What We've Been Up to Lately

A lot has been happening behind the scenes at Octavia’s Options lately, and we wanted to take a minute to actually talk about it. We’re still a very small organization. We don’t have a huge staff or a big operating budget. In fact, our founder and executive director position remains completely unpaid, and much of what we’re able to accomplish happens because people in our community volunteer, donate supplies, share resources, and say yes when we reach out with an idea.

But small doesn’t mean we aren’t making an impact. Over the past few months, we’ve distributed more than 100 hygiene kits to people in our community. These include everyday things that most of us probably don’t think much about until we don’t have them: shampoo, soap, deodorant, toothpaste, menstrual products, socks, and other basic necessities. We’ve also continued doing outreach in Medford and Grants Pass, getting supplies directly into the community and connecting people with other resources when what they need is outside of what we can provide.

One thing we’ve really focused on lately is partnership.

We don’t want Octavia’s Options to become an organization that tries to do everything. There are already some really incredible people doing work throughout Southern Oregon. We would rather figure out how we can support each other, share resources, and fill the gaps that keep coming up.

Our partnership with Rogue Trans has helped us expand access to food and menstrual supplies in Ashland. We’ve been able to support community food efforts and connect supplies with people and organizations already doing the work. The Centre Rogue Valley has also offered space for one of our donation bins, giving the community another way to directly contribute hygiene products and other needed supplies. We’re incredibly grateful for these partnerships because this is exactly how we believe community work should happen.

We’ve also been building our volunteer network. Right now, we have roughly 5–9 active volunteers helping in different ways, from collecting donations and delivering supplies to helping with outreach and some of the less exciting behind-the-scenes work that keeps everything moving.

Recently, we’ve started having conversations about some much bigger gaps in our community, especially around food access, shelter, and the need for shared community space. One of the things we’re exploring is finding a kitchen or cooking space that could potentially be used collaboratively by multiple community groups. That idea is still just that: something we’re working toward. We don’t have a building or a kitchen to announce yet, and we don’t want to pretend something is further along than it actually is. But the conversations are happening, people are coming to the table, and we’re excited to see where it goes. We’ve also been spending more time looking at the way people actually find help.

Anyone who has tried to navigate resources while experiencing homelessness, food insecurity, or a financial crisis knows how frustrating it can be. People are handed phone numbers, websites, and resource lists only to find out that a program ended, the information changed, there’s a waitlist, or they don’t qualify. We want to help make that process a little easier too. At the center of all of this is still the same belief Octavia’s Options started with: people deserve housing, food, hygiene, safety, and dignity without having to prove they are worthy of those things first.

That’s also why Housing First continues to be such an important part of our work. Housing First isn’t just a nice idea. There is real research behind it. One of the largest Housing First studies, the At Home/Chez Soi project, found that participants receiving Housing First services were stably housed about 73% of the time, compared with 32% for people receiving usual services. Housing doesn’t magically solve every problem someone is facing. But it is a whole lot easier to work on employment, mental health, recovery, medical care, relationships, or anything else when you know where you’re sleeping that night.

And maybe that has been one of the biggest lessons for us lately. We don’t have to solve everything to do something useful. More than 100 hygiene kits went into our community because people donated, volunteered, transported supplies, packed bags, shared our posts, and connected us with people who needed them. Our partnerships exist because other organizations and community members have been willing to work together instead of competing over who gets credit.

We’re proud of how much Octavia’s Options has grown, but we’re even more grateful for the community that has grown around us. For now, we’re going to keep showing up, keep listening, keep building partnerships, and keep doing what we can with what we have. And we’re really excited to see what comes next.