WELCOMING, EMPOWERING, SAFE HABITATION INITIATIVE WITH NEIGHBORHOOD ENGAGEMENT
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.
Read our most recent newsletter here.
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🌈❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
