Mat-Su Health Foundation and Agnew Beck Consulting host first meeting discussing Mat-Su Homelessness Needs Assessment

WASILLA— The Mat-Su Health Foundation and Agnew Beck Consulting recently shared the results of the Mat-Su Homeless Needs Assessment and what actions to take to address Valley homelessness during public Zoom meetings.

The Homeless Needs Assessment is a comprehensive community project that aims to gain a better understanding of local homelessness through data collection and stakeholder input to identify needs and areas of improvement and fill the gaps in addressing homelessness in the Valley.

Mat-Su Health Foundation senior program officer Jim Beck said the two-day conference was the first public presentation of all the work done to put the assessment together.

Discussion topics from the Homeless Needs Assessment were outlined during the meetings. Topics included experiences of locals experiencing homelessness, key findings, strengths of the current system, areas for improvement, and recommendations.

“We really wanted to answer a whole lot of questions. We really needed to dig into the basics to understand homelessness in the Mat-Su,” Beck said.

Representatives from Mat-Su Health Foundation and Agnew Beck Consulting led the discussion with several steering committee members such as MyHouse Mat-Su Homeless Youth Center CEO Michelle Overstreet and Family Promise Mat-Su Executive Director, Ginger Bear sharing their insights, project updates, and recommendations to addressing homelessness in the Valley.

Principal and founding partner of Agnew Beck Consulting, Thea Agnew Bemben said that working to clear the misconceptions surrounding homelessness is an important element in their overall efforts aimed to support individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

“Oftentimes, what happens is people see people in our community who are not housed and then they fill in a bunch of the blanks about what led that person into that situation. What we have to always remember is that there’s so many pieces, so many causes in our community that can lead a person into being houseless,” Bembem said. “We have to really be thinking about, ‘what are the root causes?’ ‘How can we change the community conditions that are leading people into the situation?’

Molly Mylius, Senior Associate at Agnew Beck Consulting discussed some of the key findings from the assessment. She said they estimated that there are about 630 households that are experiencing homelessness in the Valley.

“Homelessness in the Mat-Su Valley is real. We do have friends and neighbors who are experiencing homelessness,” Mylius said.

Of those 630 households, an estimated 340 are being served by local organizations while 290 are not receiving services.

Areas of improvement included a lack of low-barrier, short-term housing since there are very few locations in the Valley where people can go on a short-term basis, including those who are in crisis, waiting to go through an intake process, or anyone without a place to sleep.

Strengths included homeless prevention programs, providers working together to find solutions, and a slow increase of community awareness around local homelessness.

Mylius said the ultimate goal is to use what they’ve learned from the Homeless Needs Assessment and work to fill the gaps in the continuum of care to help people find permanent housing. She said there’s already a lot of collaboration between agencies across the community and expanding those overall efforts will ultimately help reduce homelessness and help those experiencing it find stable housing and other wrap-around services.

Family Promise Mat-Su Executive Director Ginger Bear said the Homeless Needs Assessment came out at an opportune time since they recently received a free facility the Pioneer Christian Fellowship.

This gives Family Promise staff and volunteers the chance to officially launch their long-awaited dream, the H.O.P.E. Navigation Center, a community resource center that will offer a variety of wrap-around services to individuals and families across various levels of need, including homeless individuals, and victims of human trafficking.

MyHouse CEO Michelle Overstreet said there were a lot of positive findings in the assessment, including the continued collaboration between various agencies.

“I think it’s really nice to have a community conversation around this topic with some data behind it. It’s encouraging,” Overstreet said. “That Mat-Su has a lot of resources. We work together well. We have common goals as a community and kind of an understanding of what each agency does so it allows us to hand each client back and forth through that continuum and wrap those services around them depending on what their needs are.”

For more information about the Mat-Su Homeless Needs Assessment, visit healthymatsu.org.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at jacob.mann@frontiersman.com