SE Portland Day Center
A place to be. A community to belong to.
The Marie Equi Center is a community space in SE Portland for trans, queer, intersex, and gender-diverse people, with a focus on people navigating homelessness, housing instability, poverty, and other barriers to care.
Come in for a shower, a meal, clean clothes, help navigating resources, a conversation with a peer, or simply a safe place to spend some time.
You don't have to need something to belong here.
What You Can Find Here…
Food & Snacks: Grab something to eat, make a cup of coffee, or join us for one of our weekly community meals.
Shower & Laundry: Take a hot shower in a private, accessible shower room and get some laundry done.
Clothing Closet: Access clothing that feels comfortable and affirming.
Resource Navigation: Get support navigating shelter, benefits, health care, identification, referrals, and other systems.
Peer Support: Connect with staff who understand that lived experience is knowledge and that you are the expert on your own life.
Space to Rest: Sit somewhere comfortable. Read. Work on art. Talk with someone. Don't talk with anyone. Just be.
Essentials: Access a variety of supplies including hygiene, first aid, wound care, harm reduction, and safer sex.
Build Community: Find opportunities to connect and network.
Activities: Join workshops, celebrations, drag shows, classes and more. Visit our events calendar for more information.
The space is part of the care.
When we built The Marie Equi Center, we thought carefully about more than what services would happen here. We thought about how it would feel to be here.
Many trans and queer people, particularly those navigating homelessness, trauma, disability, neurodivergence, or chronic stress, spend enormous amounts of time in environments that require us to stay alert. Service settings themselves can add to that experience through bright overhead lighting, noise, crowded rooms, institutional design, lack of privacy, or little control over our surroundings.
We wanted to build something different.
The Center was designed with trauma-informed, accessibility, and neurodivergent-friendly principles woven into the physical space itself. We worked with our designers to intentionally choose soothing paint colors, many rooms have dimmable lighting and lamps so people aren't limited to bright overhead lights. Plants, artwork, varied fabric textures, comfortable furniture, a rainbow rug to nap on, and different kinds of spaces give people options for how and where they spend their time.
Throughout the Center, people can move toward connection or quiet, stimulation or rest, depending on what they need.
For us, culturally specific care includes creating an environment where our nervous systems have a chance to settle.
Autonomy
We support people in making their own choices that work for them
Relationship
Trust is built through consistency, honesty, & connection
Low Barriers
We work to make support easier to access instead of harder
Collective Care
We understand wellbeing as something communities create together
Built differently, on purpose.
The Marie Equi Center was built with the knowledge that people closest to a problem often understand best what needs to change.
Our approach is deeply rooted in peer support and lived experience. Staff bring knowledge from navigating many of the same systems our guests encounter, and that experience shapes everything from how we welcome someone through the door to how we think about safety, services, conflict, and community.
That doesn't mean everyone has the same experience, it means we start from a different place. At the end of the day, we believe people are experts in their own lives.
A community space. And a place where change begins.
Every day at the Center, we see how larger systems shape people's lives.
We see what happens when housing systems don't work for LGBTQAI2S+ people. When health care is inaccessible. When someone can't get identification that reflects who they are. When poverty, racism, ableism, transphobia, and other forms of systemic exclusion overlap.
That knowledge doesn't stay inside our walls.
What we learn through direct service and relationships with our community informs Equi's advocacy, partnerships, public policy work, and efforts to build stronger systems across Oregon.
COMMUNITY → SERVICES → LEARNING → ADVOCACY → SYSTEMS CHANGE
The people most impacted by systems should help shape what replaces them.
This space belongs to community.
The Marie Equi Center exists because trans, queer, intersex, and gender-diverse people deserve places built with us in mind.
Places where we can meet basic needs.
Places where we can find one another.
Places where we can rest.
Places where we can organize.
Pleases where we can belong.