A master of the cause

Human Solutions’ director wins praise for helping low-income people improve their lives

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Nov 23, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

John Klicker / The Outlook

Jean DeMaster stands in front of the Powell Boulevard office of Human Solutions on Monday, Nov. 19. She and Human Solutions have recently won three prestigious awards for helping homeless and low-income East County residents.

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It’s 5:30 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 19, and already there’s a line forming outside the offices of Human Solutions. By the time the doors open at 8 a.m., about 25 desperate people file in, sit on battered reception area chairs and hope to find the help they need to pay electric bills or rent.

Welcome to Jean DeMaster’s world.

As Human Solution’s executive director, DeMaster is the hub of all activity for the East County charity. Based in a maze of offices off Northeast 122nd Avenue and Powell Boulevard, Human Solutions also has a Gresham office and one in Rockwood.

With 37 years of social services experience under her belt, DeMaster has revived the non-profit organization by expanding services and elevating its prominence within the community during her four-and-a-half years as director.

“She’s a gift to East County,” said Judy Alley, who as executive director of Snow-CAP Community Charities sees firsthand the drive and results DeMaster delivers. “In terms of thinking about what we’re thankful for this time of year, Jean’s got to be one of the big ones.”

Others agree.

Last week, Bank of America awarded $200,000 to Human Solutions as the winner of its Neighborhood Excellence Award.

In October, DeMaster received the Gretchen Miller Kafoury Award for outstanding lifetime achievement. And two years ago, the National Alliance of Children and Families honored her with its Advocacy Award.

During DeMaster’s tenure as director of Human Solutions, she has increased the agency’s affordable housing supply by 54 percent from 350 units to 539 units; rehabilitated 10 dilapidated rooms in an old nursing home into the 16-unit Willow Tree Apartments on Northeast Division Street just east of Gresham High School; teamed with 30 churches to develop a shelter/aid network for homeless families; and created new employment program to add to the rental housing and energy assistance programs already offered.

“Housing is half of the solution,” DeMaster said. “To not be homeless, you have to be able to pay for it (housing) and that requires a job.”

And the higher paying the better, leading to the creation of more programs, such as one that provides skills needed to increase income levels. After all, “$7.50 a hour is not going to support a family,” DeMaster said.

East Multnomah County, the area served by Human Solutions, is in dire need of such programs.

More than 38 percent of Gresham’s children live in poverty, according to 2000 census statistics.

The number of East County children qualifying for free or reduced-cost lunches jumped 437 percent — or from 4,243 to 22,771 — between 2001-02 and 2005-06.

Also, most of Gresham’s poverty-stricken households, nearly 58 percent, consist of families, not single people. This is far higher than the county’s rate of nearly 41 percent or Portland’s at 38 percent.

Although DeMaster is an expert on poverty and homelessness, she grew up in the Midwest far removed from such plights.

The oldest of four, DeMaster was raised in a small Wisconsin town by her teacher mother and banker father. After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Wisconsin and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of Minnesota, DeMaster had a rather, well, chilly revelation.

While walking down the street in shoulder-deep snow, DeMaster glanced up at a temperature reader board and saw that it was 12 degrees.

Funny, she thought. That summer, the same board read 120 degrees.

“I’m not going to do this any more,” she thought. Looking at a map of the west coast, the city of Portland caught her eye. In 1970, she drove across the country to Oregon, but was shocked to discover Portland was not on the coast. Seems the word “Portland” was printed on her map’s coastline, although the city wasn’t on the coast.

No matter.

Driving through the lush greenery of the Columbia River Gorge, DeMaster fell in love with the area, and before long, got a job working for Head Start. Next she and a colleague started a non-profit organization, Technical Assistance for Community Service, which will celebrate its 30th anniversary in March.

For three years, DeMaster worked for Portland Impact, followed by 11 years as director of Transition Projects, a shelter for homeless single adults in downtown Portland.

She started the area’s first affordable housing center for single adults overcoming drug and alcohol addition. She also reconfigured the agency’s existing 100-person shelter to create a separate shelter for its homeless women. Previously, they slept on cots in the shelter’s corridor where rain and snow came through a door.

In 1993, “Jean’s Place,” a homeless shelter named in her honor opened in Northeast Portland. About the same time, DeMaster started a new job making sure Multnomah County’s 600 adult foster homes — about 400 of which were in East and Mid County — were licensed and provided adequate care for residents.

When she suddenly disappeared for her new job, former colleagues took note of Jean’s Place and assumed its namesake had died. This made for interesting reunions later on.

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