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Kathy was homeless and addicted to fentanyl when she first came to stay at the city’s Clinton Triangle shelter. Staff there helped her quit drugs and turn her life around. Now she has her own apartment and works a job she is uniquely qualified for -- helping people get back on their feet.
Published
Kathy was at the end of her rope.
She'd been living on the streets of Portland for six years, huddling in tents and sleeping bags, struggling with trauma and and grief. Her fiancé had been shot to death before her eyes. She was addicted to fentanyl. And now she was pregnant.
In the spring of 2023, she was referred into Clinton Triangle, a city shelter designed to help people escape the cycle of homelessness.
What happened next would change her life forever.
If you're like most Portlanders, you've only seen a city shelter from the outside – a motley clutch of sleeping pods behind a fence, an anonymous doorway in a church basement, a dour clip of b-roll from an evening newscast.
But spend some time inside a shelter and you see with new eyes. A sleeping pod? That's the first safe place someone's had to sleep in years. A jumble of shopping bags? Everything they own in the world. A dog? The only friend they trust.
Portland's overnight shelters, alternative shelters, and safe rest villages aren't just places to sleep. They are the front lines of the city's response to the homeless crisis, where people connect with the support they need to make a fresh start: drug treatment, medical care, jobs, permanent housing. (See success stories from May 2026.)
Most of all, the staff at these shelters offer something that no money can buy, no government program can provide, and no one can recover without.
Hope.
Strength and survival
Kathy left home at the age of 13. For years, she lived with friends or couch-surfed, using drugs and alcohol, working occasional jobs at Subway and Wal-Mart. In 2021, she witnessed her fiancé being shot and killed – an experience that sent her into a tailspin. She got addicted to fentanyl and wound up on the street. "I just wanted anything to make me feel better and numb the pain of what I was going through," she remembers. "I used drugs all day long. As soon as I wasn't loaded, I needed to use again or my emotions would start caving in. When you start to crave, it's the only thing that matters. It's life or death."
Kathy had hit rock bottom when she came to stay at Clinton Triangle, which is operated by the nonprofit Urban Alchemy. She didn't trust anyone. "In the beginning, I didn't want help," she says. "I didn't want to talk to anyone."
But the workers at Clinton didn't give up on her – or her unborn child. "The staff were amazing," she says. "They sat with me. They cried with me. They kept saying, ‘We love you, we're here for you.' No judgment, just support. Support that I hadn't had in a very long time."
Kathy decided to hit the reset button. Weeks before her due date, the staff at Clinton helped her get into detox. "I didn't want my baby to have to go through detox after she was born, so I decided to get help," she says. "I was terrified. I wasn't sure I could do it."
A girl named Harlow
Kathy gave birth to a baby girl that summer. She named her Harlow. "The second she was born and I held her in my arms, I knew I could do this," she says. "She was beautiful. I knew my life was going to change. I felt alive like I hadn't felt in a very long time. It was a second chance."
Many struggles lay ahead. For starters, child welfare workers visited Kathy in the maternity ward. She would have to go into residential drug treatment if she wanted to keep her baby. Unfortunately, nothing was available. They offered her a room in a motel-- but Harlow couldn't stay with her.
"I couldn't let that happen," she says.
Desperate, she called the staff at Clinton to ask for help. They leaped into action. They worked the phones until they found something: a bed at a women's treatment facility that would take Harlow, too. She stayed there nine months, taking classes with Harlow in a sling on her chest.
Last year, Kathy got a job working at a city shelter. She has unique qualifications. "I have been homeless," she says. "I have suffered through trauma. That is a strength. It helps me connect with people."
A seed and a prayer
Today Kathy's office is a tiny house with a slanted roof and a red door tucked inside the Reedway Safe Rest Village. Run by Urban Alchemy, the village consists of 120 sleeping pods in a fenced lot, sandwiched between a wildlife refuge and an auto wrecking yard.
At her desk she keeps a giant puffball – a dandelion gone to seed. Her fiancé used to love blowing on them and making wishes. She thinks of him whenever she sees a seed floating through the air.
Kathy doesn't spend much time in the office, however. As a care coordinator, she's always on the move, roaming the village to help guests get an ID card, find drug treatment, look for a job, make the transition into permanent housing.
"I've seen so much success here," she says. "People getting off drugs, getting jobs, getting back on their feet, getting the keys to their first apartment. But this is hard. It takes time. It takes time for people to build trust and it takes time to feel hope. A lot of people have no hope when they come here."
After work, Kathy gets Harlow from daycare and takes her back home for dinner and play time. Kathy doesn't have a car -- she gets around on TriMet.
Last month Kathy took Harlow to the zoo to celebrate her second birthday. Her favorite animals are the penguins.