Our Mission

JOIN exists to support the efforts of individuals and families experiencing homelessness to transition into permanent housing. Our efforts are directed at individuals sleeping outside or in their car in the Portland Metro area. Our service provision is not dependent on age, gender, race, ethnicity, faith, culture, language, sexual identity, specific diagnosis, or identifiable issue.

About Us

JOIN works to support the efforts of individuals and families experiencing houselessness to transition into stable housing. Founded in 1992, JOIN is a regional leader and innovator of “Housing First'' social work; our relationship-based, trauma-informed, and collaborative service model celebrates and uplifts each person’s self-determination, dignity, joy, and resilience.

Today, JOIN’s seven programs and ~50 staff provide culturally-responsive services in support of Portland’s most important housing initiatives across the Adult and Family Housing Systems–Rapid Rehousing, Permanent Supportive Housing, Primary Leasing, and provision of very-low-barrier essential services at JOIN’s Dayspace. We serve individuals and families living in places not meant for habitation, doubled up, unstably housed, and in transitional housing to support their move into stable housing and help them retain that housing with support from Housing Retention workers. Our Dayspace, JOIN’s drop-in service center, serves approximately 100 individuals per day and provides access to regular meals, a mailing address, showers and hygiene products, system resource navigation support, weekly onsite medical services, and other support.

To date, we have served over 6,200 unduplicated households comprised of over 10,500 individuals with access to safe, permanent housing and supportive services. We have ensured that 83% of households we’ve helped have retained their housing for at least 12 months.

Our Day Space, which we call ‘The House,’ provides critical basic services, including showers, restrooms, a mailing address, hygiene items, coffee, and conversation for up to 100 people daily and over 5000 people since its inception.

At JOIN, we believe that justice and dignity are keys to successfully serving our unhoused community by embracing their humanity and engaging them holistically. We do that by providing programs and services that are equitable to our clients regardless of their context. We operate with honesty; knowing that homelessness is over-represented in the tri-county area. And, we continue to study and implement effective strategies and resources throughout our organization to meet those disparities.

We’ve created a model of relationship-based engagement to offer homeless people the resources they need to define their own path to housing, empowering them to be agents of change in their lives.

We are hands-on, innovative, authentic, and community-first. We meet our clientele where they are in an effort to create a world where individuals and families have the systemic support they need to thrive.

Core Values

We are adaptable.

We embrace change and adjust whenever needed to better serve everyone we interact with.

We are anti-racist.

We firmly believe in and actively promote equity and justice. We understand that racism harms individuals and communities and we actively stand against it.