Homelessness leaves some feeling boxed in

PALMER — It’s difficult for most people to imagine what it’s like to be homeless unless you’ve walked a mile in those shoes — or at least tried to sleep in a cardboard box in pouring rain.

For about 12 hours Friday night and early Saturday morning, that’s exactly what 92 caring souls did at the Alaska State Fairgrounds to raise $6,000 for Family Promise Mat-Su to enable more local churches to help more homeless families get back on their feet.

“This is a great program because it’s not government, it’s church-based. And it’s filling a need — a desperate need here in the Valley,” Dewey Taylor said Saturday morning as he loaded all the used and abused cardboard boxes back into a truck to return them to the Valley Community for Recycling Solution, where he serves on the VCRS board. “The school district liaison told us last night there were about 900 kids who were homeless at some point this past school year. That’s outrageous. It’s getting worse and worse every year.”

Barrie Blackman, who serves on the Family Promise board of directors, said that after her cardboard home got drenched overnight and she worried about keeping her child warm and dry, she began to understand how difficult it must be for parents who face that and much more every day.

“The first year we did this, my son was 4 and it was pouring down rain and I spent the whole night checking his sleeping bag to make sure he was OK. But that was only one night,” she said. “There are people out there who do that throughout the winter. I knew we were going home to take a shower and crawl in bed, but many families don’t and they’re expected to go to school and do well. It’s hard. Our homeless kids in the Valley are amazing considering what they go through and how well they’re doing. But they need more help.”

Family Promise Mat-Su founder and director Laurie Kari said that while the organization didn’t reach its $24,000 goal this year, she was just happy to see more new faces.

“It’s all about awareness,” she said. “We were focused more on education and outreach this year — not so much the fundraising.”

She said she’s hopeful more donations will come in through the website and that more churches will join the 15 now helping either house or support host churches.

There are currently nine churches that take in homeless families for a week at a time, putting them up on mattresses in classrooms and providing meals as Family Promise staff work with the families to obtain jobs and permanent housing.

“It was great to see Maria and Johnny White again this year and to see them so active,” Kari said of parents who used Family Promise to turn their lives around years ago. “Johnny even got up and spoke about how hard it was as a man to not be able to provide for his family. That took a lot of courage. They now have steady jobs and a nice place to live and Maria is still active on our board.”

And even though some cardboard homes “floated away” from the rain this year and one family left after their daughter woke up with a spider on her face, Kari said the fourth annual event was a success.

It even drew local dignitaries such as Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss, Wasilla Councilwoman Dianne Woodruff, former Palmer councilman and Radio Free Palmer founder Mike Chmielewski, and Valley Residential Services Director John Weaver.

“There were a lot of great ideas for helping the homeless population in the future that I hope we can run with down the road,” Woodruff said. “It really is a fun event and I hope there are even more here next year.”

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.McKee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.