The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center's 2026 outlook, released last month, forecasts above-normal wildfire potential across most of our service area starting in late June. Snowpack is near average, but a warm and dry March has accelerated fuel drying at lower elevations, and long-range forecasts show a likely June-through-September pattern of the kind that produced the 2020, 2022, and 2024 fire seasons.
For the communities we work with, the most common exposure is not direct fire. It is extended smoke. Our 2020 monitoring data showed neighborhoods in East Portland experiencing 14 consecutive days of hazardous air quality. For residents with respiratory conditions, older adults, young children, and people working outdoors, that kind of sustained exposure produces measurable health effects.
Starting next month, we are launching seven community resilience hubs across the region. Each is a real place, with real hours, real capacity, and a real phone number. This is what they are for, where they are, and how we hope they will be used.
What a Resilience Hub Is
A resilience hub is a community-trusted facility that has been upgraded to serve as a clean-air, cooled, and powered refuge during extreme environmental events. Ours are designed to function during three conditions specifically: prolonged smoke events, sustained heat, and grid power outages.
Each hub includes:
- High-efficiency filtered air sufficient to maintain indoor PM2.5 below 12 µg/m³ even when outdoor levels exceed 300 µg/m³. Filters are rated MERV-13 minimum, with supplemental HEPA units in family areas.
- Cooling to a maximum interior temperature of 78°F during heat events.
- Solar-plus-battery backup sized to maintain core functions for at least 48 hours without grid power.
- Charging stations for phones, medical devices, and laptops.
- Bottled water and nonperishable food for short-term visitors.
- Trained staff on site during operational hours, with extended hours during declared events.
These are not shelters in the overnight sense. They are daytime and extended-evening refuges. For households that need an overnight option, staff can connect visitors with emergency shelter networks, but that is not the role of the hub itself.
Where the Hubs Are
Each hub is located in a community facility that was already trusted and heavily used. We co-designed the upgrades with the organizations operating those spaces.
- Rosewood Initiative — 1630 SE 162nd Ave.
- El Programa Hispano Católico — Rockwood office.
- Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO) — NE Glisan main campus.
- Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) — Jade District.
- Oregon Tradeswomen Resource Center — NE Columbia Blvd.
- Southeast Uplift — SE 7th Ave.
- North Portland Library — N Killingsworth.
Full addresses, hours, and accessibility notes are on our Resilience Hubs page. Five of the seven sites are ADA accessible in all public spaces; the remaining two are accessible on their ground floors with assistance from on-site staff, and we are working on renovations to reach full accessibility in 2027.
How to Use a Hub
During normal conditions, the hubs operate at the regular hours of their host organizations. Anyone can walk in, use the charging stations, get a bottle of water, or sit in a clean-air space.
During a declared smoke event (AQI above 150 for 12+ hours), declared heat event (forecast above 95°F for 3+ days), or major power outage, the hubs extend their hours and activate their full operational mode. We will broadcast activation through our newsletter, the regional 2-1-1 system, and the partner organizations' own communication channels.
You do not need an appointment. You do not need to prove residency or income. You do not need to be a client of the host organization. These are open community spaces.
Why We Built These Specifically
The pattern that prompted this work showed up in our 2021 and 2022 air quality data. Neighborhoods with the worst outdoor air quality during smoke events were also the neighborhoods with the lowest rates of private air filtration and the oldest housing stock. A resident in West Portland during a 2022 smoke event typically had access to a sealed home with HVAC filtration. A resident in East Portland often did not. The indoor air quality gap during smoke events was larger than the outdoor gap.
Individual filtration equipment helps, and we have distributed thousands of portable units through our partner network. But individual units only work if households have the plug load, time, and money to operate them. A network of trusted, well-equipped, publicly accessible hubs addresses the equity gap directly.
This pattern is not unique to our region. The Baltimore Office of Sustainability's resilience hub network, operating since 2019, produced the framework most of our programming is built on. Minneapolis, Oakland, and Philadelphia have all since launched variations. We borrowed shamelessly from all of them.
How the Network Is Funded
For transparency, the funding breakdown: 41 percent philanthropic foundation support, 28 percent federal Community Change Grants (awarded in 2024, currently under congressional review but with obligated funding intact), 18 percent state climate adaptation funding, and 13 percent individual donor contributions.
The ongoing operational cost is approximately $340,000 per year across all seven sites, split roughly half staff and half utilities and supplies. We will publish full operational metrics in our fall impact report.
What Community Members Can Do
Three practical things.
Know your nearest hub. Look it up on our Resilience Hubs page. Save the address and phone number. Tell a neighbor.
Subscribe to activation alerts. The signup form is on the same page. During declared events, you will get a text or email when hubs extend to full operational mode.
Volunteer during activation. During declared events, we staff up with trained volunteers to supplement the host organization teams. The training is a single 3-hour session. The commitment is one 4-hour shift per year at minimum. We need another 60 volunteers across the network before summer.
A Note on Limits
One thing we want to be honest about: seven hubs is not enough. A full network sized to our region would require closer to 25 sites, each within walking distance of the neighborhoods with highest exposure and fewest private resources. We know this. The next three hubs are in planning for 2027. Beyond that, the bottleneck is funding and, for some sites, the availability of suitable community partners with the facilities to host.
If you represent an organization interested in becoming a hub partner for the 2028 expansion, please reach out. The co-design process takes about 18 months from first conversation to opening, and we would rather start that work now than scramble in a fire year.
See you at the hub.
