A SHARED RESPONSIBILITY
Dear South Eugene High School Alumni,
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Many of us remember summers hiking Spencer Butte, gathering at University Park, lingering at Humble Bagel. Most of us moved through those years with stability, a home, and adults who anchored our adolescence.
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Today, Eugene has one of the highest per capita rates of youth homelessness in the country. Nearly 90 percent of U.S. homeless shelters do not accept unaccompanied minors under the age of 18. That is systemic failure.
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Adolescents between the ages of 13-17 are too old for child protective services and too young for 9 out of 10 homeless shelters. This is our most vulnerable demographic.
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For decades, we've built a system to manage homelessness through triage and short-term containment, not to prevent or solve it. A 15-year-old without a stable home has essentially nowhere safe to turn. We respond downstream: funding emergency beds while teenagers face exploitation, trafficking, violence, and trauma. We spend heavily managing visible crises while root causes remain intact. This is inefficient, expensive, and perpetuates suffering.
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Scorpion Creek Ranch was created as an alternative design.
For three and a half years, we've built a preventive, integrated model for teenagers locked out of traditional systems. We are now ready to open our pilot and scale it.
Our framework rests on three pillars:
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Hearth. Stable housing within a consistent community.
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Health. Trauma-informed care, relational support, and comprehensive medical and dental services.
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Horizon. Project-based education, vocational training, and clear pathways to employment.
A word from the founder of SCR, Katie Brown, Class of ’88
$5000 Raised of $100,000 Goal
3 Donations
This is structural change that delivers real stability. Current systems offer only temporary relief, leaving teenagers in chronic instability.
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We have built the foundation. We have community buy-in across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Now it's time to launch. We are raising $100,000 to fuel a national grassroots movement that will inspire communities across the country to adopt this model and create true reform in how we support homeless teens. And we've already started: Marcus Mariota said yes. He believes in this work. He will amplify our message. We are partnering with more professional athletes, actors, and musicians who see what we're building. These funds will launch our pilot, prove the model works, and begin giving these kids what they truly need: stability, dignity, and a future.
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Most of us had solid ground beneath our feet. It shaped who we became. Scorpion Creek Ranch is a replicable blueprint for communities nationwide: prevention by design, grounded in research and guided by logic.
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Invest in a scalable solution to a national crisis. Help us move Eugene from having the highest per capita count of homeless youth in the country to the town that solved it.
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We are connected by where we began. Now we have the opportunity to shape what comes next.
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With gratitude and fierce dedication,
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Katie Marcus Brown '88
Founder, Scorpion Creek Ranch
LEARN MORE
The rest of our site has a lot of information, but here are a few good places to start:
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National Grassroots Campaign Videos
We are staging a national campaign asking influencers to endorse monthly subscription donations.
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This paper shares the data that informs our approach.
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