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Leaders say the program has attracted interest from potential funders and could expand to other parts of the city.
Wearing yellow shirts with trash grabbers in hand, workers fan out across downtown Eugene each weekday to pluck weeds, pick up litter and greet visitors as part of a pilot program launched earlier this month.
Starting July 1, about 22 employees began working as downtown ambassadors and beautifiers in a privately funded summer expansion of Downtown Eugene Inc.’s neighborhood security program.
Clients from three local transitional housing organizations for people exiting homelessness — Everyone Village, Community Supported Shelters and Sponsors — staff the new program, earning $17.50 an hour.
Crews work in four-hour shifts across a 12-block quadrant, from Seventh Avenue to 10th Avenue, and from Charnelton Street to Pearl Street. They dispose of litter and perform other clean-up work, help with landscaping, offer passersby directions and speak with business owners. Employees have collected more than 2,206 pounds of trash and weeds since July 1.
“I’ve heard so much positive feedback just after the first few weeks,” said Gabe Piechowicz, the executive director of Everyone Village.
Two local “entities” are interested in making the program a permanent fixture downtown after the pilot ends Sept. 30, Piechowicz said, declining to name them.
A private donor, Darren Sparks — the former owner of west Eugene-based Rosen Aviation — funded the $139,795 pilot through the summer in partnership with Downtown Eugene Inc., a not-for-profit association of downtown business and property owners.
He is seeking matching funds to give the expansion a three-year runway.
“There’s already been two entities that have stepped forward and said, ‘Based on what we’ve seen in so short of a time, if that continues, and certainly if it gets better before the end of summer, we will be at that table ready to play,’” Piechowicz said.
The city of Eugene does not currently have plans to take over the program, spokesperson Elle O’Casey told Lookout Eugene-Springfield Wednesday.
Downtown Eugene Inc. purchased uniforms, equipment, signage and phones so the new crews can contact the network of existing resources downtown, such the organization’s security guards, known as the “red hats”; Eugene Police; Lane County behavioral health professionals; and peer navigators.
“They’ve made us feel very welcome down there for sure,” said crew supervisor Jolene Miller. “They check on us and stuff like that. I feel like part of the team, you know? [In the beginning,] it was an iffy kind of thing, but I think that it’s doing really good.”
The work, especially in the summer heat, isn’t easy, she said. Miller described it as a blend of physical challenges, like disposing of discarded bicycles and tires, and emotional and safety-related ones, like deescalation with people in crisis.
A couple of employees have quit since the program’s launch, Miller said.
“I’m like, ‘Look, you’re going to be picking up poop, human or otherwise,’” she said. “We’ve had some kinks, but I think that it’s going really well. I hope that it continues for sure.”
As part of the pilot, Downtown Eugene Inc. also hired two more “red hats” working evening and weekend shifts. The organization’s executive director, Katie Wilgus, said one ambassador recently called them after coming across an unresponsive person downtown, and the teams worked together to administer CPR after calling 911.
Wilgus added that beautifiers have been able to clean up private property that wasn’t getting much attention, like weeding the long flower bed behind the former Wells Fargo building.
“It’s pretty great to have the extra eyes and ears,” she said.
Piechowicz said he and Wilgus interviewed 42 downtown business owners about the program last week.
“The overwhelming response was ‘(A) I know [the crews are] here, I’ve seen them, (B) it already looks better down here, and (C) it feels different down here,’” he said.
He said the latter observation is driven by the program’s focus on culture — relationships, service to one another, and being part of something bigger than oneself, not “static, nonemotional programming.”
This pilot creates another workforce development program for people exiting homelessness in Eugene and seeking employment. Everyone Village has partnered for years with the Oregon Beverage and Recycling Cooperative to operate the Eugene Redemption Center, paying villagers to recycle and do street outreach and litter patrol around the west Eugene BottleDrop.
Mikki Washburn, the director of the recycling program at Everyone Village, facilitated staffing for the new downtown pilot program. She said she was able to hire everyone who showed up to the two group interviews she hosted.
“Showing up on time, navigating interpersonal conflict in the workplace, taking orders well from a supervisor, working hard their whole shift — these sorts of things we’re really tuned in to helping people to re-get going as they move into employment,” Piechowicz said.
He and other pilot leaders hope to replicate the program in other parts of Eugene, like the Highway 99 area. Police have launched targeted enforcement on the busy corridor lined by homeless shelters and social-service agencies amid community concerns over traffic safety and low-level crime.
“The tip of the spear that will make Highway 99 the flourishing, healthy corridor entry from the airport that our community needs and deserves is workforce development,” Piechowicz said. “It’s not service access. It’s not shelter.”
Piechowicz said he hopes Everyone Village’s newest 100-person microvillage, which he aims to construct by winter 2027, could house some of the unsheltered people living downtown.
“If you don’t take the next step, which is removing people from downtown into safe, stable places and programming where they can truly move their lives forward, it will go back to the way it was,” he said.
