Our Mission
Sunnyside Shower Project is a volunteer-powered, community-based hygiene program that operates out of the Sunnyside Community House in SE Portland. We believe that hygiene is a basic human right and access should not depend upon income, identification, or the ability to navigate a complicated system.
We provide low-barrier access to free showers, hygiene supplies, clothing, laundry support, food and drink, harm reduction supplies, and resource navigation to our unhoused and housing-insecure neighbors. Most importantly, SSP provides a welcoming place where guests can find community—and choose the level of support they wish to have.
SSP operates three days a week with two shower stalls and has over 80 volunteers and one paid staff member. In 2025, SSP provided 1,250+ showers and welcomed 2,000+ guests, and is on track to surpass those numbers for 2026.
Founded in 2021, SSP became an Oregon-registered nonprofit in August 2026 and continues under the fiscal sponsorship of SE Uplift.
Our Story
Hannah Wallace
Founder and Board President
One chilly December day five years ago, I made the radical decision to get to know my houseless neighbors. This was at the height of the pandemic, when a homeless camp had formed around Sunnyside Environmental School. I was pleased to learn that members of my neighborhood association in Sunnyside were planning to visit the people living there and ask them what their greatest needs were. I joined them.
We spent the morning “knocking” on folks’ tents, handing out beanies and clementines, and chatting with our houseless neighbors. They didn’t need food, several of them explained—an area nonprofit was making daily lunches. What they could really use? Nice hot showers and some laundry facilities. My Sunnyside neighbors and I set about finding a way to offer both.
We got lucky: The congregation then operating out of the old Sunnyside Methodist Church offered us use of the showers already in the church basement. I shamelessly asked friends, neighbors, and colleagues to help me staff the pilot two days a week and we were off! You can read more about our origin story in an essay I wrote for Portland Monthly.
It’s hard to believe that this was five years ago! Today, the Sunnyside Shower Project operates three days a week, serving hundreds of guests from all walks of life. In addition to showers, we offer hot beverages, vouchers to a local laundromat, and even substantive snacks. (That nonprofit that offered daily lunches only operates twice a week now.) We also have a clothing closet that rivals some of Portland’s best thrift shops.
Best of all, thanks to a grant we received from the Oregon Community Foundation in 2024, we have an Executive Director, Lindsay Cogan-Sant, who has taken SSP to the next level. In the coming weeks, you’ll hear directly from Lindsay about how we operate and how you can help keep this magical third place going.
Our Team
Lindsay Cogan-Sant
Executive Director
Lindsay Cogan-Sant (they/them) is the Executive Director of the Sunnyside Shower Project. Before joining SSP in early 2025, they worked in sexual and domestic violence advocacy and abortion access advocacy. That experience shapes their commitment to consent, bodily autonomy, and support without hoops. At SSP, Lindsay works alongside volunteers and neighbors to keep free showers, hygiene supplies, clothing, and other support available to the community.
Hannah Wallace
Board President and Founder
Journalist and editor Hannah Wallace has lived in Sunnyside since 2010 and helped found the Sunnyside Shower Project in January 2021 along with other members of the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association. She ran the project, with considerable help from fellow Sunnysider and volunteer Diana Deumling, until the end of 2024 when a grant from the Oregon Community Foundation allowed us to hire Lindsay Cogan-Sant as our first Executive Director. When she's not doing a shift at the SSP, she's writing about regenerative agriculture, climate issues, food, and health, or editing an eco-feminist sci-fi novel.
Colin Gray
Board Treasurer
Colin Gray has been volunteering with the Sunnyside Shower Project since early 2025. He has lived in Southeast Portland for many years. In his spare time he likes to figure out ways to coax a little more hot water out of the building's water heater.
Photos courtesy of Cherl Juetten IG: @cheryljuetten