$550K goes a long way

WASILLA — A team of six charities with Valley Charities and its turn A leaf thrift store are taking the lead to help Valley residents avoid homelessness through a $550,000 grant from a state corporation.

“From what I’ve been told, this is the largest grant of this type that’s ever been in the Valley,” said John Rossi, head of Valley Charities.

Rossi said the program won’t be up and running until September. Between now and then his organization will be training and collecting data.

“How are people going to access it — that’s the piece we’re trying to figure out, too,” Rossi said.

He said people will probably come to the charity through referrals, and there’s a long list of people who can do the referring — utility companies, police agencies, churches and state agencies.

So even to say how people in need of help will access his organization might be premature before the program gets up and running, Rossi said. The goal is to help people pay rent and utility bills to avoid getting kicked out onto the streets.

The money comes from the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., and the five other charities are Family Promise Mat-Su, Access Alaska, Daybreak inc., Blood and Fire Ministries and Alaska Family Services.

“Each one of these grantees have different amounts of money to go toward homeless prevention,” Rossi said.

Rossi said part of the work before September will include coordinating with those other groups to make sure they work efficiently together and don’t unnecessarily duplicate services.

That is, that they don’t overlap in terms of what they provide and the geography they cover. Rossi said the goal is to create a program with reach beyond Palmer and Wasilla. Blood and Fire Ministries, for example, is based out of Meadow Lakes.

“We’d eventually like to go further north,” he said.

The turn A leaf thrif store has been operating in its current location since 2008, but Valley Charities has had a thrift store since 1969, when it was called White Elephant thrift store. He said prior to the 2008 move the store leased its space. The board decided to put an end to that.

“We can’t keep moving around. We need to find a place that’s ours,” he said was the feeling at the time. So it built the building on Yenlo Street and Swanson Avenue. “The building’s brand new, but the organization has been in the community for 56 years.”

And it’s more or less always been a charity for that time. Money taken in at the register goes back out in the community to help people. The store also offers vouchers to people who need help. Voucher clients, Rossi said, range from 60-year-olds to families of seven or eight people.

So far this year, Rossi said, $17,000 worth of clothing has gone out through the voucher program to 460 people.

In 2010, the organization won $52,000 from the Mat-Su Health Foundation to bolster its medical equipment loan program. People who need shower seats, walkers or wheelchairs can get them at turn A leaf.

Rossi said 495 people have taken advantage of that program this year so far, saving an estimated $405,000 in equipment costs.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.