New office offers homelessness advocates visibility

WASILLA — With an open house Tuesday, Family Promise Mat-Su celebrated moving into a new office just off Wasilla’s main drag.

Family Promise organizes churches willing to take in homeless families — you have to have children to qualify for the program. It’s a big part of how the Valley addresses homelessness. But, Family Promise Director Laurie Kari said, having families scattered to various churches means they’re not out in plain view, especially since the many Valley homeless who don’t take advantage of the program tend to camp in out-of-the-way places and couch surf.

Visibility — which goes a long way toward getting locals to understand the problem — is an issue.

“It’s not like in Anchorage where you know you actually have a homeless population,” Kari said. “Folks will hide.”

Hopefully, the new office — open since Jan. 15 on Knik-Goose Bay Road across from Batteries Plus — will help with that. Compared to the organization’s previous home in a wing of the First Presbyterian Church on Bogard Road, it’s relatively easy to find.

“I think that’s one of the great things about where we’ve moved to is the location and the visibility there. It’ll be better,” Kari said.

It’s also a building with some history, having served as a home for the same family after which Wasilla’s Nunley Park was named and as a day care.

“It’s got some history with the community,” Kari said.

She said the new office also has living space where clients can hang out, including a kitchen and a living room. They’ll go to shelters at night.

She said Family Promise is a low-overhead operation. Churches donate their space, but there are always funding challenges. The organization was on the list of those receiving matching funds from the Mat-Su Borough in fiscal year 2010 through a state grant program. Borough Mayor Larry DeVilbiss has said that he plans to discontinue the borough’s participation in that program.

“There’s more and more discussions with funding here in our borough about where our tax dollars are going to go,” Kari said. “We want to make sure that the homeless issue stays at the forefront of people’s minds.”

As of Thursday they were serving four families and a total of 14 people. During 2010, the organization provided 1,450 nights in a shelter, helped 50 people and 17 families. Family Promise says that 82 percent of those people “graduated” to either housing or some form of self-sufficiency.

Family Promise’s operation is the tip of the iceberg when you consider a statistic Kari pointed out — the Mat-Su Borough School District is currently helping on the order of 800 homeless students.

“It’s becoming more and more clear that the Valley isn’t immune from the problems that are going on,” Kari said.

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