About Us
Leadership with Lived Experience
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers was founded by Alan Evans, who was homeless for over 25 years. He was removed from an abusive home and sent to foster care at age 11, but when his circumstances didn't improve, he ran away and was homeless and addicted by age 13.
Without adequate help to address childhood trauma and to access resources, getting arrested became getting rescued. But his arresting officer asked to hear his story, and offered him a hand. Evans started Helping Hands to give other homeless people what he himself had needed: a helping hand to a sustainable life.
Then & Now
In 2002, Evans opened an 8-bed home for the homeless in Seaside, OR. In 2012, the face of homelessness began to change, with different people vulnerable to homelessness and needing different services. We began to offer Case Management with Individual Reentry Plans to create a trauma-informed, data-driven path toward self-sufficiency.
Helping Hands partnered with Portland community leader Jordan Schnitzer to open the Bybee Lakes Hope Center at the former Wapato property in the Port of Portland in October of 2020, responding to a homeless crisis that was worsened mid-project by the pandemic. Learn more here!
Helping Hands operates 11 facilities in Oregon, providing over 530 beds per night for the homeless in Clatsop, Lincoln, Multnomah, Tillamook, & Yamhill, Counties.
A Focus on Collaboration & Sustainability
The Mission of Helping Hands is to provide a helping hand to a sustainable life through Resources, Recovery, and Reentry.
Our programs are Trauma-Informed, Data-Driven, and Person-Centered.
We take the time to learn each individual's story and help connect them to the appropriate local resources and services to meet their unique needs. We do not duplicate available services; instead, we build strong collaborative partnerships with local programs and foster connections between participants and our community partners.
Helping Hands serves homeless men, women, & children who are ready to make sustainable changes to improve their lives. Participants must be ready to be clean and sober, and must not be registered sex offenders of any class (since 10% of the people we serve are children).
Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers is an equal opportunity housing provider, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, whether or not one has children, source of income, domestic violence survivor, marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.