA Village after months of sleeping in a rental car or in a traditional indoor shelter.

Moving into the QA Village brought Fahad an increased sense of privacy and independence, and allowed him time to work on the immigration process. One of his favorite responsibilities at the village was working at the front gate during night shifts, when other unhoused people would stop by asking for assistance.

“I’d hand out blankets, clean syringes, food, water, and Narcan,” said Fahad. “It was very rewarding to be able to help people.”

This was one of the first things to go in November 2021.
In September, the city transferred leadership of C3PO villages to a new nonprofit called All Good NW. R2DToo had decided months earlier to cede oversight of the village program, as the nonprofit’s leaders saw their goals diverge from what local government had in mind for C3PO villages moving forward.

The Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS), the department shared by the city and Multnomah County, oversees the contractors that run homeless villages and other shelter spaces across the region. According to a letter sent to the Mercury by the R2DToo board, the nonprofit felt that JOHS was stripping the grassroots village program of its identity by urging it to follow traditional shelter models. R2DToo was eager to keep the village running with volunteer and paid work by residents—similar to how the Right 2 Dream, Too village operates—but was urged by JOHS to hire outside staff to run the three villages.

“We think we have demonstrated that many of Portland’s houseless residents are extremely capable and can manage themselves without the intensive and expensive oversight being utilized in JOHS’s model,” reads the letter from the R2DToo board. “The resources spent on C3PO could easily have paid for market-rate housing for all villagers at the camps, with money left over for needed services, which the camps were also doing their best to provide.”

The nonprofit board was also concerned that the villages were contributing to a system that would allow the city to punish unhoused people. Because of a 2017 Ninth Circuit Appeals Court ruling, homeless Portlanders are prohibited from being penalized for sleeping on public property, unless the city can provide overnight shelter. Under that rule, the city could potentially penalize unhoused people who don’t agree to move into shelter spaces like the C3PO villages.

“While we support the creation of places where people can go to be safe, sleep, eat, use the bathroom, access health care, and work to find jobs and housing,” the R2DToo board writes, “we are concerned that the creation of these spaces will be used as justification for the continued criminalization of homelessness on Portland’s streets.”

R2DToo’s departure left a void of leadership that JOHS scrambled to fill. According to Denis Theriault, a spokesperson for JOHS, the office asked nearly every local homeless service nonprofit to take over C3PO’s management, but most refused. According to Theriault, that’s due to the unavoidable challenge of restructuring the villages’ autonomous management structure.

“There are a lot of requirements that come with getting a contract,” said Theriault. “There is a part of that that is antithetical to a more grassroots model, which is how C3PO began. So there’s a disconnect there and a transition that needs to be made. Transitions are generally difficult.”

It was a challenge that fledgling nonprofit All Good NW was willing to take on. All Good sprung out of Do Good Multnomah, a nonprofit that focuses on creating shelter spaces for homeless veterans. Do Good Multnomah currently operates St. John’s Village and the Veteran’s Village in Clackamas—two transitional housing communities composed of tiny shelters on public property. While All Good is a standalone nonprofit, it focuses on projects similar to those undertaken by Do Good, and is led by former Do Good employee Andy Goebel. Goebel said he saw C3PO management as an opportunity to take the “Do Good model” to shelters for unhoused Portlanders.

“I was involved in the design and development of St. Johns Village” said Goebel. “To me, that’s the gold standard of alternative sheltering in a village model. I knew the transition was going to be hard. What we were not prepared for was the tremendous amount of energy we would need to put infrastructure in these locations.”

Goebel said that, because the C3PO villages were crafted for short-term use, there was little thought put into long-term infrastructure needs, like plumbing and electricity. Only shortly before Goebel took over did the city bring in flushing toilets to replace the long-standing porta-potties and install laundry services on site. The QA Village, which is scheduled to be relocated in the new year, remains the only C3PO village without these amenities.

