Our Services
Hygiene4All provides critical resources to houseless neighbors, improving public health and sanitation for everyone while promoting greater respect & understanding across the housing divide.
On the corner of SE Martin Luther King Boulevard and SE Belmont Street under the Morrison Bridge.
Open
Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday: 3pm - 9pm
Friday: 3pm - 7pm
Closed
Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday
Every day we are open, our paid unsheltered ambassadors and unpaid housed volunteers meet patrons where they are at, offering health critical:
Shower & Port-a-Potties
Sanitized port-a-potties, and ADA-accessible shower trailer.
Last shower 45 minutes before close.
Health & Personal Care
Each week, we host community health workers who can provide simple first aid, sign people up for food assistance and health insurance, and refer people to medical appointments. We work with Our Streets and Meals on Us PDX to offer hot nutritious meals several days a week at the Hub. We provide first aid packages that contain written instructions and items for treating feet and hands as well as skin lesions, cuts, bruises, lice and more. Finally, we help patrons connect with Portland Street Medicine & peer support specialists who help our community members navigate urgent needs at local Hospitals. We also hand out each year thousands of free personal care items – such as razors, combs, socks, tampons, and condoms.
Clothing & Bedding Exchange
H4A has established a pathbreaking partnership with Ground Score Association. GSA provides tentside waste pick-up to residents on the streets where unsheltered GSA staff separate discarded clothing & bedding that unsheltered neighbors do not have the means to wash. GSA then delivers items to H4A’s facility at St David of Wales where we sort, wash, & recycle tens of thousands of items to the Hub & partners for reuse. This diverts hundreds thousands of pounds of textiles from Portland’s landfill, lowers our carbon footprint, reduces cold/wet weather exposure illness, hypothermia, frostbite, limb loss & death.
See our page on Community Reuse for a more in depth look at Community Reuse vs. Serial Dispossession.
Trash Drop-Off
Free and legal trash drop-off is available onsite for all patrons.
Houseless staff & housed volunteers train in:
Recognizing, disrupting, and reducing racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ+ harm
Sharing decision-making across the team and constructively learning from unsheltered staff and patron experiences and perspectives.
De-escalating conflict and fostering community safety
Providing mental health first aid
Assisting individuals who’ve experienced trauma
Self Advocacy And Community Change
Two hour once a month all staff/volunteer meetings are devoted to analyzing problems, and moments of conflict that occur inside and around our Hub. Staff and Volunteers operate in thematic sociocratic work circles to propose adjustments to program practices and protocols
This approach facilitates the sharing decision-making power and generation of innovative ideas that combat oppressive habits and improve hub harmony. This is our laboratory for generating new ideas for how city, county, and health care services might reorient to reduce the harm and oppression our most vulnerable unsheltered residents too frequently experience.
At H4A unsheltered staff and patrons join with committed housed volunteers to dive deep into how we can work to:
Continually improve H4A’s unique approach to trauma informed mutual aid committed to disrupting racist, sexist, and anti-lgbtq harm on the streets and in public spaces.
Develop our members’ cross-community advocacy and problem-solving skills to transform harmful public policies and practices.
Enhance and share our workshops on:
De-escalation & harm reduction
Mental health first aid
Disrupting racist, sexist, & anti-LGBTQ harm
H4A practices for taking accountability for harm
Sociocratic decision-making
Leadership for new houseless led initiatives
“Community connection, appreciation, purpose, and pride is medicine for the heart and mind.”
Sandra Comstock, Executive Director