{"id":29039,"date":"2015-11-23T09:02:45","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T17:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/hope-for-homeless-in-homer\/"},"modified":"2015-11-23T09:02:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-23T17:02:45","slug":"hope-for-homeless-in-homer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/hope-for-homeless-in-homer\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope for homeless in Homer"},"content":{"rendered":"

HOMER \u2014<\/strong> It\u2019s not easy to be homeless in Alaska in November. That was the verdict among approximately a dozen people who spent a night in WKFL Park as part of Homer High student Casey Marsh\u2019s senior project, \u201cThe Triple H\u2019s of Homer.\u201d Temperatures sank to 28 degrees and the activists working to raise awareness about youth homelessness on the Kenai Peninsula woke up to snow falling on their tents and cardboard box shelters.<\/p>\n

Although actual attempts to rest got pretty chilly, as Marsh had predicted, sleep wasn\u2019t the event\u2019s main activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Triple H\u2019s of Homer\u201d stands for \u201chomeless, hungry, and hopeful.\u201d The sleep-out was the project\u2019s culmination.<\/p>\n

The event had two aims: to help participants better understand the difficulties of being homeless, and to bring attention to the plight of at least 47 homeless students in Homer and more than 169 on record in the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District.<\/p>\n

With the help of music, fire, good company and tasty snacks, the feeling that participants were doing something important kept the mood far more festive than frigid all night long. Updates from Homer\u2019s Homeless Action Committee also contributed figurative light and warmth to the evening.<\/p>\n

Salvation Army Church pastor Lieutenant Christin Fankhauser is an active member of the committee, which has met monthly since the summer to discuss ways to combat homelessness locally. At the park, she explained that the committee hopes to open a cold weather shelter in the church this winter. The shelter would be the first available to youth in Homer.<\/p>\n

Right now, the Homeless Action Committee is filling out a community needs assessment and working to add another sink to the church\u2019s kitchen to get certified by the state. But once they complete those steps, Fankhauser said, a homeless shelter open to anyone in Homer might not be such a distant dream.<\/p>\n

Having that goal within reach made the event even more important to Marsh.<\/p>\n

J.J. O\u2019Rourke is the founder of a homeless youth advocacy organization called Teens United For a Future, or T.U.F.F. Teens. She helped Marsh conceive of the project, and the two of them arrived at the park to set up for the sleep-out at 11 a.m. Participants began arriving around 6. As the sun went down, volunteers from Gigi\u2019s Donuts passed out pizza and still-hot, powdered-sugar-doused pastries. Lights strung up around the park\u2019s pavilion highlighted signs that read \u201cHomeless, Hungry, and Hopeful,\u201d and the donation boxes beneath them.<\/p>\n

Under a pavilion that took some complicated maneuvering in the afternoon to raise, coffee donated by All Hopped Up Espresso and powdered hot chocolate provided something warm for cold hands to hold. Energetic communal renditions of \u201cOld Time Rock and Roll\u201d and \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d continued until 1 in the morning. When people got chilly, they took a trip to the public restrooms to warm up under the lights. A bonfire blazed in the donated pit until 4.<\/p>\n

Many of the people present early in the night were friends of Marsh\u2019s: schoolmates, family friends, her sister.<\/p>\n

Last year, when Chelsea Marsh was a Homer High senior, her project \u201cTeens In Between\u201d supplied homeless youth with backpacks full of supplies. That project inspired the younger Marsh to continue the fight against youth homelessness, this time at its roots \u2014 by raising awareness. Sitting by the fire, Chelsea said she was proud of her sister.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe definitely wanted to put herself in someone else\u2019s shoes and I think this is a really good way of portraying that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As the night continued and the temperature dropped, community members started showing up. High school students Tyeler Cooper-Day and Leo Castellani set up a tent.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing really exposed to the homelessness in Homer, having friends who are and having been myself, not entirely but somewhat, it really strikes home and it\u2019s really something I\u2019d like to see fixed,\u201d said Cooper-Day.<\/p>\n