"We are concerned that the creation of these spaces will be used as justification for the continued criminalization of homelessness on Portland’s streets." —Letter from Right 2 Dream, Too board members

All Good took over management of the three villages in November. Residents said they could tell that there was a change in leadership almost overnight. Villages suddenly saw their three daily meals reduced to two, locks placed on community storage units, and a restriction on giving away supplies to homeless people who weren’t residents. All Good brought on 60 staff to replace the work previously being done by volunteers and residents—and then some. Unlike the earlier iteration of C3PO villages, All Good hired case workers to work directly with residents to help them with anything from securing permanent housing to applying for health care. All Good informed all residents who had been employed by R2DToo that they could keep their jobs only if they agreed to move out of the village within six months.

“It was a compromise we made,” said Goebel. “We were hesitant to take on the kind of HR issues that come with having program staff that are also program participants. It could be a liability.”

All Good also did away with the autonomous structure that had attracted so many to C3PO villages. The new management kept the weekly village meetings, but residents said the overall tone changed.

“We used to have discussions and then make decisions together, but now at the meetings, we’re just being told what decisions have already been made without our input,” said Dregs. “It’s demoralizing not to have control of your own home.”

Dregs said that, with the arrival of All Good, the sense of community felt at the QA Village was dampened. People have stopped hanging out in common spaces, and instead leave the property to meet up in places where they feel more comfortable.

Dregs was one of at least six village residents laid off from their job at C3PO shortly after All Good took over. Dregs said they weren’t offered any alternative form of employment.
Longtime C3PO staff also lost employment since the management change, including Jules, an employee at the Old Town Village. Jules asked to use a pseudonym, as they fear publicizing their actual name could result in retribution from JOHS. Jules joined C3PO staff in June 2020, and played a pivotal role in creating structure and systems within the new communities. In Jules’ mind, they worked for village residents, and made sure each decision made was something residents wanted.

Jules described the shift in management under All Good as a moment of grief. Jules remembers All Good holding a meeting with C3PO staff shortly after the nonprofit acquired the three villages.

“I remember they told us that they love the spirit of what we’re doing, but that their ultimate priority is liability,” Jules recalled.

From that point onward, Jules said, “It was very obvious we were training our replacements.” Jules was fired in early November, after being told they weren’t a “good fit” for the new staff. Several other longtime staff have been fired since. Jules said the most difficult part was seeing villagers react to the change in oversight.

“People were really upset,” Jules said. “For many, this was the first time that they were able to make decisions about their community. That brought people a lot of dignity and self-worth. Losing that autonomy was heartbreaking to people, and they expressed that to me.”

Jules saw residents who had become confident since moving into the villages shut down and stop engaging in community projects. This response didn’t come as a surprise to Jules.

“When you’ve been living in an oppressive situation and find something liberating, and then see that freedom reverted again, it’s easy to give up and give in,” Jules said.

Jules believes that, if JOHS had helped village residents form their own nonprofit, they could have easily become self-sustaining without needing much financial investment.

“These villages were essentially running themselves,” said Jules. “And they were really, really close to showing that that’s possible. But then All Good came in, chopped down a tree and made a table.”

The governance structure of homeless villages is something that has divided Portland’s homeless service programs in the past. Losing a self-governance model is what drove residents at Hazelnut Grove, an autonomously-run tiny home village in North Portland, to protest a proposed closure and relocation to St. Johns Village, which is managed by a nonprofit. Hazelnut Grove remains open and self-governed today.

"When you’ve been living in an oppressive situation and find something liberating, and then see that freedom reverted again, it’s easy to give up and give in." Jules, former C3PO employee

Goebel said he and his staff value the uniqueness of the original C3PO villages, and doesn’t see All Good stifling the community it was hired to oversee.

“These villages came together as a response to an emergency,” said Goebel. “To see what they built as a community and what they pulled together in such a brief amount of time, we want to honor that as much as possible.”

“That said,” he continued, “these are no longer villages by way of residents. This is an alternative shelter run by a nonprofit.”

Goebel said the changes in meals, access to supplies, volunteer shifts, and the ability to disperse resources to non-residents are all in accordance with the contract All Good signed to oversee C3PO. But, he said, if residents take issue with these changes, they can be adapted over time.

