RAVEN provides services and distributes food and clothes to the unhoused in the First Christian parking lot. Photo by Shari Shelly.

RAVEN Takes Flight

RAVEN becomes a community source for homeless services in response to the closure of White Bird’s Front Rooms program

News by Samantha SobelPosted on

RAVEN is a new resource for the unhoused providing services and distributing food and clothes, seeking to fill a gap after White Bird Clinic’s Front Rooms closed its doors in December. Short for Radical Assistance for Vulnerable Eugene Neighbors, RAVEN was founded by former White Bird employees who lost their jobs late last year amid the agency’s cutbacks. 

For more than 50 years, the Front Room programs provided the lowest-barrier social services and distribution of resources for people experiencing homelessness in the Eugene/Springfield area. White Bird employees helped people to find shelter arrangements and daily respite from the streets.    

Now, RAVEN volunteers provide food and supplies for basic needs, including first aid, hygiene products, naloxone, phone charging and coffee — “Whatever they can get their hands on to help people survive,” says Stacy Bierma, former relief pool worker for White Bird and volunteer organizer of RAVEN. 

Bierma says RAVEN  serves about 80 to 100 people a day. RAVEN is operating at First Christian Church in downtown Eugene, just five blocks from White Bird’s 12th Avenue location. 

“When people think of White Bird, they think of that program,” Bierma says of the now-shuttered Front Rooms. “It’s the service most utilized, and it’s the gateway to all the other services…. It’s just so crucial for people to have a place where they know they can go and not get discriminated against and just have someone to talk to and get grounded.”

Bierma says she and other White Bird employees sought to save the program before the agency closed it on Dec. 13. 

“We raised money, we offered to get grants and find our own funding. We just asked for some time, and they said no,” Bierma says of efforts to keep Front Rooms open. “They turned down $30,000 in donations that I had pledged to keep the current rooms open, and they paid out $60,000 in severance.”

White Bird staff didn’t respond to requests from Eugene Weekly for an interview about the closure of Front Rooms and the impact of budget cuts on its remaining services. 

Amée Markwardt, White Bird’s interim executive director, says the clinic is still trying to determine its future path. “A lot of it is figuring out what we need to do as an agency,” she says. “I’m sure you’ve heard we’re looking at some potential funding cuts. How does that affect the agency? And how do we keep ourselves afloat?”

With no sign of a return of Front Rooms, RAVEN’s founders have a long-term goal to become a nonprofit and acquire an indoor space to create a low-barrier day room where people in need can receive respite from living on the streets. 

RAVEN is operating from the parking lot of First Christian Church, 1166 Oak Street, and has created a GoFundMe with a goal of $25,000 to achieve nonprofit status and work toward providing services seven days a week. Contact information can be found on the GoFundMe — search Radical Assistance for Vulnerable Eugene Neighbors.