Coalition meets to discuss homelessness

WASILLA — Grant writers, volunteers, advocates and just about anyone with an interest in the topic will be talking about homelessness in the Valley at an all-day conference today.

Dubbed “Neighbor to Neighbor: A Community Solution to Homelessness,” the idea is to take a broad look at the topic of housing that addresses all categories of people who need a place to live. That look includes homeless teens and families, homeless adults and recently released inmates with no home.

“The big thing we’re aiming at is sustainable solutions to decrease homelessness and increase housing for the Valley,” said Dave Rose, director of the Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness. “A lot of people build housing or a lot of people feel good about helping for a little while and then it kind of peters out and you get the same problem again.”

The summit includes everyone from the Mat-Su Health Foundation to the Alaska Mental Health Trust, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. to the Department of Corrections, the Mat-Su Borough School District to Catholic Social Services. It runs from 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m., today at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla.

Rose spoke Monday on the eve of the summit, providing a broad overview of where the Valley is in terms of addressing the needs of people who are homeless locally. With teenagers, he said, there are few resources out there. There are beds, but only for certain kids.

“The only thing we have is treatment centers if the kids have been identified as having a mental problem or an emotional problem,” Rose said. “What we’re finding is there’s just a ton of kids who don’t meet that criteria and we really don’t want to force a label on them just so they can get Medicaid help and get into a treatment center.”

So the kids end up out there on their own, which usually entails a lot of couch surfing or six kids living in a one-room apartment. Rose said he met a kid who was thrilled a family he met offered him the opportunity to fix up an un-insulated, unheated cabin.

As for adults, there are not enough low-income housing options out there, Rose said. For families, there are some emergency options through Family Promise Mat-Su. The program can house 15 people at a time. They spent a week rotating through various Valley churches that convert their Sunday school rooms into hotel rooms.

But the program can’t accept anyone with domestic violence in their past or families without children.

“There’s one building now, Swanson House, (that) Valley Residential Services put together,” Rose said. “They’ve got the funding and they’re moving ahead with it.”

The plan is for it to be a Housing First model something like Safe Harbor in Anchorage, which is among that city’s various attempts to address homelessness.

But, Rose said, that’s 10 units, and far from enough.

“Not last year, but the previous three years, I was the homeless liaison with the school district,” he said. “We had over 300 families, over 600 kids that were doubled up or were living in inadequate housing.”

A fairly typical year for a homeless family involves camping in the summer and finding a family to live with in the winter, a scenario that leads to two families living in a small apartment.

Finally, there’s the issue of inmates re-entering society.

One of the seminars at the forum is intended to “explore the possibilities of helping incarcerated individuals return to productive positions in society with stable housing,” according to the schedule.

Rose said he hopes the coalition will eventually be able to get out ahead of the community’s housing needs.

The coalition “is really trying to do some preventative work as well as anticipate some of the needs and try to get some more subsidized housing or low-income housing for people in general.”

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