Carry It Forward is a 501(c)3 that serves unhoused people in Lane County, Oregon, with a primary concentration in Eugene, Springfield, and rural areas in East Lane County. The name "Carry It Forward" is meant to highlight the mutual benefits of direct service to our unhoused neighbors.

We are a grassroots organization that addresses our community's housing and homelessness problem on multiple fronts, seeking solutions at the individual, organizational, and larger systemic levels. Our programs are actively informed by the population we serve, and approximately 31% of employees are unhoused or have lived experience with homelessness.

Our work is designed to reduce suffering by meeting basic needs while developing a sustainable employment model that engages unhoused individuals in working toward their own goals and helping the community.

We want to create replicable and revenue-generating solutions that improve conditions for people experiencing homelessness, provide increased access to social and economic resources, provide community opportunities for greater understanding of the issues, and demonstrate alternative models that create longer-lasting systemic change.

Since the beginning, all of our service projects have been designed from experience and feedback from unhoused people. We are committed to ongoing outreach and soliciting feedback, advice, and innovative ideas from unhoused people, who are truly the “experts” in what they need.

Our Mission

Together we cultivate systematic efforts to reduce the harms of homelessness and support the necessary work that ends it.

We believe everyone has something to contribute to the greater good.

Our goal is to bridge gaps in service and build networks that allow our community to grow stronger for all of us.

The most important thing that we do is listen. People will tell you what they need if you’re willing to hear it. Our founder is on a mission to promote solidarity over charity. If our society is judged by how we treat the people in the margins…

HISTORY

During an ice rainstorm in 2015, our founder put out a call on Facebook for donations from the community to help people on the street survive the night. We distributed 3 carloads packed with sleeping bags, clothes, tents, tarps, and food under bridges, in parks, bushes…anywhere we could find people in the cold. We posted about the experience and the donations continued to flow in unprompted! After a year of regular distribution, we decided to create a nonprofit and expand our services.

Today, in addition to advocacy, outreach, urgent response, and public shower service Carry it Forward also provides a continuum of shelter options including a year-round 24/7 shelter and a workforce development program fueled by service, alternative shelter building, and the passions of our community members.