The Juneau Community Foundation (JCF) is putting its money where its mouth is in the fight against homelessness and other social issues in Juneau.
The JCF awarded $1,883,222 in grants to 23 local organizations after a months-long process to prioritize and evaluate social service needs. The grants come from a few sources, most notably $1,029,322 from the JCF’s Hope Endowment Fund and $781,000 from the City and Borough of Juneau’s Social Services Funds.
The grants are meant to help support housing assistance for the homeless first and foremost. The Juneau Coalition on Housing and Homelessness submitted a proposal stressing that the city needs to allocate funds to rapid rehousing, the new Housing First facility and more housing-related programs. A total of 35 grants were handed out to the 23 organizations, and six of the nonprofits that provide housing will receive CBJ Utility Waiver support.
Other grants seek to help in providing trauma care for children, connecting people to mental health and substance abuse services and providing crisis intervention training for police, among other aims. The $1.9 million handed out this year is comparable to last year’s total of $1,822,000 in grants and $47,500 in utility waivers.
Mike McKrill, the President of the JCF, said the grants will help, but raising awareness and getting more people involved with these efforts is even more important.
“Even with these grants, social services are getting squeezed and with declining federal and state funds, it will only get harder,” McKrill said in a release. “So we need more people to step up and help address these issues.”
