Wash House employee Mack Johnson loads laundry into a washing machine in Portland, Ore., July 22, 2025. The Wash House is part of the Portland City Laundry Program, providing a place for houseless individuals to get their laundry cleaned as needed.
Morgan Barnaby / OPB
It’s mid-morning and already over 90 degrees Fahrenheit when a man named Phillip rides his e-bike into The Wash House.
Strapped to the rack is a plastic bag full of laundry — clothing he’ll get cleaned for free by Wash House staff.
“I heard about it through friends,” he said. “They said that they were able to get their laundry washed and get it back the same day most of the time.”
Having access to clean clothes is a challenge for many of the estimated 14,400 people in Portland who are living without permanent shelter. And the recent summer heat has put that sharply into focus.
“The importance of socks in this heat is very, very nice,” said Phillip. “Just having socks and underwear — clean clothes in general. It’s nice not to stink, ya know?”
Katie Kitchens, The Wash House lead, hands Phillip a large blue mesh bag for him to load his laundry in. It’s then weighed, tagged with a number and put into one of the 10 Speed Queen washing machines on site.
“And Phillip puts his own detergent in there so I don’t have to use ours,” Kitchens mentions. “We have a couple people that come in and do that because that’s just their preference.”
The Wash House is a unique model, more formalized than other laundry opportunities through organizations like churches and but less rigid than a nationwide program like Laundry Love, which partners with local laundromats but often with limited, infrequent availability. It’s also a drop-off service, so no need to wait in a laundromat for clothes to wash.
Related: Portland politicians offer preview of city’s largest outdoor homeless shelter
The Wash House has been open a little less than a year and, in that time, has already done five tons of community laundry.
And it’s not just clothes they wash, says Nic Boehm, who oversees operations at Wash House.
“I had a guy bring in — it was almost too big for our laundry — a big gnarly sleeping bag that he needed washed.” said Boehm. “The sleeping bag was in perfectly good shape except for that it had begun to mold, [and he] wanted his sleeping bag washed because there was a cold front coming in.”
Wash House employee Mack Johnson unloads laundry from a dryer in Portland, Ore., July 22, 2025.
Morgan Barnaby / OPB
The Wash House also cleans donated and abandoned textiles, which they wash, repair and redistribute through their own clothing closet or through other organizations like Hygiene for All, Rose Haven’s women’s shelter, and Blanche House.
“This is usable stuff,” said Boehm. “I would say better than 95% of what is reclaimed by my teams out in the street discarded, after a single wash, could be at the very worst on the rack at Goodwill.”
They also clean shelter bedding, over 10,000 pounds per month, something Boehm says is an important piece of the city’s plan to end unsheltered homelessness.
“Overnight shelters are very important to the city’s plan right now,” he said. “We wash their bedding and send it back to them five days a week.”
The Wash House is staffed by the Ground Score Association, a nonprofit waste picking program which Boehm also oversees.
Waste picking is an umbrella term for the millions of people around the world who collect “reusable and recyclable materials” in order to make a living: anything from collecting cans to dumpster diving to scraping metal for a profit.
“Waste picking is work. It’s hard work and I don’t just mean hard work and that it’s physically difficult.” he said. “In order to make enough money to live, to just get by on the meagerest amounts, you’re going to need to have a business strategy and you’re going to have to execute it well.”
That’s a skill he says is often overlooked in the traditional workforce, but something Ground Score sees as an asset, especially when it comes to the tentside waste collection services they provide for unhoused communities.
Boehm explained that over 90% of their workers are or were formerly unhoused, giving them a lived experience and making them a more effective workforce.
“I’m not talking about what people would call unskilled labor, or labor that requires no knowledge or previously attained skills,” he said. “These people have skills and it makes them better at their jobs and makes us more effective as an organization and we reward that through pay.”
Related: Northwest states spend on homelessness, but local politics imperiled this Longview shelter
That pay can range $20-$29 per hour — significantly more than Portland’s minimum wage.
Funding for Ground Score comes from a variety of places including government and private contracts, grants, and private donations. The Wash House was initially funded by the City of Portland’s Impact Reduction Program, but Boehm said the community laundry program has no ongoing source of funding.
“We received a grant for 94K from the City of Portland but when that money is spent, that program is unfunded.” he said.
While laundry services are not on the public’s radar in the same way overnight shelters or free meal programs are, Boehm says it’s still vital to the community.
“We’re trying to make this something that is a resource for years and years to come,” he said.
The Wash House is open every Tuesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will celebrate their first anniversary in September.