“We are human beings who want to care for other human beings,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is retraumatize people.”

The new C3PO model is in alignment with how other publicly funded homeless shelters and transitional housing programs operate in Portland, and may help lay the groundwork for more outdoor shelters on the horizon.

In June, City Commissioner Dan Ryan announced a plan to open six “Safe Rest Villages”—or, outdoor shelters made up of small shelters and bathroom facilities—across the city by the end of the year. While the timeline has been extended, the city is still on track to begin opening these new spaces for homeless Portlanders in 2022. According to Bryan Aptekar, a spokesperson for Ryan’s program, the goal is for these new villages to operate similarly to C3PO properties.

“There might be subtle differences,” said Aptekar. “But they should be pretty similar.”

As the pandemic eventually wanes, allowing indoor homeless shelters to slowly return to their original capacity limits, Portland’s homelessness crisis isn’t expected to go away. That’s why city and county officials are both invested in the next chapter for C3PO villages and other outdoor shelters.

“[C3PO villages] help at least one hundred people every night,” said JOHS’ Theriault. “That is a thing we’re going to need after COVID. This kind of urgency isn’t going away.”

The grassroots providers who helped create C3PO also support a future of villages for unhoused Portlanders. But many want to see the lessons from C3PO reflected in future models. For JOIN’s LaFara, that means giving villagers resources to form their own nonprofit to govern their own communities, instead of relying on outside providers. While LaFara left their work at C3PO in June after a year of intensive work, LaFara still works closely with Dignity Village. Both Dignity Village and the R2DToo village operate under their own nonprofits.

“I think the county could create more positions like mine to help start new villages or support expansion of existing villages,” said LaFara. “Those villages could employ staff from organizations that support their model. Staff working for a village must be dedicated to and focused on supporting village development, rather than babysitting property and breaking up the occasional fight.”

Jules, the former C3PO employee, said it comes down to trust.

“With villages, you create an opportunity to build a trustworthy community,” Jules said. “And when people create their own community, they are more likely to stay and respect how things are done.”

That trust has all but dissolved within the three C3PO villages. Many of the groups that volunteered time and resources early on, like the Equi Institute, no longer feel welcome in the All Good villages—cutting residents off from critical services. Dregs has stopped attending weekly meetings, after realizing that villager’s input is no longer considered in community decisions. Fahad said the new management has created an environment where residents feel forced to pick sides and form alliances to get support. Both residents said they are considering moving out.

“I don't think they realize how destabilizing this transition has been for us,” said Dregs. “Even small gestures of trust can give us stability. But maybe it’s easier for the bottom line to just treat us like children.”

February Greetings

February Greetings Dearest Hub Family!

I write to tell you of the pearls and seaweed gathered from our first two months of community based learning, building, and honing our unique power-sharing practices and off-grid shower system.

Heart Growth:

As we settle in under the Morrison Bridge we have been working out questions such as:

“What is the kindest way to ensure people get showers that genuinely make them feel happier, better cared for, and fully respected while ensuring others waiting get their showers in a timely fashion too?”

Happily, our all-staff problem solving circle came up with the marvelous idea of asking patrons to select their preferred time up to 20 minutes. This has smoothed the timely flow of showers and while enhancing satisfaction. Staff have also decided to hold a forum to ask patrons how they think we should balance timely showers with ensuring more challenged patrons get the time their disabilities require.

This is the daily work of the hub: identifying areas of social friction and puzzling through how to address friction as a community; asking all to invest the time and heart to figure out fair, kind, equitable ways to meet our collective aims.

Technical Milestones:

After 3 alternate hot water heaters, 6 pumps, 2 generators, and a new main battery - we are hopeful that, as of this week, we finally have an off-grid shower system that works reliably. WOOT WOOT! Now we can turn to a new issue: becoming so popular we need a new tank of water (275 gallons) every night! It’s a good issue to have.

Channeling Joy:

Even as snow and ice, and mechanics have challenged us, something special is unfolding at H4A. Our nights are punctuated by singing in the shower, impromptu guitar concerts, and dancing patrons and staff bopping around the edges of our painted medallion, lit up by the swank café lights. And then there is the mysterious appearance of curious bobble-creatures from an unknown benefactor. A shrine to honor them all - from Dental-Hygienist to Muppet bobblehead - is in the works.