Pam Hokum had read about the event in the newspaper, and brought along both a tent and her brother Jeff Middleton and his wife, Janet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, I can do this. It\u2019s one night. I love to camp anyway and I\u2019d like to be involved because I think it\u2019s really a shame that we have this problem,\u201d said Hokum. \u201cIt may be a small crowd but everyone\u2019s going to go away with a better understanding of the homeless population, what resources are available, and we\u2019ll pass it on to other people. That\u2019s my hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure enough, much of the campfire discussion was about the resources available to Homer\u2019s homeless. Passers-by who stopped to ask what was going on at the park mostly weren\u2019t aware of the magnitude of the issue or that the closest shelter for homeless teens is more than 220 miles away, in Anchorage.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke has taken 11 homeless youths into her home over the years. She said that in her experience, the main causes of teen homelessness in Homer have been divorce, addicted parents and lack of economic resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne Social Security check pays for rent, but what about food? A lot of people get $19 in stamps for the month. It\u2019s not enough for anyone to live on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She explained that the issue is further complicated by the fact that many homeless teens are ashamed of their situation and don\u2019t want their peers to find out.<\/p>\n

Homer High senior Shenandoah Lush, who works as a peer educator at the R.E.C. Room, agreed. She offered insights from her own experiences with the foster care system, saying that at the time she had wanted to keep the challenges she was facing to herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why I think it\u2019s so cool that teens made this (event) happen. It\u2019s showing, \u2018We\u2019re in school, too. We care about you guys. We want a shelter, too,\u2019\u201d said O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n

Fankhauser encouraged anyone interested in helping with the shelter project to come to Homeless Action Committee meetings on the first Thursday of every month \u2014 or at least get on the committee\u2019s ListServ. A sign-up sheet filled quickly as it was passed around the fire.<\/p>\n

Later, Marsh said she appreciated the active response of the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite part of the event was meeting all the new people who had heard of my event . and how they all appreciated the effort that the youth of our community are showing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around midnight, a slow diaspora from the fire began \u2014 people peeled off to curl up in cars or tents.<\/p>\n

The toughest climbed into cardboard boxes.<\/p>\n

Fankhauser\u2019s husband had created a cardboard truck based on the ones the Salvation Army uses to distribute food during disasters. The vehicle was big enough to curl up inside, with windows and license plates on both ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to try and tough it out tonight so I can say, \u2018I experienced it and we need to do something about it,\u2019\u201d Fankhauser said.<\/p>\n

True to her word, she made it until morning, emerging at 7 a.m. to head to church.<\/p>\n

Homer High sophomores Mila Stickrod and Rachel Seneff also stuck it out for the entire night in a slim, semi-flattened cardboard box decorated with swirls of paint and tin foil. They said the design was meant to mimic a spaceship. In the morning, anyone passing by the box wouldn\u2019t have guessed there were people inside \u2014 the two girls were nearly flat, huddled together in blankets, entirely invisible under the cardboard. Their presence seemed a perfect example of the event\u2019s larger purpose: a reminder to take a closer look at what appears to be a pile of junk, because humanity is hidden inside, trying to stay warm.<\/p>\n

Around 9:30 a.m., Marsh distributed awards to event participants. Anchor River Cleaning Services presented a $25 voucher to Fankhauser for the most creative box shelter. Homer High junior Ravi Cavasos received an award for the most colorful. The R.E.C. Room and Black Water Bend Espresso each contributed T-shirts for \u201cMost Dedicated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next on the agenda were taking down tents and consuming free K Bay Caffe and German pancakes provided by the R.E.C. Room\u2019s Anna Meredith. Then the \u201cSleep-Out Warriors,\u201d so named by O\u2019Rourke, headed home to warm beds, feeling very grateful that they could.<\/p>\n

Marsh said she thinks the sleep-out completed its goal of creating a concrete visual representation of the issue. It sparked compassion. And it got people talking.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt created the response I had hoped for and now I am going to work on getting the donations to those in need and we will continue working on establishing a solid shelter through our monthly homeless in action meetings,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

On the afternoon of Black Friday \u2014 Nov. 27 \u2014 all the donations Marsh has collected will be available at the Salvation Army Church for pick-up by anyone in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HOMER \u2014 It\u2019s not easy to be homeless in Alaska in November. That was the verdict among approximately a dozen people who spent a night in WKFL Park as part of Homer High student Casey Marsh\u2019s senior project, \u201cThe Triple H\u2019s of Homer.\u201d Temperatures sank to 28 degrees and the activists working to raise awareness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29039"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}