This Portland collective keeps the city clean — and helps unhoused people find stability

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with Street Roots .

On a Thursday morning in Portland’s Old Town neighborhood, two dozen people mill around a warehouse, waiting for the results of a lottery. At 7:45 sharp, a woman sitting in an interior office calls out three numbers in quick succession. She repeats the last one a few times before someone finally comes forward. “234?” she says into the crowd. “Who’s 234?”

Chris Parker is 234. He is tall and thin and wears Garneau cycling gloves and a baseball cap from the power tools company DeWalt. “Are you kidding me?” he says, happy and shocked. Across the room, one of the other selectees — number 237 — does a kind of end-zone victory dance, shimmying with arms above his head.

The lottery determines who will participate in that da