Where We Need Help:

• As H4A’s popularity and patrons increase we need funds to keep up with doubling water costs (A regular donation of $15 a month for a year = an additional night of water for showers at H4A).

• We need volunteer supply helpers to help support organizing, tracking, and delivery of cleaning supplies, underwear, socks, hygiene related toiletries and more. This work is contactless and COVID safe.

• Finally, we need laundry helpers - to help pick up, launder, and deliver towels. Currently I handle those jobs which takes time away from the vital work of attending to emerging power sharing processes, building our community-focused assessment tools, and grant writing.

Your ongoing passion for our endeavor is the lifeblood pumping through our daily practices, keeping us all vibrant and hopeful. We unabashedly hope we can draw you further into our joyous human effort, so that - together - we can be the spark that lights the fire for bolder changes so urgently needed in these times.

In Solidarity and Hope -

Sandra and the Hub Crew

This ‘Hygiene Hub’ Is Run By People Experiencing Homelessness

By: EMILY NONKO in Next City

Business owners in Portland’s Central East Side were concerned about what they said was an increase in homelessness, trash and biowaste. So they proposed forming an “enhanced services district,” known in other cities as a business improvement district. But when people experiencing homelessness and their advocates saw the district’s proposed budget, they were alarmed — their proposed budget dedicated significant funding to private security, policing homelessness instead of solving it.

“People don’t realize that these things happen because there’s an utter lack of infrastructure — there’s no place to dump household trash and in that 70-city block at that point there were a total of two public bathrooms,” notes Sandra Comstock, a sociologist and advocate for houseless people. She saw a logical alternative to an enhanced services district: Fund a safe space where people could access a hot shower, bathrooms, laundry and basic medical care, as well as dump trash.

To follow through took two years and a complex series of county and city permits, near constant fundraising and COVID-19. By the end of last year, the Hygiene Hub opened beneath the Morrison Bridge with portable toilets and a shower with hot water. This spring, the hub will roll out its clothing and bedding exchange. By late summer, a cadre of nurse volunteers will begin offering a full range of foot and wound care.

The hub is the first major project of Hygiene4All, a nonprofit founded by Comstock that facilitated weekly visioning and design meetings with unsheltered collaborators over the course of 2019 and 2020. “Conversations were about what safety looks like to you and the struggles of meeting hygiene and basic survival needs,” she recalls. “Out of that we designed the four pieces of our [Hygiene Hub] program,” meaning bathrooms, showers, laundry and medical care.

At the hub, attendants keep tabs on separate “pods” within an enclosed site filled with plants and artwork. The shower pod is run by a combination of wind, solar and a generator. A first-aid pod is stocked with topical antibiotics, cold remedies and wound care; attendants also hand out print-outs with tips on foot health, wound care, broken teeth, pandemic safety, bed bug and lice infestations, as well as referrals for other health concerns. Two pods, provided by the Useful Waste Initiative, serve as storage and a sleeping area for the hygiene attendants.

By the end of June, the hub will open a clothing and bedding exchange. In Comstock’s weekly visioning meetings, the team discussed how laundering clothing was so logistically challenging — due to cost, access, and waits to use the few facilities available — that unsheltered residents found it easier to throw out clothes and bedding and acquire new ones.

The solution: At the hub, people will exchange dirty and soiled bedding for clean, free replacements. Dirty clothing will be taken off-site to a church to be washed.

While the Hygiene Hub is relatively straightforward, getting it done required significant planning, advocacy and funding. Hygiene4All brought the idea to Portland’s City Council in 2019 and found enough traction that the council granted use of some land owned by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. The land is within the East Side Enhanced Services District, which the city council approved in 2019. The organizers then worked to secure city and county permits to build out the off-grid site.

