When Portland-area union members are laid off, fall behind on rent, or can’t buy Christmas presents for their families, Labor’s Community Service Agency (LCSA) steps in to help.
LCSA was founded in 1974 as a way for local union members to aid their union siblings and the community at large. Today, LCSA helps in half a dozen ways.
- It provides direct cash assistance to union members who can’t make rent or utility payments through its Helping Hands program.
- It collects and delivers hand-picked gifts, food boxes, and gift cards to the doorsteps of union families through its Presents from Partners toy drive.
- It responds to mass layoffs of union workers by conducting meetings on how to apply for unemployment benefits, how to find health insurance, and how to connect with other public benefits and charitable groups.
- It refers unhoused union members to transitional housing in a partnership with Do Good Multnomah.
- It offers help to apprentices in financial hardship with funding from state programs for heavy highway workers and early-term apprentices.
- It brings food, water, rain ponchos, and hand warmers to picket lines when workers go on strike and guides unions on how to prepare members for a strike and get resources once they’re on strike. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, LCSA can’t provide hardship funds to strikers, but it can help unions administer their own strike funds.
Finding those to help
LCSA helps union members who have been referred by their union — 1,039 of them in 2024.
Eryn Byram, who served as the agency’s fifth executive director from 2017 to 2022, said she saw LCSA as an extension of the union.
“I wouldn’t necessarily even say, ‘We’re LCSA.’ I would say ‘Your union referred you. What can we do?’”
Once LCSA receives a referral, staff reach out to do an intake call.
“We assess the situation, see what would be the best course of action for them, whether that be assistance with their housing or providing some food boxes — whatever we can do to help them,” LCSA operations lead Rodrigo Juarez explained. “If it’s something that’s outside of what we can provide, then we help them find resources or point them in directions of other places where they could get those needs met.”
People who are referred to LCSA are often already in dire straits that have serious impacts on their mental state.
“A lot of times we’re dealing with people in crisis. They’re losing their jobs. They’re in a hardship situation and they’re missing a work paycheck because maybe they’ve had an injury or an illness or death in the family,” LCSA labor liaison Teal Dunbar said. “A lot of times we are dealing with people in trauma who are in survival mode and are panicking, and so we have to take that into account.”
Part of the work is making sure that union staff and stewards know about the services LCSA offers and are ready to send over referrals.
Jason Ornelas Montes, LCSA’s operations and programs administrator, said getting referrals is one of the hardest parts of managing LCSA’s program for apprentices.
To find out about layoffs, LCSA relies on unions, WARN notices that companies are required to file ahead of mass layoffs, and media coverage. When layoffs take place without advance notice, it’s all hands on deck to coordinate an info session tailored to those workers. Sometimes there are multiple sessions, some in languages other than English.
Dunbar was working at the Hilton in 2020 when she was laid off.
“I had never lost my job, lost my health care, experienced anything like that — and, of course, the timing. We all thought the world was ending,” Dunbar said. She attended a virtual rapid response session and learned about the resources. She went on to help her fellow union members navigate resources during the pandemic. A year later, she was hired at LCSA.
LCSA staff also want to know when strikes are coming. Months before Machinists went on strike at Boeing in 2024, they let LCSA know that a strike could be coming.
LCSA helps unions survey members and assess which members may need the most support during a strike.
Paraeducators and other workers at Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver went on strike in August. They hadn’t previously worked with LCSA, but when the agency heard about the strike, they brought nearly 100 food boxes to union members on the picket line.
Half a century of helping
LCSA’s work has taken different forms over half a century. In its first decade, LCSA worked to recruit union members to become foster parents; offered courses for union counselors; provided job training for first-time offenders trying to avoid jail time; helped injured workers navigate the workers’ compensation system; and gave out flu shots.
Each executive director has had their own focus, Byram said. Hers was childcare and housing. She helped start the Pre-Apprenticeship Childcare Initiative (PACCI) with state funding, but the program ended when funding was rerouted.
In January 2022, through a partnership developed by Dunbar, the shelter and supportive housing provider Do Good Multnomah started offering 10 bedrooms in one of its Northeast Portland facilities specifically for union members referred by LCSA. The program provides housing, caseworkers, and a renter education program to help participants transition to renting their own place, usually after around 90 days in the program. As of mid-September, two rooms were currently available.
“They get their own room, their own bathroom, they get meals daily … whatever income they’ve got from their job, they can start saving that,” Dunbar said.
Since taking the helm at LCSA in September 2022, executive director Shammra Lacy has zeroed in on housing.
The two programs for apprentices pay rent or utility bills. The maximum amount an apprentice can receive is higher than what Helping Hands, LCSA’s other rent aid program, can offer.
Starting this summer, the program for apprentices expanded to to serve more apprentices outside Portland city limits.
When LCSA started Presents from Partners in the late 1990s, union members donated gifts that were distributed to children in a separate program that mentors at-risk youth. That later changed to offer gifts to children of union members who were struggling financially. Union families get gifts and food boxes delivered to their homes. Families used to meet Santa and pick up their gifts during a big event, but the program switched to delivery during the pandemic. Lacy said they’ve kept the delivery model because it allowed them to distribute more gifts, rather than only reaching families who could make it to a one-day distribution event. In 2024, LCSA distributed more than 200 holiday packages of presents, food, and gift cards. LCSA works with schools and the state foster care system to make sure any extra gifts are distributed to other children.
Busier than ever
LCSA’s funding comes from unions, United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, and Worksystems, Inc., which administers federal workforce training grants. LCSA serves members of all unions, not just unions that donate.
Helping Hands and Presents from Partners are funded by United Way and donations from individuals, labor unions, and labor allies. Government contracts pay for the info sessions for laid-off workers. State and federal dollars have also funded other LCSA programs throughout the years, like the current emergency funding for apprentices.
Lacy said the LCSA’s government funding dropped 10% for the fiscal year that started in July. The funding comes to LCSA through Worksystems, Inc., the Bureau of Labor and Industries, and the Oregon Department of Transportation, but a large portion makes its way to Oregon from the federal government. Lacy said it isn’t yet clear if the federal government will continue providing that funding beyond next summer.
LCSA operations lead Rodrigo Juarez said there’s been uncertainty around future funding since the Trump administration took office. “That’s been a little unsettling, I would say, not to have that peace of mind or security that there is going to be funds for organizations like ours that are just trying to serve the community,” Juarez said.
Annual funding from United Way has been stable, but funding from unions varies. Donations were down 20% last fiscal year, Lacy said.
“What we distribute as far as per individual is the same, but the amount of money that is going out has definitely increased, and we’re seeing our overall funds being depleted because of that,” Lacy said. “The need is so high, but the donations that we typically get, we’re not seeing … with the economy and the government and just the way things are, we understand that unions are going to tighten up on their own support given out because they’re losing jobs.”
By the end of July, LCSA had conducted more rapid response sessions in 2025 than in all of 2024 or any recent year. That has a trickle effect to other agency services.
“In turn, when people are laid off, then they’re in need, and so … we see an uptick in the referrals for getting support,” Lacy said.
I can confirm that LCSA have been very supportive of laid off workers at OHSU and it’s been a relief to be able to point people that are in need to them directly. Great article!