MyHouse celebrating building purchase with ribbon cutting ceremony

WASILLA— MyHouse Mat-Su Homeless Youth Center recently purchased the facility that houses their main office and Gathering Grounds Cafe.

“We’re a stake in the ground now,” MyHouse VP and Recovery specialist Michael Carson said. “It’s a cornerstone.”

Staff and volunteers are celebrating the important turning point with a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday, June 7. They will be joined by Wasilla Mayor Glenda Ledford and other city officials to help cut the ceremonial ribbon to kick off a whole new chapter for the youth oriented nonprofit.

“It’s just such a huge milestone for us,” MyHouse founder and President Michelle Overstreet said.

The money saved from renting the facility will go directly toward their ongoing efforts helping local homeless youth to take control of their lives and find employment, housing, and connection to their community. Overstreet said this includes hiring new staff, growing existing job training and other wrap-around programs, and adding new services.

“We’re just taking the rent money and turning it around and putting it right back into the organization,” Carson said.

Overstreet said they plan to expand the Gathering Grounds Cafe with a satellite setup at Blackbirch Books along with other small enterprises to offer clients a wider range of opportunities to gain essential skills and experience.

“This is how we end homelessness in our community. We prevent people from becoming adult-homeless,” Overstreet said. “We don’t see homeless youth as a liability. We see them as an asset in our community and if they spend a little bit of time with us, they know that… We’re all in this together.”

According to Overstreet, their programs focus on giving clients a “hand up” so they can regain a foothold on whatever brought them to their doors and independently move forward.

MyHouse gained its nonprofit status in 2011. Overstreet said it’s been a long and challenging journey, but the results are clear as day.

“We had kind of a rough beginning. I think it was really hard for people to visualize the concept that we were going for… They had never seen anything like that,” Overstreet said. “People started to say, ‘oh wow this is working…’ It’s so much fun to have the success stories… I could just go on and on about the clients who are successful and it’s just so much fun to have those successful clients come back and help other clients.”

Carson said that MyHouse didn’t close in spite of the pandemic and was considered an essential service. He said their team works around the clock, but the work being done is more than essential and more than worth it when after seeing so many positive outcomes over the years.

“Lives changed. These youth are worth it,” Carson said. “They are no longer allowing the past to predict their future.”

For more information, visit myhousematsu.org.

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