“The site is unique in that it doesn’t have electric or plumbing,” says Lisa Patterson, the hub’s build out project manager. “We thought of everything as an off-grid effort because of that.” Pre-COVID, the team envisioned an enclosed site, full of greenery and artwork, where people could come, take care of hygiene needs, and simply hang out. “It’s not just a public toilet, it’s not just some huge building and you’re not sure if you’re allowed to go in,” Patterson says.

As they gathered city land use support and raised private funds for the design and buildout, COVID hit. The team halted plans to build the hub and train staff. In the meantime, the city opened three outdoor emergency shelters — which came to be known as the Creating Conscious Communities with People Outside (C3PO) camps — and Hygiene4All dedicated its attention there.

Comstock helped organize two of the self-governed camps, one for LGBTQ people and another for Black, Indigenous and other people of color. It was an opportunity to identify the challenges and opportunities of self-governance within houseless communities — and it dramatically impacted the development of the Hygiene Hub. “We revamped our handbook, our accountability process and all of our trainings based on that five-month, on-the-ground intensive experience,” Comstock says.

Hygiene4All also built much of the Hygiene Hub staff — paid, unhoused or unstably housed people as well as housed volunteers — from its connections within C3PO. The three-month training went beyond site upkeep; it included conversations between housed and unhoused folks around de-escalation, community safety, mental health first aid and “disrupting racist, sexist and anti-queer harm,” according to Comstock.

“There was a lot of community building — in the training we expressed what the focus was, especially for LGTBQ and BIPOC people,” explains Lo Mesidor, who lived in C3PO and became a paid staff member of the hub.

“We have a lot of progressive policies,” says Janessa Farias, a volunteer staff member. “In one of our meetings, we agreed that if someone came into the hub and was having a mental breakdown and being loud, we would allow them to stay as long as they weren’t violent,” she says. “In a lot of spaces, that might not be considered socially acceptable. But the hub feels like a radical space where people really understand each other.”

By Demember, the so-called hygiene attendants formed a tight-knit, collaborative team. “The services are what bring people together, but to me the center of this work is providing a place for healing and for people to feel joyous in doing the work,” Comstock says. Staff work three-hour shifts no more than twice a week, she adds, “so people can show up as their best selves and provide something that people can’t get at other places.”

With the hub up and running, tracking its effectiveness is the next step. “I want to create the data that shows if we spend at the front end, and give people a safe place to be, we’re going to save the city money in the long run,” Comstock explains. “Not just in trash collection but 911 calls and ER visits.” Her goal is to provide a blueprint on reallocating the private and public money spent on policing and serial relocation of homeless individuals.

Hygiene4All is also designed to provide a framework for more collaborations between housed and unhoused neighbors who want to open their own community-based hubs. In the long run, the organization envisions entire “compassionate change districts” (as opposed to enhanced service districts) with equal access to waste, water, sewer, hygiene and sanitation infrastructure currently available only to those able to own or rent housing.

“If we’re going to make further headway, we need to prove that something like this works,” she says of testing the concepts at the hub.

For hub staffer Mesidor, the positive impact is obvious. “I’m a little disappointed because I feel like the city should support it more,” he says. “I’d love to see Hygiene4All as clean, well-known, and global as McDonalds.”

Houseless Hygiene Needs All in One Place

From KGW News: Hygiene4All has set up what they’re calling a hub to help the houseless in Portland. Photojournalist Steve Redlin was able to see how it’s going to help.

A Compassionate Model for Street Hygiene Opens in Portland

From streetroots.org: The Hygiene Hub, under the Morrison Bridge, offers toilets, wind and solar showers, information and other resources

H4A is lighting a fire to build a brighter 2021

Beloved Friends:

On December 15th, H4A opened the doors to our Hygiene Hub! A marvelous menagerie of elected, activist, non-profit, faith, and community partners came out in the rain to cheer us on. Most importantly, we got to celebrate the fruits of 2 years of planning and debate, training and refinement with our houseless collaborators from the St Francis, Sisters of the Road, and C3PO communities.

