In addition to showers, offered Tuesday to Fridays afternoons, and haircuts, the Access Center provides laundry service, access to free clothing, work experience for clients, and the opportunity to meet with representatives from service organizations, such as the HIV Alliance, Whitebird Clinic’s Chrysalis program, and the League of Women Voters.

Beginning in April, the shower service and the clothes closet have also been available to people on the CSS waitlist, thanks to a grant from Trillium Community Health Plan, with funding from Lane County adding additional support in October. The waitlist currently has about 200 people on it. “It’s part of our effort to engage with people on the waitlist, to address some of their basic needs while they are waiting to get into one of our communities,” says Blake Burrell, CSS Director of Community Impact.

CSS has also expanded its shuttle service to bring clients from their communities to the Access Center, which is located next to the CSS office on West 11th Street. In the past, the shuttle only ran from each community once a week. But since last spring the van goes to every camp Tuesday through Thursday, according to Chris, a one-time CSS community member and longtime staff member who is now Shower Shuttler. The van runs a regular schedule starting at noon, making scheduled stops at each community and arriving at the Access Center at 2:27 pm—“I know the exact time because I’ve done it so many times,”  Chris says—and then does the circuit again taking people back to their communities and picking up additional people for one-way trips back to the 11th Street site.

Chris says the regular schedule not only gives community members more options for transportation, but it’s also a learning experience about the importance of being on time. His stops at each community are only about four minutes long.

Rudy is Shower Steward. He came into CSS as a client in 2021, living in the Skinner Safe Spot. In early 2022, he moved to the Reboot Station Microsite, next to where the Access Center is located now, and took on a staff role, managing the showers. He says he thought he might never be able to work again because of hereditary arthritis in his thumbs. “But this worked out perfectly,” he says.

The shower program has changed significantly since he first started. The three-station shower trailer, which includes a station that meets Americans with Disability Act requirements, was moved to a paved area just east of the Reboot Station earlier this year.

An average of 15 to 18 people per day use the showers, with a record of 28 in August. Shower use has increased since people on the CSS waitlist have been given access. Rudy says that access is important to those people:  “It's a great thing for them to feel that they belong here. It gives them something to look forward to because they know they have this. They're kind of getting a taste of what CSS does in the camps because I can honestly say CSS does go out of its way to give you what you need, to keep you safe and warm and all that.”

Joseph, who was number 18 on the waitlist when he came for a shower recently, agrees. “I appreciate them doing this,” he said. “It’s a privilege to be a part of this. I know that by the time I get in I'm going to be doing a lot better. I'm already transitioning.”

Rudy makes a point of trying to remember the names of people who come for showers, and he takes great pride in the cleanliness of the showers. “Rudy has the cleanest showers in town,” Blake says. “I would like to have it how you would have it if you had a home,” Rudy says.

And, he says, most people who come to take showers help him keep the process orderly because they feel a connection to what’s happening there. “They all care for the place enough. They know that it's a valuable asset they can have as long as they do what they need to.”

People from the communities and those on the waitlist also appreciate the access to free clothes. Though clothes are usually available, the amount and the type of clothing is dependent on community donations. Anna Alkin, CSS Program Coordinator, has noticed that donations often tend to be “opposite of the weather patterns,” so, for example, summer clothes being donated as winter is approaching. Rudy also notes that they tend to receive more women’s clothes than men’s. So, they say, the Access Center could use more seasonally appropriate and men’s clothing. Donations can be made at the CSS office at 1160 Grant Street.

Laundry, for CSS community members only, is done in a trailer with two washing machines and two dryers in the Access Center. Jack, Laundry Steward and a member of the Skinner Safe Spot Community, picks up laundry once a month from each CSS community, two or three per week, and then delivers it back to the community after it’s done. Soon, this process will change and community members will bring their own laundry to the Access Centers. This shift will require more participation from “Workforce Development” clients.

The Workforce Development program is part of the recent initiative from CSS to offer more opportunities for clients to enrich their lives while they are in CSS communities. This program provides work experience that prepares community members to reenter the workforce. Work at the Access Center is part of the “hospitality track.” Helping out with the showers, the laundry, or distributing clothing can prepare people for jobs at hotels or shelters, says Anna. Currently, up to four program participants are involved at the Access Center. Additional Workforce Development clients can help with the new laundry system or a new planned voucher system for clothes distribution in which people can request a specific item and have it retrieved for them.

Sometimes—especially on a Thursday when haircuts are being offered, an outreach organization is there, gentle acoustic music wafts in the air, the clothing table is full, and tasty snacks are being offered—the Access Center feels like the site of a party. CSS staffers from the nearby office are mixing with community members and folks from the waitlist, people anticipating or already feeling refreshed from their showers or haircuts. More chairs are brought out, as conversation and laughter fills the crowded space. 

“I enjoy that,” Rudy says. “I like to make it comfortable for them, to feel like they belong here.”

“We try to create that when it's appropriate,” Anna says. “Especially when we have an outreach program like, for instance, The League of Women Voters, we have a party atmosphere. A cool part of the story right now is that volunteers Sandy and Percy are coming on Thursdays to make music, which adds an enjoyable dimension.”

Shaggy appreciates the genial atmosphere that surrounded him as he got his hair cut. “Everybody was just getting along and having a good time. That's a good thing. It's more relaxing that way rather than having a stuffy environment. I like hanging out where everybody can be themselves.”