MyHouse gives homeless youth hope

WASILLA — For the more than 300 homeless youth in the Mat-Su Valley who use the services at MyHouse in Wasilla, hope is a “hand-up, not a hand-out,” according to director Michelle Overstreet.

The center provides a central location where youth ages 14 to 24 can go to receive basic needs, such as food, clothing, showers, and laundry services, along with referrals and support for gaining independence such as job training, lifeskills, and mental and medical treatment through public health.

Homeless youth work their goal- and achievement-driven case plans under the grassroots non-profit program, and 20 homeless youth at a time gain job skills and training in one of the two for-profit businesses, Gathering Grounds Café and Steamdriven Boutique.

But as it gears up to participate in a candlelight vigil on Jan. 10 for those who have lost their lives to drug addiction, Overstreet says a perfect storm of factors in the community continues to suck some homeless youth in the valley into sex trafficking and drug addiction.

MyHouse operates a 10-bed transitional living program with very strict case management requirements for the residents there, Overstreet said, with the goal of supporting their development into positive, contributing members of society.

But there are no emergency homeless shelters for youth in the Mat-Su Valley, and youth who are trying to find a safe place to live face limitations to their ability to gain self-sufficiency, she said.

In the bid to find shelter in the Valley, homeless youth find that there is already in place a network of negative influencers who are there for them: pimps looking for young girls to use for sex trafficking, and trap houses where drug users go to do drugs.

“It creates a negative dynamic,” Overstreet said. “I would really love to have more housing to put a foundation under youth. Our motto is a hand up and not a hand out. We expect teens in our case management to work, continually remove barriers to self-sufficiency. The lack of emergency shelter for youth has a significant impact on what the youth in the valley do. The unfortunate thing is a lot of times somebody else is there to pick up the kids that are the most vulnerable.”

Overstreet said that, when the program was in its infancy six years ago, she saw fewer kids with drug abuse problems.

“The availability and the cheap access to heroin, combined with a tendency in the medical community to offer opiates for a variety of different things, has really changed the game for our clients,” Overstreet said, citing an explosion in the number of youth addicted to hard drugs in just the last two years.

In addition to housing, Overstreet said she’d like to see changes made to how emancipation laws work in Alaska to empower teens from broken homes to make positive changes in their lives.

She expressed frustration with seeing teens who no longer have shelter due to their parents’ addiction, unable to get a driver’s license, medical care or apartment because they need the permission of a parent who isn’t available.

“That is sending thousands of girls a year in Alaska from Wasilla and bush communities into sex trafficking and drug using situations,” Overstreet said. “If they don’t have someone to take care of them, they need to be emancipated. When they can’t get a job, place to live and driver’s license, the only place they can go are with pimps. We send them out to be with pimps and drug dealers.”

In all the time MyHouse has been operating, she said, they’ve never seen a homeless teen older than 13 referred by Office of Children’s Services for placement with a foster care family.

“We’ve never had OCS come and try to place them anywhere,” she said. “They ask if they have a safe place to stay, and they expect them to couch surf or find relatives they can live with. That’s not a criticism of OCS, it’s a limitation of OCS.”

The annual Point In Time count by the Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness attempts to make a census of homeless persons in the State of Alaska. The most recent Point in Time count, for 2015, saw a 9 percent increase of homeless people over the previous year, reaching to a homeless population of just under 2,000. One out of every five homeless persons in the count were aged 17 or younger.

Overstreet thinks it doesn’t have to be that way.

“The only way we’re going to make inroads, is by working together and believing that it can change, and then making the changes.”

The Candelight Vigil in Memory of those who have lost their lives to drug addiction will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 10 at Leo Nunley Park. Members of the public can go to the Gathering Grounds Café to get candles for the vigil starting at 6 p.m. For more information about My House, a resource in the valley for homeless youth, go to http://myhousematsuhomelessyouthcenter.com, or call 907-373-4357.