As Commissioner Meieran said that day in the rainy parking lot, our bright little hub stands as proof of what we can “accomplish when we get together, and work with people who are most impacted by our different and ineffective systems and figure out what people genuinely need and want.” One easy visit to the Hub for foot care can circumvent a visit to the ER and often loss of limbs. As Commissioner Eudaly so passionately put it: “It shouldn’t be this hard to do something this essential.” We agree. Our purpose is to pave the way to making it easier.

Two weeks into the world of Hub we are celebrating

• the delight people experience after they first hot shower in six or more months and perhaps

• the joy derived from sharing the rare gifts of warmth, beauty, community, and conversation in a moment when most places are shuttered to our unsheltered friends.

We are also learning and growing. So far, we know we need to

• increase shower water tank deliveries from every 4 to every 2 days

• add more solar battery and panel capacity in order to offer the full measure of hot water, lighting, warmth, and hospitality to which we aspire

• train additional staff and volunteers to increase our onsite presence from 2 to 3 to adequately cover our health pod needs.

• add inventory helpers and laundry fairies to our volunteer squad

• add frequently requested items like condoms and cocoa/shea butter

* * *

As we enter this darkest phase of the Pandemic, where our unsheltered community members experience unprecedented isolation and deprivation, we ask very if you might consider becoming a monthly sponsor.

Just 15 dollars a month plus taxes = an additional hour of paid staff time for our amazing unsheltered crew and added hour shower and wound care time for our dear patrons!!!

With mad amounts of love, gratitude, and solidarity

Sandra Comstock, Executive Director

and the entire H4A crew!

You are the crucial ingredient!

January 2020

You have all been such a great source of inspiration and help during these last 24 months as we gathered information and started to build this hub.

We are knocking on your email door once again asking for your help.

Can you take a moment and share our Go-Fund Me Page

2 years ago - amidst reports of over-policing and the devastating ways that sweeps perpetuate chronic houselessness - a scrappy group of grassroots organizers began advocating for alternative ways to improve hygiene, sanitation and safety on the streets for all.

Our intrepid unsheltered team began to build a vision of that alternative: a plan to provide our peers with a place to meet critical hygiene, sanitation, health, and safety needs. We pounded the pavement to secure funding from foundations, property from the City. We gathered materials and know-how from businesses, grassroots organizations, and universities. Finally, we partnered with community experts to achieve 46 hours of training for our expanding staff and volunteer team to become Hygiene4All.

There is just one, crucial missing ingredient we need to succeed in our pioneering endeavor:

YOUR SUPPORT - small or large !!

$50,000.00 will expand paid hours for our unsheltered staff members, strengthen our infrastructure, and allow us to build up our stock of hub supplies.

As we enter the deepest depths of the pandemic we know that the COVID and economic crises will test and strain even the the strongest organizations. As many indoor services are reduced hours or closed, Hygiene4All will be called to pick up the slack

Hygiene4All's outdoor hub will provide safe, sanitized bathrooms, showers, wound and foot care, bedding & clothing, and trash removal under the Morrison Bridge in Portland, Oregon. Our paid unsheltered attendants are trained in de-escalation, trauma-informed harm reduction, and fostering a culture of respect, acceptance, and welcome of all community members regardless of housing status, gender, race, or sexual orientation.

We need YOUR help to meet our 50,000 goal which will

• expand the number of paid hours for our unsheltered staff

• strengthen and improve our infrastructure

• build up our start up supplies.

• Funds will specifically contribute to:

• Increase paid shifts by 40%

• Solar and wind power system to keep the lights up and the cost down.

• Lighting and gathering area items to keep the area safe and comfortable.

• Health POD systems

• Cleaning and Sanitation systems

• Start up supplies for health pod wound and foot care

• Start up supplies of clothing and bedding

• Start up supplies for sanitation and cleaning

• Start up hospitality supplies

• Start up supplies for hygiene, period products, and bodily care.

Every dollar raised will be spent on unsheltered employees and the items we need to offer safe, dignified services to our unsheltered neighbors.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HEARTFELT SUPPORT

With Warm Regards,

Mona, Sandra and the crew

December 2020

Dearest Friends,

In the past year Hygiene4All took six months out to work with other grassroot organizations in developing and supporting the creation of 3 emergency villages, now known as C3PO (Creating Conscious Communities for People Outside) for our unhoused neighbors.  We are beyond proud to have contributed to Portland’s first city sanctioned LBGTQ+ and BIPOC villages.

