Three nonprofits in Oregon and one nonprofit in Southwest Washington will receive funding from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The Pacific Northwest organizations were recently selected along with hundreds of other nonprofits across the country and are sharing a pot of about $640 million in grant money.
Jackson Street Youth Services works with young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness. The organization provides housing and other supportive programs in Linn and Benton Counties. It received $1 million in funds.
Familias en Acción offers culturally specific health services to Latino communities in the Portland metro area and was granted $2 million. It’s working on partnerships and service expansion to more rural parts of the state.
Kendra Phillips and Margarita Gutierrez Lemus are the executive directors of Jackson Street Youth Services and Familias en Acción, respectively. They join us with more about the work that they’re doing and how the grant money will further the missions of their organizations.
The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. MacKenzie Scott, the billionaire philanthropist and former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced her latest round of mega gifts recently. She’ll be giving a total of $640 million to hundreds of small nonprofits around the country, some of them in Oregon. We’re going to hear from two of them today, starting with Familias en Acción, which offers health services and other support to Spanish speaking and Latino communities in the Portland and Salem areas. The nonprofit is receiving $2 million. Margarita Gutierrez Lemus is the executive director of Familias, and she joins us now. It’s great to have you on the show and congratulations.
Margarita Gutierrez Lemus: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Miller: Can you give us a sense for the array of healthcare services that your nonprofit provides?
Gutierrez Lemus: We provide public health to Latino communities in Oregon. Our mission is to improve the health and wellness of the Latino community here in Oregon. So we have five programs currently that range from workforce development to get community health workers certified so that they can serve culturally and linguistically appropriate services to the Latino community in Oregon. We have Acción Climática program, which is to really get to the intersection of the impacts of climate change and things like wildfires and severe weather can have on the Latino community here in Oregon.
Miller: What kinds of challenges do the people you serve face, broadly, when it comes to getting access to healthcare?
Gutierrez Lemus: Access to healthcare for the Latino community presents a barrier. We see systemic racism, we see individual and interpersonal racism come up when folks are trying to access services. We also see gaps in knowledge of the services that exist. Language I think is another barrier that can present itself. We work on food insecurity, transportation, housing, all of those social determinants of health that can improve the health and wellbeing of the Latino community.
Miller: You mentioned that one of the things you work on is linguistically competent or culturally competent or specific services. What does that mean in practice? I’m thinking of the culturally-specific services. The linguistic one maybe speaks for itself in terms of having people who actually speak Spanish or maybe Indigenous languages. But what do you mean by culturally-specific services?
Gutierrez Lemus: We have community health workers, that’s their job title. But all of our staff members at our organization could be considered community health workers because they’re from the community, they’re trusted individuals of the community, they identify as Latine as well. And so they understand the culture that our members are coming from, the Latino community. They understand things like home remedies and the value that that has for the Latino community. And when folks are seeking services, I think having someone who is trusted and knows the culture, and can sort of be a bridge between a healthcare provider or an agency can be really helpful for folks.
Miller: What went through your mind when you heard that your organization had been awarded this grant?
Gutierrez Lemus: At first, I think we were a little bit shocked and surprised. It’s a transformational gift for our organization. I think it will allow us to have some breathing room, some flexibility, some sort of stability so that we can think strategically about the impact that the work that we do can have.
Miller: If I’m not mistaken, this is the holy grail of nonprofit financial support, “use this money for anything you want,” as opposed to “if you give it to us, we will start X program.” You have basically complete freedom?
Gutierrez Lemus: Correct. This is an unrestricted gift. And we are always searching for unrestricted funds, and the size of this gift I think makes it transformational for the organization.
Miller: So what might that transformation look like?
Gutierrez Lemus: One of the things that we’re hoping to do is broaden our services outside the Portland Metro area. We know there are differences in access to health care for folks in rural communities, and there are pockets of rural communities that have a high population of Latinos. And so we’re hoping that this will give us stability and breathing room to be able to do that intentionally for the rest of Oregon.
Miller: I mentioned the Salem area and the Portland area. Where else are you thinking about targeting your efforts?
Gutierrez Lemus: We currently also have small programs in Umatilla. So out to Eastern Oregon, Southern Oregon. The divide between rural and urban communities in Oregon, there are differences in access to services. We’re hoping to mitigate some of that.
