Welcome! The Laurelwood Center — offering beds, health supports, hygiene services and housing case management to 120 women and couples in a purpose-designed space — opened its doors Aug. 15, 2019.

Read more about the shelter’s opening in stories posted by KGW, Multnomah County and the Oregonian! See photos from inside the shelter and during a community open house below!

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do partners in the Joint Office of Homeless Services choose shelter sites? What does it mean when a shelter is "low-barrier"? How does a shelter like the Laurelwood Center shelter operate? What does our 24-hour reservation system, meant to eliminate queuing, look like?

How do we ensure that people from within the neighborhood are able to access shelter? How will partners in operating the Laurelwood Center manage impacts on neighbors and businesses? 

Click on our general FAQ for answers and information.

OUR SHELTER STRATEGY

Since early 2016, partners in our community-wide initiative to end homelessness, A Home for Everyone, have followed a detailed action plan that's delivered on a promise to double the number of year-round shelter beds in Multnomah County, while also improving the quality of beds, so they work better for more people.

With a built-in clinic and professional-grade kitchen, and a focus on one-on-one housing/services supports, the Laurelwood Center on SE Foster Road is part of the next step in that evolution in our shelter system.

Overall, partners have added spaces for couples, shift workers and pet owners, some of whom may not have engaged with traditional shelter options. Those new spaces are available 24/7 and offer opportunities to take showers and store belongings.

A view of the kitchen at Laurelwood Center.

A view of the kitchen at Laurelwood Center.

why do we need this shelter?

After fulfilling our goal of adding more than 650 new year-round beds, the Joint Office of Homeless Services has been working to shift those beds into purpose-designed, durable spaces that allow for programming that works better for more people.

The Laurelwood Center, at 6130 SE Foster Road, offers space for 120 women and people in couples. The shetler will allow us to further stabilize our community’s year-round shelter capacity and increase the quality of  shelter and support services offered to unsheltered adults, many of whom are extremely vulnerable living on the streets.

record progress in housing

Partners in A Home for Everyone, a community-wide initiative to end homelessness in Multnomah County, are helping record numbers of neighbors back into housing, find a safer night of sleep or keep from becoming homeless at all.

On just one night in January 2019, those partners were supporting more than 12,000 people in housing, helping them avoid homelessness with rent assistance and other supports. That number is up 50 percent since 2017 — at a time when our overall count of homelessness fell 4 percent.