Your Support Builds Hope and Homes
Every donation helps WeShine create safe, welcoming micro-villages where Portland’s unhoused adults can heal, rebuild confidence, and transition to permanent housing. Together, we’re turning compassion into lasting community change.
Together, We Shine
Mission
WeShine designs, builds, and operates neighborhood-based micro villages that provide safe, transitional shelter with wrap-around services for Portland’s underserved, unsheltered adults as they prepare to become successful tenants in permanent, affordable housing.
WeShine stands for Welcoming, Empowering, Safe Habitation Initiative with Neighborhood Engagement.
Our vision is to create a network of micro villages based on this model, and provide vulnerable adults with a path to permanent housing.
Bottom Line for Portland
Our model is rooted in the value of community, which restores self-esteem and heals the trauma that results from life on the streets. Guests experience peer support and are connected with services. This supportive service model leads to success that is nearly impossible when living outside.
Quote
“I don’t even really feel like we are in a shelter anymore. I feel like more of a community. I did not know how important that was until I saw the other side of it”. N (WeShine Villager)
“I don’t even really feel like we are in a shelter anymore. I feel like more of a community. I did not know how important that was until I saw the other side of it”. N (WeShine Villager)
Support WeShine!
Just because the giving season is over doesn’t mean the giving has to end. Your support year-round helps keep our work moving—welcoming new neighbors, meeting urgent needs, and building pathways to long-term stability. If you’re able, please consider making a gift today or becoming a monthly donor so we can continue this work together.
How to Give:
01
Make a One-Time Gift That Changes Lives
Today, we invite you to make a donation and become a part of this transformative story. Together, we can overcome the systemic barriers to housing that limit our community’s potential.
02
Become a Sustaining Donor
Recurring gifts provide reliable funding that helps WeShine grow, maintain, and improve the micro-village communities we serve.
03
Mail a Check to Support Our Micro-Villages
If mailing your gift feels most comfortable, your contribution will still make a powerful difference in supporting WeShine’s mission.
WeShine Anthem 2025
How much would you like to donate today?
Donations
You can make a difference
At WeShine, we believe that everyone in our community deserves access to a place to call home and the opportunity to write their own unique and powerful story.
Today, we invite you to make a donation and become a part of this transformative story. Together, we can overcome the systemic barriers to housing that limit our community’s potential.
There are many ways to support WeShine:
- Make a one-time donation
- Mail a check
- Become a Monthly Sustainer
- Through a Donor Advised Fund (DAF)
- Contribute from an IRA (Required Minimum Distribution)
Please make your check payable to WeShine Initiative Inc. and mail it to:
WeShine Initiative Inc.
3439 NE Sandy Blvd #525,
Portland, OR 97232
Frequently Asked Questions
Is my donation tax-deductible?
Yes. WeShine is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and all donations made through our website or through Give!Guide are fully tax-deductible as allowed by law. After donating, you’ll receive an emailed receipt you can use for your tax records.
How do I know my donation is being used responsibly?
WeShine is committed to transparency and responsible stewardship of every dollar. Donations directly support micro-village operations, resident services, basic needs, and essential supplies. We regularly share updates, financial reporting, and impact summaries so you can clearly see the difference your gift is making.
Is it safe to donate online?
Yes. Our donation platforms, including Give!Guide, use secure, encrypted payment processing to protect your personal and financial information.
Can I donate by check instead of online?
Absolutely. Many supporters prefer to give by mail, and WeShine welcomes check donations. Mailing a check is a secure option, and it ensures your full contribution goes directly to supporting our micro-villages. Instructions for mailing a check are provided in the “Donations” section.
Click our link in bio to support our GoFundMe for Parkrose Village!
Help WeShine Keep Lighting the Way for Portland’s Most Vulnerable Neighbors
Right now, in three Portland neighborhoods, people who had nowhere to sleep are waking up safe.
They’re making coffee in a shared kitchen. They’re feeding a neighbor’s dog. They’re walking to a health care appointment, maybe for the first time in years. For many of them, this is what healing feels like.
WeShine Initiative makes this possible. Since 2021, we’ve operated small, community-centered transitional shelter villages in Portland, places where neighbors know each other’s names, where staff show up every day with lived experience and genuine care, and where people don’t just survive their housing crisis, they begin to thrive.
The county shelter system is largely built around men’s and women’s facilities — leaving nonbinary folks misdirected or without options. And data on LGBTQIA+ homelessness here is still incomplete.
A city’s reputation for inclusion has to be backed up by real infrastructure.
That’s what WeShine is working to build — one village at a time. 🏡
#TransRights #NonBinary #Portland #HousingEquity #WeShine Pride2025
Thank you to our besties @gathermakeshelter for this stunning and heartfelt gallery show honoring WeShine villagers and alumni villagers. WeShine does not shine without Gather:Make:Shelter! The work they do to insert art into our spaces and into our souls is invaluable. They are one of the absolute best non profits benefiting our unhoused neighbors in PDX!
Come see the show at the @gathermakeshelter gallery until June 28th Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00-4:00 or by appointment!
1335 NW Kearney St.
Portland, OR 97209
#gathermakeshelter #artsaveslives #communitypartnership #firstthursdays #unhousedneighbors
You know we love a forklift! Two more pods arrived for our new and improved Parkrose Community Village! We also love forklift drivers like Tom, our buddy from @lmcconstruction
We are delighted by this blue sleeping pod from our friends in Seattle @soundfoundationsnw We have 8 pods now! 5 more to go!! Whooo!
#unhousedneighbors #solvinghomelessness #microvillages #alternativeshelters #soundfoundationsnw
Come see us at the @gathermakeshelter First Thursday reception for this fabulous show: Luminous-The story of WeShine and Gather:Make:Shelter on Thursday June 4th from 5:30-7:30 at 1335 NW Kearney St. Portland, Oregon 97209
#community #firstthursday #art #unhousedneighbors #gathermakeshelter
Family rejection, discrimination in employment, and a shelter system that often wasn’t built with them in mind all play a role.
This Pride Month, WeShine is sharing why safe, affirming shelter AND housing are not just housing issues, they are justice issues.
Stay with us all month. 🏠🌈
#PrideMonth #WeShine #Portland #2slgbtqia HomelessnessAwareness
Look what is coming together swimmingly! More new pods arrived last week from @soundfoundationsnw !! And more arriving this week! We love these pods they are sooo homey, roomy and pretty! We enjoy sharing this whole process with you all!
🏘️🏡🏘️🏡🏘️🏡
#unhousedneighbors #tinypodvillages #shelter #weshinepdx #fromseattletoportland
Happy Pride Month from WeShine’s Central Office in the basement of the lovely @westprespdx !! We will be posting all month about the specific challenges our unhoused neighbors who identify as #2slgbtqia face in Portland. It is a month of celebration but also a call to roll up our sleeves to work harder at uplifting our queer communities AND reducing homelessness!
#portlandoregon #solvinghomelessness #unhousedneighbors #pridemonth2026🌈❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Newsletter
Subscribe to our quarterly newsletter, The Village View. Read the latest edition below, and sign up here to get the next one in your inbox. The Village View highlights recent happenings in our current villages, exciting announcements, articles by staff on homelessness issues in our region, engaging stories about the folks we serve and more. Sign up today!
Let’s Connect
Mailing address
WeShine
3439 NE Sandy Blvd #525,
Portland, OR 97232