About Rose Haven
Rose Haven is a community where everyone has safety, stability, love, health, and home.
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The Power of Community
A Place for Women & Kids
Rose Haven is a day shelter and community center serving women, children and gender non-conforming folks experiencing the trauma of abuse, loss of home and other disruptive life challenges.
We break the cycle of homelessness by providing meals, clothing, first aid, mailing addresses, hygiene, restrooms, showers as well as educational programs and guidance through medical and social services. By meeting basic needs and building trust, we empower our guests to explore long-term change.
Our Community
We are a community within the community of Portland. Rose Haven’s operating model is equitable and inclusive, and removes barriers for women and their children, allowing them to get back on their feet.
At Rose Haven a diverse group of women, children and gender nonconforming folks can be safe and begin their unique healing process. Whether that is simply by having a cup of coffee on the couch and engaging with other women, or by participating in an array of constructive activities, socialization helps fight the dehumanization and invisibility that our guests face.
Rose Haven’s Gender Journey
In 1997, Rose Haven was founded to meet the longstanding need for a gender-specific day shelter and community center in Portland. It was a place for femme-centric services, respite, and community, free from the gender-based violence and abuse that disproportionately targets people experiencing houselessness and poverty. Twenty-seven years ago, Sister Cathie Boerboom founded Rose Haven to serve cis women and children – which was a reflection of her best understanding of who was most harmed by sexism and gender-based violence at the time.
Today, Rose Haven continues to be a day shelter serving those most harmed by sexism and gender-based violence. However, our understanding of exactly what that means has expanded – like so many other things about us since 1997!
We now know that trans, non-binary, and gender fluid folks are actually the most likely to be harmed by gender-based violence. Gender expansive people are also the most likely to experience other forms of intersecting harm (like houselessness, racism, poverty, and poor access to healthcare) that stem from the combination of sexism and other forms of oppression. To reflect our expanded understanding, we updated our mission in 2018.
Rose Haven now “serves women, children, and marginalized genders.” To us, this means serving women, children, and gender expansive people. Rose Haven will continue to be a femme-centered, gender-specific community that serves those most impacted by gender oppression.
Day-to-day, this may mean that there are people waiting in line or in our building who are masculine presenting. Though our community serves specific gender identities, we welcome all forms of gender expression. Each of our masculine presenting guests have been guided through an expanded, trauma-informed intake and welcome process. This process has a dual function: it ensures that we’re meeting the needs of our trans, nonbinary, and gender-fluid community members, while also ensuring the integrity of our gender-specific space.
The first and only step to access services at Rose Haven is signing our Community Agreement
Learn More Here
This document is signed by all staff, volunteers and guests alike, stating that we agree to treat each other with respect and dignity in our shared space. This eliminates any stratification and helps our guests heal by feeling respected and equal. Trauma and homelessness can be very isolating, and that isolation can compound mental challenges and barriers for those trying to find housing or employment.
Rose Haven also has a vibrant online community and a diverse group of grassroots supporters and volunteers who keep our programs going. We also have an Online Community Agreement to make sure our guests and community are safe and respected in that shared space as well.
Land Acknowledgement
At Rose Haven, we know the importance of acknowledgment and actively participating in bringing awareness to the indigenous peoples of these lands.
With that said, we would like to acknowledge and appreciate the land and its people to which we sit and occupy. Rose Haven sits on the original village sites of the Cayuse, Umatilla, Walla Walla, Cowlitz, Clackamas, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, and many other tribes who made their home along the Columbia River.
The United States was built on broken treaties. The lasting effects of federal and state policies, both past and present, have put Indigenous people at a disadvantage for hundreds of years. It is on all of us, whether we are descendants of colonizers or inhabitants of stolen land, to re-educate ourselves and each other.
We want to bring awareness to indigenous women and their strength and bravery. Indigenous women are playing a pivotal role in society and their impact is unquestionable. However, due to colonialism, discrimination, and dehumanization, they have not always been recognized for their efforts. When we reflect on indigenous women’s contributions and sacrifices, it’s clear that they have been instrumental in shaping the world we live in today.