In December 2017, neighbors worried about a new shelter on S.E. Foster Road crowded into a contentious town hall meeting with Multnomah County and City of Portland elected officials.
Some neighbors were angry about the plan, some offered support and many were just looking to learn more.
Less than two years later, when the Joint Office of Homeless Services finally opened the 120-bed shelter in August 2019, that acrimony had largely vanished. Neighbors came to an open house in curiosity and with a sense of support, and the president of the area’s business district was among the invited speakers.
What changed? In the days after that initial community meeting, Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson, whose district includes the shelter site, stepped in with a plan to harness that energy. She created a community steering committee with neighbors that helped build a foundation of lasting trust.
And on Friday, March 11, she gathered with the County’s regional partners back at the shelter, now called the Laurelwood Center. She reflected on that community-building work and the positive difference the shelter has made for hundreds of people.
With the shelter’s operator, Transition Projects, Commissioner Vega Pederson helped lead a tour that included Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty, Washington County Chair Kathryn Harrington, and Washington County Commissioners Nafisa Fai and Pam Treece.
With unprecedented levels of state and regional funding finally available to tackle homelessness, Washington County and Beaverton leaders are looking to add similar services in their communities to meet a growing need. The Beaverton City Council is actively considering where to locate a shelter like Laurelwood.
Mayor Beaty said she wanted to see the shelter up close, talk with Transition Projects, and learn about the engagement process as she builds support for her city’s planned facility.
“We’re really starting from scratch,” Mayor Beaty said. “We don’t have the infrastructure that Portland and Multnomah County have for dealing with this problem. But we can all agree this is a humanitarian crisis.”
“We want to share our learnings with our partners,” Commissioner Vega Pederson added. “Because we know this isn’t just a Portland problem. It’s a regional problem.”
The Laurelwood Center is a low-barrier shelter serving women and couples experiencing homelessness. Transition Projects operates the shelter with funding from the Joint Office. Since opening in summer 2019, the shelter has served more than 1,000 people, and helped more than 300 people transition into housing.
The tour started in the shelter’s gated courtyard, which features garden statues, a dog run, ample outdoor seating and bike parking. Inside, it moved to the shelter’s commercial-grade kitchen.
Commissioner Vega Pederson pointed to both stops as examples of the steering committee’s contributions.
Community members insisted on both during the months spent talking through the shelter’s programming and design. The kitchen has allowed dozens of volunteers to treat guests to meals. Among the volunteers: students from a nearby alternative high school who once raised questions about being so close to a shelter. The dog run, community members said, would help give shelter guests a healthy space to tend to their beloved animal companions.
The tour then moved through the shelter’s clinic space, which will provide health services through a partnership with Outside In, and then its disability-friendly restrooms, showers and laundry area.
From there, the visitors wound their way through the shelter’s sleeping areas, where single bed and bunk beds are spread among several intentionally designed bays, instead of being spread across one large room. Artwork lines the dividing walls, which create privacy while still allowing for healthy airflow.
The final stop was a common area with computers, tables and chairs. Off to one side, staff were sitting in small offices dedicated to case management, from housing help to work to get someone their benefits, and other services connections.
Earlier in the tour, Chair Harrington asked the shelter’s on-site manager, Angel Roman, what kinds of things a successful program should have. He pointed to the clinic as well as the case management spaces. It’s about getting as many services as possible into one place.
“So people don’t have to go downtown or out east” to deal with basic needs like primary care appointments or getting identification cards, he said. “It 100% makes it easier for people to get back on their feet.”
Stacy Borke, Transition Projects’ senior director of programs and a member of Commissioner Vega Pederson’s original steering committee, said the most important thing for any shelter “is ensuring there’s a pathway out.”
Shelters work better when there’s housing and support services waiting at the end of someone’s stay. When shelter guests see someone else transition out to housing, Borke said, that means they know it can happen for them, too.
“And that success is stimulating and positive for everybody,” she said.
Commissioner Vega Pederson reminded the group that funding from the state and through the Metro Supportive Housing Services Measure is making it possible to do more of those things.
Multnomah County is growing and improving its shelter system – with more shelter open now than before the pandemic. But the County is also adding more rent assistance and support services, so people in shelter can move on and find apartments of their own.
“We’re working on investments all across the board, and we’re working as hard as we can as quickly as we can,” she said. “This is a step in the system. But we also know, and research has shown, that getting people into permanent supportive housing, where they not only have a roof over their head but have support services to be successful, is the best way of addressing this crisis.”
For more information about the Laurelwood Center and the steering committee process, visit: ahomeforeveryone.net/foster.
