Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers

About Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers

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 resources to address his childhood traumas and help him make positive changes to be able to reenter society, getting arrested meant getting rescued. But his arresting officer asked to hear his story and helped him find sobriety and sustainability. Evans started Helping Hands to give other homeless people what he himself had needed: a helping hand to a sustainable life. In 2002, Evans opened an 8-bed home for the homeless in Seaside, OR, and over the years Helping Hands has expanded to meet the changing needs for homeless services in surrounding communities. When more homeless seniors and families with children began needing Helping Hands' support, we began to offer Case Management with Individual Reentry Plans to guide each person in gaining skills and accessing the resources they need to rebuild self-sufficiency. With trauma-informed best practices, we collect our clients' stories, demographics, and needs in our proprietary database and use this to guide their treatment. We now operate 11 emergency homeless shelter and Reentry Program facilities, providing over 350 beds per night in Clatsop, Tillamook, Yamhill, Multnomah, & Lincoln Counties in Oregon. The most recent project to expand capacity to serve the homeless has been the Bybee Lakes Hope Center at the former Wapato Jail property in the Port of Portland, OR. The Mission of Helping Hands is to provide a helping hand to a sustainable life through Resources, Recovery, and Reentry.