Mat-Su

Photos: Mat-Su Valley Homeless Connect

More than 50 agencies and organizations and about 150 volunteers gathered at the Menard Center in Wasilla to contribute to the Mat-Su Valley Homeless Connect event on Wednesday, January 28, 2015. The annual event, in its fifth year, was expected to serve about 200 people. The event, organized by Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness and the United Way of Mat-Su, aims to direct people toward housing services, health screenings and legal help and make clothing and food donations available.

Dave Rose, director of the coalition, said that it can be difficult to identify people in need of assistance in the Mat-Su because it's such a large geographic area. Mat-Su Transit and Alaska Cab donated transportation to help people get there. He said the coalition places an emphasis on children, families, senior citizens and recently released prisoners who are homeless. Those groups have grown in recent years as the overall population of the Mat-Su has, he said. "We know there's a ton of folks out there that could use help," he said. Amy Dorsey, who works with the Families in Transition program for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, said they've identified 720 kindergarten through 12th-grade students who are or have been homeless this year.

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