Multnomah County commissioners will attend a virtual event Sunday, Jan. 31 celebrating the grand opening of WomenFirst Transition & Referral Center’s new SE Portland Recovery House. The event will include stories of impact, program highlights, and future plans for helping participants continue to rebuild their lives.
WomenFirst is a peer-led organization serving women in recovery and women transitioning from prison through peer mentorship, life skills training, and empowerment groups. The program aims to help participants discover themselves and accomplish personal and professional goals in partnership with other nonprofits.
“The peer-led, culturally specific, wraparound model that WomenFirst provides is critical to ensuring that women can transition successfully back into the community and rebuild their lives -- I'm thrilled to see this open,” said Commissioner Susheela Jayapal.
The home, located at 1797 SE 117th Ave in Portland, OR, will provide up to two years of housing with supports for participants at an affordable cost. The goal is to help women in re-entry transition back into the community while they seek permanent housing. The house will include seven beds and a live-in house manager. Services will include life skills courses, financial literacy, education on renter’s rights, and health and wellness courses.
“We are determined to help these women thrive, become accountable, get prepared, continue their journey of success, get their needs met, and work to navigate back home to permanent housing for themselves and their families,” said Shannon Olive, the founder of WomenFirst.
The virtual event will begin at noon with remarks from Olive, program participants and nonprofit partners. The celebration can be viewed on Google Meet via the following conference link: https://meet.google.com/wzj-jmpy-qam.
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