In October 2020, Do Good Multnomah moved into the century-old former Hope Presbyterian Church building at 7809 NE Everett Street, just as the organization expanded beyond its core mission of providing supportive service to unsheltered veterans. With the move to Montavilla and subsequent years of growth supporting a broad range of houseless services, Do Good has expanded its 75-person organization to 300 staff working in various locations across the Portland Metro area. The majority of staff employed at Do Good work from multiple sites and interact directly with program participants, with the Everett Street location facilitating a handful of administrative services and storing donated home goods for people transitioning into housing.

Lisa Horness, Community Partnerships Manager for Do Good Multnomah, explained that during the height of COVID-19, Multnomah County and the City of Portland asked the organization to grow its offerings to meet an expanding need to shelter vulnerable people living outdoors. “As an organization, we were initially serving primarily veterans. When the pandemic happened, the City and the County saw what we were doing, our highly relational approach to the work of serving veterans experiencing houselessness. They asked, ‘Hey, can you do more? We’re going to start operating these motels to support folks who have more of the comorbidities that the pandemic is primarily affecting,'” recalled Horness. Those new programs focus on sheltering older adults, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) community members, and people with medical conditions. “That kicked off a period of rapid growth for Do Good. We moved from having a low-barrier congregate shelter serving male-identifying veterans to growing into these motel programs. We now serve somewhere around 700 folks a night across three counties through about 20 programs. Some of those are wrap-around services, so not necessarily physical sites, but have grown and expanded into supporting folks from all marginalized communities, but still prioritizing veterans experiencing houselessness,” said Horness.

After a year in the NE Everett Street building, the organization identified a community need for a resource center to collect and distribute donated housewares, mattresses, furniture, towels, clothing, and toiletries. People moving into housing from the shelter network often lack basic supplies and resources to furnish an apartment. Through word-of-mouth, they began collecting donations from barrel drives and individual donations, storing the items in the former church’s ample basement and nave. The wide open floor space made it possible to organize the donated items so staff could easily package items for delivery to program participants. They receive corporate contributions, including two recent semi-trucks worth of mattresses with box springs made surplus during a Great Wolf Lodge remodel project and new mattresses gifted by Mor Furniture. However, Horness says most contributions come from household donations. Anyone can arrange to donate needed items by filling out the company’s web form and then dropping off the items during a scheduled time at the NE Everett Street location.

Although Do Good Multnomah expanded support to a broader demographic of marginalized people and to counties beyond its namesake, the staff continues to focus on former military service members facing housing insecurities. “We have programs that are still veteran-specific and veteran-only, like our Wy’East Veterans Shelter. Most of our permanent supportive housing sites and our Veterans Village are veteran-specific,” explained Horness. “As we grew, to maintain our focus on serving veterans, our programs that are civilian-based reserve 15% of the beds for veterans, which is the percentage of veterans experiencing homelessness across the nation relative to the population.”

Do Good’s expansion into serving other populations was not just about meeting the abundant need for shelter across the region. They also recognized they needed to cast a wide net to reach everyone they wanted to serve. “Not every veteran is going to want to be in a veteran-specific community. So by having both veteran-specific and civilian-based programming in the full spectrum of programs, we can meet people where they are at,” said Horness. They now offer everything from low-barrier congregate shelters, motel shelter programs, pod villages, permanent supportive housing, affordable housing, and behavioral health treatment. They recently partnered with the Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon at the County’s Behavioral Health Resource Center to offer bridge housing for people experiencing mental health challenges or substance use disorder. The organization is participating with a new outreach team in North Portland, and the North Portland Day Center is opening at the end of April or early May. In addition to low-barrier shelters that do not require sobriety, Do Good will open the Kenton Motel, which will offer sober housing for veterans.

According to Horness, they see significant movement between programs. “Just because one individual might start in a congregate program doesn’t mean necessarily that they’ll move directly into housing from there. Some do, but others may reach the next positive step for them, like a motel program where they have more independence, personal space, and an opportunity to grow. Or perhaps it’s a pod. Each of our programs have different goals associated with a timeline. We want folks to progress, whatever that means to them, but shelter is not the end goal, housing is the end goal. A place that is one’s own, or maybe it’s assisted living, or maybe it’s into recovery. Again, it’s going to look a little different for every individual because we are all individuals. But the end goal is not one of our programs unless it happens to be permanent supportive housing.”

The organization will celebrate its tenth anniversary this May, recognizing the dramatic transformation into a multi-site service provider from its origins as a 13-bed shelter for veterans in the basement of Rose City Park United Methodist Church. Horness explained that although they have grown Do Good’s reach, they will maintain their purpose. “Our mission is journeying alongside folks as they navigate towards housing. But really, the goal is providing supportive services and partnering with our community and neighbors to provide access to resources. Housing can be really challenging; it’s not always a linear journey, but we are here to support folks wherever they are along that journey. That takes a village.”