• Through intense collaboration we learned so very much about how to deepen our practices of developing spaces, structures, and staff that actively disrupt racist, sexist, anti-LBGTQ+, and anti-ableist harm.

• We built new ways of prioritizing the safety for our most targeted houseless community members.

• We honed our strategies for managing mental and physical health crises, de-escalation, and community accountability and power sharing.

Now many of those villagers are a part of our staff. Nothing brings us together like adversity.

This Pandemic  has ravaged us all. Worst of all - it has killed and pushed hundreds of thousands of poor families to the brink of losing homes, jobs, and daily sustenance. It is clear that our governments are not ensuring the survival, health, and wellbeing of our people and planet. Only by organizing ourselves for mutual aid, by making plans to press society to care for our people, and by preparing for the struggle ahead will we emerge from the ashes of now better prepared to face an uncertain future.

Hygiene4All is ready for the fight.

Through this cold, dark winter of strife we will persist in meeting our neighbors’ basic bodily and mental health needs. From our example, we will gather our village, and push for solutions and action to end decades of negligence, neglect, and ruin. 

Buildings in our hygiene hub. Building on the right is our First Aid Hub. Building on the left is a storage building.

In just one year,

• we have raised over 150,000 in grants and donations.

• Generous community organizations have additionally given over 60,000 in in kind donations and services.

Thanks to our tireless tiny team of unsheltered members, allies and volunteers we have built a haven for health and safety and  the skills needed to launch the H4A “Ark.” Now we embark on our voyage. 

But we need you by our side.

Please help provision and navigate our ship through the icy waters of COVID, political, and economic turmoil massing on the horizon. We need funds, volunteers, and supplies to protect whole community health and show that a better tomorrow is possible. 

We are a scrappy organization. We have moved mountains to gather the first resources to open. But we will only grow in impact if our community has our back.

• 15 dollars pays for an unsheltered staff member to welcome and lend a helping hand to their peers for an hour. 

• 90 dollars ensures six hours of paid staff  and volunteer time, offering safety, bathrooms, showers, wound care, and clean clothing and bedding to those for whom most spaces are currently shuttered.

• Your recurring donation not only guarantees basic bodily and mental wellbeing to those most  affected by the current crises; but would ensure grant makers understand the importance of our life saving activities to the community with whom we share the sidewalks.

Individually we can offer a ray of hope and kindness; Together we can make the world a more hopeful place.

The Build is Starting

September 2020

Hygiene4All had to put a temporary hold on our project due to the "Stay Home - Stay Safe" order that was passed by our governor. In the meantime, we continued to work with other grassroots organizations in Portland to create safe camping areas for our unhoused friends and neighbors.

Recent on the ground surveys in the area performed by Groundscore show that access to showers, clean bathrooms, and trash are a high priority with so many services in the area shut down due to COVID. We are working hard to bet our services up and running as soon as we can to meet these urgent needs!

Here are some ways that you can stay involved despite social distancing:

Donations​

• ​Money

• Volunteer

• Items​

  • Native plants

  • Milk crates (80-100)

  • Hammocks (2)

  • Sleeping cots (x1 ADA)

  • Wooden Stumps to sit on

  • Other outdoor seating

  • Curtain system for resting pods

  • Colorful paint

  • String lights

  • Food and water for staff and volunteers

  • biodegradable soaps and shampoos

Right 2 Survive in Southeast on KBOO.fm Radio

Jan Haaken talks with activists from Right 2 Survive, including Sandra Comstock and Jeff Liddicoat, about the campaign for a village in SE Portland, resistance to the enhanced surveillance district in Portland’s central eastside (also known as a homeless exclusion district), and the discrimination and stereotypes unhoused people face. The Right 2 Survive program on KBOO radio broadcasts every 2nd Wednesday of the month from 6:00pm to 7:00.