Miller: We recently talked about huge budget shortfalls that K-12 districts around Oregon and Southwest Washington are facing right now. There are a lot of reasons for that. But one of them is that a lot of districts got big infusions of cash [from] the federal government in terms of pandemic relief that was one-time money. Some districts built out services figuring out that they would be able to then fund those services in other ways going forward with, with state support, I think was the bet. And that has not always come through.
How do you hope to avoid that same fate? Building up services in Umatilla County or Southern Oregon with this money and then having no second infusion of cash?
Gutierrez Lemus: That is a great question, something we are really thinking through. We don’t want to offer a program or start something new that we won’t be able to sustain long-term. And because this is a one time gift, I think we’re paying very close attention to that. We’re hoping to be able to diversify our funding model. One of the biggest forms of unrestricted funding are through individual donations, and those come often at a smaller scale. But we’re hoping to increase our individual giving so that we’re able to sustain, and making decisions with that in mind. This is a one time gift and we can’t and won’t be spending it all in one program, and really intentionally thinking about the sustainability of the services we intend to provide.
Miller: Am I right that you just started recently at this nonprofit as executive director?
Gutierrez Lemus: Yes, this is my fourth week on the job.
Miller: What’s it like to be taking over now at a time of such exciting transformation, but also, I imagine a time of uncertainty.
Gutierrez Lemus: Yeah, it is. But we have an amazing team that has been with Familia for a long time. We do have some newer staff members, but for the most part, have a seasoned team. And we’re starting strategic planning right now. So it’s an exciting time to have this infusion of $2 million, but also to think about what are the needs that exist out in the community and how can we best meet them?
Miller: Margarita, thanks very much.
Gutierrez Lemus: Thank you so much.
Miller: Margarita Gutierrez Lemus is the executive director of Familias en Acción, which recently received a $2 million grant from MacKenzie Scott.
Jackson Street Youth Services is another Oregon nonprofit that’s getting a big chunk of money. The organization works with young people at risk of or experiencing homelessness in Linn and Benton counties. It’s receiving a one time $1 million grant. Kendra Phillips is the executive director of Jackson Street Youth Services and she joins us now. Kendra, congratulations, and it’s great to have you on the show.
Kendra Phillips: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.
Miller: Can you describe the services that you offer for younger people, ages 10 to 17?
Phillips: Yes. Our organization, as you noted, serves youth and young adults who are homeless or at risk of being homeless between ages 10 to 24. However, one of the programs within our program continuum is emergency and transitional shelter. And that’s specifically for 10 to 17 year olds who are actively homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Our shelter program is both located in Corvallis and Albany here in Linn and Benton counties. We have 26 beds for the region. The program involves case management, daily skills building, positive youth development activities. We focus on family reunification when it’s appropriate, as well as building self sufficiency if that’s necessary.
We’re also able to serve 10 to 17 year olds in our outreach program, more from a prevention or harm reduction perspective, meeting them where they’re at, building relationships with them, and trying to work with them to get them off the street and into our services or reunited with family as well.
Miller: How are the kids shelters different from what folks might have in mind if they envision a homeless shelter for adults?
Phillips: Yeah, that’s a really great question. I think there’s a lot of stigma around the word shelter. Our shelters are actually houses in downtown neighborhood areas of the cities that we’re in. They have a fully furnished living room, a huge table for us to eat meals at together. There’s individual and bunk rooms. The beds are made up with multiple pillows, handmade quilts. They have access to laundry and showers. We have multi-purpose rooms where we hold activities like guitar, art classes. There’s computers and laptops and Chromebooks for them to do their homework and studies on, apply for employment, that sort of thing. Huge backyards. Most of our sites are crossed or close to parks and the libraries.
And so it’s not like rolling a cot or a mat out on the floor and communal gathering for sleeping or staying the night. They’re very much set up as a house.
Miller: What kinds of life skills do you hope that young people will soak up or more explicitly learn at these two homes?
Phillips: Many of our youth come in without knowing or understanding what basic hygiene is. So our staff actually do a lot of brushing of teeth together. We learn how to take care of our hair together. Changing our clothes, how to do laundry. What a healthy meal looks like, even with limited resources. Reconnection to education. We work a lot on communication and how to talk to each other, how to work through conflict whether it be with a guardian, a family member, a teacher or a peer. We also spend a lot of time helping them reconnect to their community, and understanding that there’s opportunities for safe interactions and safe activities out there as well.
