Bill Gates boosts Portland Rescue Mission

PORTLAND -- The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $500,000 grant to the Portland Rescue Mission to help homeless women and children, announced Mi-chael Maksimowicz, mission executive director.

The grant will be used to help construct Shep-herd’s Door/ Life Change Campus -- a combination of successful programs de-signed to provide emergency needs for homeless women and children coupled with programs to help homeless women find jobs and escape homelessness.

The Portland Rescue Mission has raised more than half of the money needed to expand its women’s and children’s shelter in east Portland. Donors, including Microsoft Inc. founder Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have given $3.4 million of the $5.2 million needed. The shelter does not receive money from the United Way or the government.

“The face of homelessness is changing. Today we have increasing numbers of women and children in need. Not only must we serve the men on the street, but we must take care of families as well. We must change to stay true to our mission,” Maksimowicz said. “Our new programs are proven to work -- but we must do our best to make them available to those who need them.”

Once expansion is complete, the shelter will house as many as 80 women and children, 68 more than it now shelters in a renovated medical office on the property at 13207 N.E. Halsey St. Construc-tion will begin in early 2001 and the expanded shelter will open the following year.