The Tillamook County Pioneer Museum welcomes the return of Alan Evans on Saturday, February 17, 2018, at 1:00 PM as part of their Great Speaker Series. Evans is the Executive Director of Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Center and has been instrumental in the establishment of a Helping Hands Center in Tillamook County. He will be giving an update on the Tillamook Helping Hands building located in the old Headquarters of the Naval Air Station Tillamook at the Port of Tillamook Bay.
Evans was homeless for over 25 years, stuck in a cycle of homelessness and addiction without adequate resources to help him make positive changes to be able to reenter society. He started Helping Hands to give other homeless people what he himself had needed: a helping hand to a sustainable life.
In 2004, Evans opened an 8-bed home for the homeless in Seaside, Oregon. The organization has continued to grow and evolve, and now operates 11 emergency homeless shelter and reentry program facilities, providing up to 190 beds per night in Clatsop, Tillamook, Yamhill, and Lincoln Counties in Oregon.
Helping Hands serves homeless men, women, and children who are ready to make sustainable changes to improve their lives. Participants must be ready to be clean and sober, and must not be registered sex offenders (since the shelters house children). Services are not duplicated with other groups in their communities. Instead, Helping Hands fosters connections between participants and community partners whose programs also serve the homeless and low-income populations.
Sponsored by the TCPM’s Daisy Fund, this program is free and open to the public.