Miller: The most striking thing about the list you just outlined is that my question was “what life skills do you try to teach,” and the answer is “every single one,” from the most basic things to deeper issues of reengaging in community and in education. It’s pretty profound to hear the extent to which some of the young people who are showing up there need help, I guess that’s the best way I can put it.
One of the other things that you mentioned is “when it’s possible, to facilitate family reunification.” How do you do that?
Phillips: It is our number one goal to reunify youth with their families. However, we understand that sometimes that’s not safe, or there’s not family to reunify to. But when we do get the opportunity to reunify youth with families, it’s a several step process that we take, and we engage the youth and their family in that process.
So the first is to get them into shelter, take care of their basic needs, help them feel safe and supported again. The second is to connect with both the youth and the family and agree that family reunification is what each party would like as the long-term goal. We then have a local partnership with Neighbor-to-Neighbor Mediation that supports parent and teen mediation. We make a referral to them, and they are able to work with the guardian and the youth through mediation to help set up what home might need to look like for the youth to return, and for each party to feel safe and comfortable in that reunification. While that is happening, the youth engages in case management with our staff to work on their individual goals. And the youth engages in individual mental health, and we make a referral for family therapy.
With all of those services and that process in place once they start really digging in and working through the issues at hand that makes home have conflict, people not feeling safe, constant disruption, we then set up a plan for them to be able to start spending time together. And when we say that, we really try to remove the issues out of that time together. So the first step is that the guardian will come on to one of our sites where our houses are and they’ll play a game together, or they’ll barbecue in the backyard together. Or if they have a pet, they can walk around the block and walk their pet together. Once those visits go well, we then move it up a step to community-based visits, where they go do something in the community together, whether it be see a movie, go get dinner, that kind of stuff. And we can support with the resources to help make those happen.
And then the last step is really working on returning home and doing overnights in the home together. We do one overnight and make sure those go well. Then we go to two overnights, make sure those go well, and then we go to three overnights and make sure those go well. And then with all those services in place and that process, we identify an exit date, and the youth returns home with aftercare in place so that everything they worked on doesn’t just go away, but that their aftercare support can continue to support them through making home that safe place and working on those skills that they spent so much time perfecting while they were in our services.
Miller: We’ve been focusing on the younger age group that you help, 10 to 17. You also provide more of a kind of transitional housing help for young adults, ages 18 to 24. I’m curious about the bigger picture here. According to 2023 federal data, Oregon has the highest rate of unaccompanied, unsheltered homeless youth in the country. Why do you think that is?
Phillips: There are a lot of factors, a lot of social determinants of health that play into that. One of the biggest populations that we see in our services are 16 and 17 year olds who have been kicked out of their home, literally told not to come back “We’re done. You’re on your own. It’s time for you to be an adult.” And a lot of that is due to families having to make decisions about how many people they can feed, or have on their lease, or what size of apartment they can have.
There’s also a huge component of drug and alcohol use and abuse by guardians or family members that these youth are living with that end up in conflict issues, that end up in youth being homeless. So there’s a variety of reasons, but those are the ones that we see the most in our area.
Miller: What do you plan to do with this million dollar grant?
Phillips: We’re still processing that we received a million dollar grant, and we are feeling so honored and in awe about the award. We have two really tangible things that we’re doing immediately, and then there’s some long-term planning that needs to take place. The first is that this past fall, we purchased a new building through the help of some grant funds and some community support to expand our outreach program. So we will be moving from a 900 square foot building to a 3,000 square foot building. And to be able to reopen our drop-in services for youth and young adults, which is very exciting. These funds will actually help us move that project along a little bit faster than we had planned so that we can get this building and these services and the outreach expansion open quicker to serve the youth in need.
The second thing that we have already identified is that we would like to increase our benefits for our staff in an effort to continue to be a great place to work and serve, and really work on our retention, as staff consistency is really important for how our services come across for the youth.
And then our leadership team and our board of directors will be working through our strategic plan to really identify some of the long term support that this award will be a part of.
Miller: Kendra, thanks very much.
Phillips: Thank you.
Miller: Kendra Phillips is the executive director of Jackson Street Youth Services which works in Linn and Benton counties.
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