Serving a ‘big need’

For 14 years, Project Homeless Connect has been gathering dozens of resources for people experiencing housing or food instability under a single roof in Soldotna. On Tuesday, the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex conference rooms were packed with vendors and services offering everything from free hats to employment counseling.

Leslie Rohr, one of the event’s organizers and executive director of Love INC, said Tuesday that every space available to them at the complex was filled. There were resources for homeless prevention, disability, vision screening, medical care, child care, pet care, shelters, sober living, food service, pregnancy, medical testing, vaccines, and identification from the Division of Motor Vehicles and others.

“It just speaks to the kindness of our community, the willingness to help and maybe an increased understanding of how much of a problem we have with homelessness, housing insecurity and food insecurity,” she said. “Even if a need is not immediately met today, at least we’re able to make contact with people and get them headed in the right direction — to all the different resources that are available.”

Project Homeless Connect offers “wraparound” service, Rohr said, to get people in need of assistance in contact with anything and everything they need. The purpose, she said, is to show local participants that they are cared about and are a valued part of the community.

Jodi Stuart, another organizer, shared preliminary data after the event on Tuesday. This year’s Homeless Connect served 116 people who filled out intake paperwork in the sports complex — though many have families, and the estimated reach is greater. She said they provided 67 naloxone kits, more than 50 free haircuts, at least 44 pairs of prescription glasses, and served at least 23 animals. Alaska Cab provided 13 free round-trip rides to the event, and Central Area Rural Transit System provided four.

The vendors reported an average of 50 interactions with participants, Stuart said, double the count observed last year.

Two participants of this year’s Project Homeless Connect said Tuesday that they’d come for the resources available — describing vouchers for laundry and showers as among their most valuable takeaways from the event. The pair, a man and a woman, had both received free haircuts, made connections with CARTS for transportation and with a variety of other organizations for veterans and disability resources. The hot food and friendly faces, too, were important.

“Just to know that the community still cares about the homeless ones, the ones that are struggling, that’s important to me,” the woman said. “I’ve been born and raised here, so this is my hometown. It’s nice to know that the community, they think about us, because there’s a lot of us out there, and people don’t realize how many of us are out there — there’s families out there.”

That sense of caring wasn’t always felt, she said, when her tent was getting “booted off” of land in Kenai. She said she’s struggled with secure housing for around 10 years.

The pair both carried bags of items they’d picked up at Homeless Connect — the woman said it was “like Christmas, Thanksgiving and my birthday.”

They said that that they would like to see more follow-through, extending beyond the annual Homeless Connect, because there’s “a big need” in the community, and Kenai Peninsula wintertime can be challenging.

Rohr agreed that the support for people in need has to extend beyond the single day of Homeless Connect each year. She said Homeless Connect is a “jumping off point” and a “relationship building tool” to connect people with aid that’s available in the local area. Making a connection with someone who will follow up with the services they need is just as important.

“It’s our responsibility as a community to come around them and help them to take whatever steps they can towards sustainability in their life,” she said. “Not one of them just woke up one morning and said ‘hey, I want to go be homeless.’”

For more information, visit kenaipeninsulahomeless.org.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.