CARdboard City gives community a taste of homelessness

PALMER — Family Promise, a local agency that provides shelter for homeless families, hosted its 10th CARdboard City event on Friday night to raise funds and educate the community about the subject of homelessness.

The number of participants was lower this year than in past years, as many of people were gone for dipnetting and several of the youth groups who are regular attenders of CARdboard City were on mission trips.

However, executive director of Family Promise Mat-Su, Laurie Kari, expected that thanks to several generous benefactors, the number of donations could hit a record-breaking $12,000.

Donated money goes to supporting the services offered by the agency, such as gas for transporting families, paying staff members like case worker, and just keeping up general facilities for guest use.

Friday night began with music and entertainment, and participants lining up for a dinner of soup and bread. Then people went to set up their accommodations for the night. Some chose to make beds in the backs of their cars, while others used cardboard boxes and duct tape to make something to sleep in. At the end of the night, the cardboard shelters were judged, prizes were given out, and everyone listened to a bedtime story before curfew at 10 p.m.

Family Promise deals mainly with keeping parents and their children together, and finding them homes to live in. They are most concerned about the number of homeless children in the Mat-Su.

“There still are 563 people that are kids that have been identified in the school district (as homeless.) That’s a big number,” said John Weaver, president of the organization.

Family Promise, and agencies like it have made a noticeable difference. In the 2015-16 school year, there were 800 students in the Mat-Su Borough who were designated as homeless, in the 2016-17 school year it dropped 563.

“For kids that are in junior high and high school I think showers are important, hygiene is important, and these kids don’t have that opportunity, and that has to be hard,” added Weaver.

Ravin Mustafoski, 25, has recently graduated with her bachelor’s degree in social work, with a minor in psychology. Homeless since 18, she has spent the majority of her educational career living in her car or wherever she can find shelter.

Through scholarships, Mustafoski was able to afford classes, most of which have been online through the University of Alaska Fairbanks, but there has been no extra money for her to meet the cost of renting an apartment.

“Really what it boils down to is affordable housing in our state. There was just no way I could do 19 credits in college, and be able to have an apartment,” she said, then added later, “I was taking 22 credits last semester, and working, and doing a practicum.”

Mustafoski has worked various minimum wage jobs, but for her degree she was required to work a 400-hour practicum at an agency, which happened to be Family Promise. The day of CARdboard City, she had just finished up her last four hours.

Family Promise is unable to provide Mustafoski with their services due to the fact that she is childless, and therefore does not classify as a family. She is also reluctant to go to a homeless shelter in Anchorage due to how overcrowded they already are.

“Years ago, part of the reason I was homeless was due to…addiction, and there’s just not a lot of opportunity out here in the Mat-Su Valley for people who are trying to do better,” she said, also adding that she has been clean from addiction for four years.

Now, she hopes to use her degree to help those in situations similar to hers.

“I think I would be really good at advocating, and figuring out how we can all come together and figure out why there are so many people falling through the cracks in our system,” she said.

Mustafoski worries about the amount of homeless kids in the Valley, and knows that without intervention, they will likely grow up without a change in their situation. According to her, homelessness is often viewed as an individual problem, but she believes it is more of a societal problem.

“It’s real, and it’s an issue, and it’s not just the people with substance abuse issues or people who are too lazy to get jobs or anything like that. Some of that may have a factor in it, but each case is very different,” she said, “It’s disheartening in itself that somebody could shame somebody for a circumstance, and yet not provide any kind of solution.”

Katie Stark is a Frontiersman summer intern.