While many people attended holiday parties Friday night, Juneau’s shelter and soup kitchen held a somber event.
“National Remembrance Day commemorates people who died while experiencing homelessness in the past year,” Glory Hole executive director Mariya Lovishchuk said by phone. She had five people from Juneau on her list.
This time of year with its long, dark nights is tough on the Glory Hole and its clients.
“On one hand, there’s an outpouring of gifts from the community to the Glory Hole, but it’s also the coldest and darkest time of the year,” she said. “The general feeling is that it’s sad and it’s scary. A lot of people cannot be with their families because of issues that have alienated them from their families. A lot of families don’t have a house, so it’s definitely a very bittersweet season at the Glory Hole because you see the best and worst.”
The shelter’s resources are often stretched thin during the holiday season. The 40-bed facility is currently sleeping 47 people.
“The outreach coordinator is a lot busier finding people stable housing and ensuring that we have as much room as possible in the shelter. Also, outreaching to people who are on the street definitely spikes up because the stakes are so much higher in this weather,” Lovsihchuk explained.
This is also the time of year Lovishchuk starts to get nervous. Every year, the shelter relies on the community to make up a big chunk of its operating budget. Of the $180,000 the Glory Hole expected to raise from community donations, it’s about $59,000 short.
“This money would keep the doors open. A lot of this money pays for salaries, food for our meal program and pays for repairs. We have a lot of people coming through the facility every single day and we just have wear and tear, things that we need to deal with on a weekly basis — showers break, door handles break, we need to replace faucets so we can wash dishes — things like that,” Lovishchuk said.
If the shelter doesn’t raise the money, it would be forced to dip into an account that has about eight months of operational savings and has taken years to raise, Lovishchuk said, “but we’d be hesitant to do that because I don’t think next year or the year after that are going to be any better than this year. I think it’s going to be a lot worse.”
To help the shelter raise the needed funds, several individuals and entities within the Alaska Native community are holding the 2nd Annual Glory Hole Fundraiser on Tuesday from 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall on West Willoughby Avenue.
“We just see the need all the time. It’s all around us and we want to do something,” Nancy Barnes of the Yees.ku.oo dance group said on the phone Friday.
Last year, hundreds of people attended and the event raised more than $30,000 in just a few hours.
“People are putting signs up all over and making phone calls. We have someone going door-to-door to vendors to get auction items and door prizes,” she said.
The event will feature dance performances by Woosh.ji.een, Yees.ku.oo and All Nation Children dance group, and there will be fry bread for sale.
“Last year, we ran out. We have a lot more this year,” Barnes said, laughing.
“If people are busy that night and they want to just come down and donate, the hall will be open starting around 1:30 p.m.,” she added.
Lovishchuk called the fundraising effort amazing.
“It takes the whole town of Juneau to make the Glory Hole operate. I’m just so grateful for that.”
• Contact reporter Lisa Phu at 523-2246 or lisa.phu@juneauempire.com.
The Glory Hole Executive Director Mariya Lovishchuk, left, lights candles as the names of homeless people who have died are called out during the Longest Night Remembrance Service at the shelter on Friday, Dec. 16, 2016.
