Like many cities across the United States, Portland, Oregon faces a homelessness crisis.

According to the city’s 2023 Point in Time Count, overall homelessness in Portland increased by 65% from 2015 to 2023, with people living unsheltered in the streets jumping to an estimated 6,297 individuals, compared to 1,887 eight years prior. 

This mounting problem requires plenty of creative solutions.

Waste management workers with Ground Score have found that solution through trash.

Ground Score is a Portland nonprofit created by — and for — people who are experiencing or have experienced homelessness. The group is fiscally supported by Trash For Peace and manages an association of recyclers, waste pickers, and other environmental workers who create and fill waste management jobs in the city.

In 2021, the association scored a contract with the city government and now operates under a project called GLITTER (Ground Score Leading Inclusively Together Through Environmental Recovery). 

The initiative hires people with a history of homelessness to pick up waste alongside designated routes, provide tent-side trash collection to people living outside, and more.

Workers are paid between $20 and $29 per hour by the city of Portland, Multnomah County, and the Lloyd Enhanced Services District. Despite impending budget cuts across the city, officials say the initiative is valuable.

“We value this highly effective program and have no plans to make any cuts to GLITTER,” city spokesperson Laura Rude told The Oregonian. 

Katie Lindsay, a program analyst for Portland who oversees Ground Score’s contract, also added: “You’re going to get significant outcomes for the lowest of dollars. There are increasingly shrinking resources in an unending vat of need. This goes so far. Why wouldn’t you (fund it)?”

According to Ground Score’s website, the program has directly hired 55 members of the community, over 95% of whom were formerly or currently are houseless. Since having started working for Ground Score, over 70% of those workers have become housed.

Co-founded by Barbra Weber, Ground Score came into existence when she was living in a tent encampment a few years back. Many of her neighbors earned cash from collecting cans and bottles, but she knew they needed more funding and organization to really see a difference.

“Why don’t they pay us to pick up the trash?” Weber told The Oregonian she remembers thinking.

Now, Ground Score not only has a contract with the city, but it also provides supportive social benefits to its employees, like healthcare, support for addiction treatment, mental health services, and acquiring housing and legal identification. 

According to The Oregonian, 59% of GLITTER workers reported decreased substance use, per a program evaluation conducted by the city last year. 

Workers do not have to be sober to be employed by the program, but they are required to refrain from substances while working. One worker, George Hayes, was given a second chance after he had an instance of drug use on the job. 

“I wouldn’t give it up for nothing,” Hayes told The Oregonian recently, while he was on the job, now sober. “I work my tail off.”

The underlying belief of this program, according to both Weber and Lindsay, is that people must be “radically included” in improving their circumstances. They also simply believe that “basic sanitation — including waste collection — is an essential service and a human right.”

Anyone who wants to be a part of the program can simply show up to the organization’s warehouse, starting with pick-up shifts as an independent contractor. Gear is provided for everyone — though in 2024, Ground Score began piloting bagless waste collection to prevent further contributions to landfills.

“We’ve created an incredibly safe space for people to be,” Weber told The Oregonian. “This gives people joy. This gives people purpose. And sometimes, when people have talents, it wakes that up.”

Their work also has a major impact on the city. In 2022 alone, they picked up 1 million pounds of trash. In 2023, they removed 691,706 pounds of trash from the city’s streets, nearly 85,000 pounds of which were diverted from landfills.

In addition to clean-up, Weber — and the organization — lead reuse and repair programs, as well as advocacy initiatives for state and city-wide waste reform, as well as international protections for waste pickers.

In November of 2023, Weber and other collaborators from the International Alliance of Waste Pickers contributed to a report to include protections for waste employees under the UN Plastics Treaty.

Her contributions on a global scale echo the work she hopes to do right in her own community.

“I dream of a world without plastic or other harmful pollution,” Weber wrote, per the City of Portland.

“I dream of a world where human life is valued above profits. I dream of a world without poverty. I dream of a world without racism or stereotypes, where all communities and individuals contribute to wellbeing.”

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Header image courtesy of Ground Score Association