Think Big + Start Local + Be a Village
Have you ever felt simultaneously urgent and helpless about the things you care about?
Have you ever tried to speak out, but felt like your voice was a tiny echo bouncing wildly in the chaos?
You are in good company.
Somewhere along the way, many of us forget that we belong to our community and that our community belongs to us.
Something powerful happens when we remember... When we walk outside our door. When we SEE our neighbors. When we find our people. When we find our voice.
Storyline Community exists as an organization because we made that discovery. We walked outside our door, and it changed everything. We learned to move closer to the needs of our neighbors through community organizing.
We help empower the voices of our youth, most recently to accompany them in saving the Wichita Center. We advocate for transitional housing & rental assistance at the county level. We creatively move closer to the needs of our neighbors and empower others to be part of something bigger than themselves: a community that all can call home.
f you want to join the pursuit of justice and goodness in your neighborhood, come talk to us. Or, read on below to learn about what we're currently doing and how you can be involved.
Have you ever tried to speak out, but felt like your voice was a tiny echo bouncing wildly in the chaos?
You are in good company.
Somewhere along the way, many of us forget that we belong to our community and that our community belongs to us.
Something powerful happens when we remember... When we walk outside our door. When we SEE our neighbors. When we find our people. When we find our voice.
Storyline Community exists as an organization because we made that discovery. We walked outside our door, and it changed everything. We learned to move closer to the needs of our neighbors through community organizing.
We help empower the voices of our youth, most recently to accompany them in saving the Wichita Center. We advocate for transitional housing & rental assistance at the county level. We creatively move closer to the needs of our neighbors and empower others to be part of something bigger than themselves: a community that all can call home.
f you want to join the pursuit of justice and goodness in your neighborhood, come talk to us. Or, read on below to learn about what we're currently doing and how you can be involved.
We think of our work as a sprawling, beautiful intersectional mycelial network --- connecting teams, building leaders, equipping neighbors and nurturing the soil in Clackamas County so all of our neighbors can thrive. Two guiding values for us are that everything we do builds leaders and that we do nothing alone. So this mycellium network includes deep partnerships with other groups and organizations doing on-the-ground work as we tend to the shared network of resources, relationships, and power.
Our work is highly intersectional and is based out of deep listening to the needs of our neighbors. Here are a few places this listening has taken us.
Our work is highly intersectional and is based out of deep listening to the needs of our neighbors. Here are a few places this listening has taken us.
We are in a housing state of emergency.
Come be a part of the solution.
As community organizers, we listen. We often ask people who are doing good work in this community the question, "If you had the resources to change one thing in our community that would make the biggest impact on the most people, what would it be?" Right now, time and time again, we are hearing the answer "we NEED more housing".
Learn more.
Houselessness doesn't look like it used to or like we sometimes imagine it. Learn more through an engaging image-filled walk-through of our housing story and how it came to be.
Houselessness doesn't look like it used to or like we sometimes imagine it. Learn more through an engaging image-filled walk-through of our housing story and how it came to be.
Oregon is # 1 in the Country for unhoused Families with Children
We partner with Leaven Land and Housing and other local organizers to address the housing needs in our county and the gaps in assistance that leave so many of our neighbors without the help they so desperately need --- we do this by bridging mutual aid and direct service toward systemic change, letting the stories of the most direclty impacted shape where we put pressure and mobilize our neighbors to create change. Whether we are:
We partner with Leaven Land and Housing and other local organizers to address the housing needs in our county and the gaps in assistance that leave so many of our neighbors without the help they so desperately need --- we do this by bridging mutual aid and direct service toward systemic change, letting the stories of the most direclty impacted shape where we put pressure and mobilize our neighbors to create change. Whether we are:
- Coordinating with local school districts, counselors, and McKinney-Vento advocates to help families navigate the systems of assistance, finding out how it works, who it works for, and where the holes exist.
- Advocating for transitional housing (alongside 300+ of our neighbors) in our county
- Advocating for legislation in Salem that serves our unhoused youth
- Accompanying faith communities in discerning how they can use their land to meet the housing needs in their own backyard
Support our Immigrant Neighbors
We are part of a broad network of support and connection for our immigrant neighbors in Clackamas County --- from KYR rights to Migra Watch Trainings to mutual aid and food and basic needs, we have connected with over 400 of our neighbors to equip them with the skills, knowledge, and opportunity to connect with the emergent needs of our immigrant neighbors.
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From our spring community gathering, where we met with 30 of our neighbors to listen to stories from our impacted immigrant neighbors, learn our neighbors names, and build our power as a community.
Reach out to Dez or Stori for more info about how you can be a part of this network of solidarity and care and build our collective power together.
Interested in Community Organizing?
We partner with Leaven Land and Housing and other local organizers to offer training and opportunity for those who want to learn how to make real change in their community. Community Organizing can look like small simple actions or giant ripple effects. It is a fantastic way to find your voice in your own community.
Reach out to Dez or Stori if you are interested in learning how you can connect to your community to create change in your own backyard!
Reach out to Dez or Stori if you are interested in learning how you can connect to your community to create change in your own backyard!
Support our Mutual Aid Fund
In our work in housing, one thing has become clear: the path to assistance in Clackamas County is not an easy one; so many of your neighbors are one crisis away from not being able to buy food or pay utilities and becoming unhoused. We have worked with families living out of their cars who call the county and are told, "we do not have assistance for families at this time."
We connect to these folks through the school district, the Wichita Center, and even sometimes local Facebook groups and through our Mutual Aid Fund and in partnership with some incredible community partners in Clackamas have been able to house, keep the lights on, and keep food on the tables for 56 folks across 16 households in 2025 and 34 folks across 17 households in 2026.
We connect to these folks through the school district, the Wichita Center, and even sometimes local Facebook groups and through our Mutual Aid Fund and in partnership with some incredible community partners in Clackamas have been able to house, keep the lights on, and keep food on the tables for 56 folks across 16 households in 2025 and 34 folks across 17 households in 2026.
Partner with youth at the SE PDX Youth Collective
One of the surest ways to strengthen a community and support those on the margins, is to build a safety net of community for our families and kids. We have organizers helping build community with middle and high school students, encouraging them to connect with their neighbors and use their voice for change.
