A Community of Care: From Youth Homelessness to Independence in Wasilla, Alaska

A Community of Care: From Youth Homelessness to Independence in Wasilla, Alaska

The drop-in center for MY House, located in Wasilla, Alaska, provides comprehensive services for youth experiencing homelessness and other challenges, as well as the support and encouragement of staff and peer counselors. Photo courtesy of MY House

Youth experiencing homelessness are at a critical inflection point in their lives, where the guidance of dedicated and caring mentors, job and life skills training, and wraparound services can mean the difference between a future of independence and a future involving further homelessness and other hardships. In Wasilla, Alaska, local nonprofit MY House has been providing this kind of caring service to youth experiencing homelessness, setting hundreds of lives on new trajectories since its founding in 2010. The organization's comprehensive approach helps clients overcome barriers, cultivate empowerment and confidence, and achieve durable results. Although housing plays a critical role in stabilizing the lives of youth experiencing homelessness, the MY House approach also recognizes that housing alone is not enough to truly transform the lives of vulnerable youth, for whom homelessness is a visible result of deeper challenges.

Empowering Clients To Break Through Barriers

MY House's commitment to removing barriers to service begins from the moment clients first walk through the door. The MY House drop-in center is open on weekdays and can connect clients quickly with crisis stabilization services, laundry and shower facilities, peer support, case management, and a no-cost daily hot meal. MY House offers clients various housing options, including crisis beds, transitional housing, and housing for survivors of domestic violence or sex trafficking.

Other services available to youth aged 14 to 25 who are experiencing or are at risk of homelessness include food, clothing, and educational assistance; transportation; case management; job training; and wraparound services. MY House can help clients enroll in other programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Medicaid, or childcare, and connects clients with other service providers in the community as needed. 

Working with clients to identify and eliminate whatever barriers clients face to achieving their goals is a central aspect to the work of MY House staff and continues throughout a client's relationship with MY House, says Isaac Smoldon, MY House's communications director. Once clients are safely out of survival mode, MY House can help them tackle other issues, such as getting treatment or developing a plan to complete a General Educational Development test (GED). Or, a client may need help getting official documents in order to enroll in certain programs, for example, or may want to develop a plan to get a driver's license. Whatever the problem, MY House encourages a client-directed and staff- and peer-supported approach to overcoming obstacles. This instills in clients the understanding that the direction of their recovery and their future is up to them and that MY House will offer them support and connection.

The Road to Independence

To help clients achieve self-sufficiency and prevent a return to homelessness, MY House emphasizes job training programs, even as clients work to address mental health and substance abuse challenges. For both undertakings, clients receive the support of staff and peer counselors, many of whom are former MY House participants who are not much older than their clients. A youth board of directors, written into the bylaws of MY House, ensures that the voices of young people — especially those who have been involved with MY House as clients — are helping to shape the organization and its programs.

The Redemption Boutique, a thrift store operated by MY House and staffed by MY House clients, provides a job training opportunity in retail. Photo courtesy of MY House

MY House has five in-house job training programs, and it also partners with local businesses to offer job training for clients. The primary job training programs are MY House's onsite café and thrift store. At the café, which is open to the public and hosts regular local group meetings, such as a Bible study group, clients learn to work in a bustling service-oriented environment. At the thrift store, the REDEMPTION Boutique, clients develop similar retail skills in a more relaxed environment. This support from the community has long been crucial to the success of MY House, reports Michelle Overstreet, MY House's founder and chief executive officer. In particular, the support of local officials, she says, was necessary in getting MY House up and running and remains visible to clients when, for example, the mayor of Wasilla drops into the café from time to time for a cup of coffee.

Other job training programs cater to more niche interests. For example, MY House has a recording studio where the organization produces its podcast and allows clients to serve as interns — even hiring a program graduate to edit podcast episodes. One former MY House client returned to the organization to found the MY House garden, where clients can learn about growing their own food and about native plant species that either have cultural significance or produce food. Finally, an intensive graphic design program, operating under the brand name REDEMPTION Apparel, allows survivors of incest, human trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault to learn clothing design and T-shirt production and sell their work online.

Outcomes

In 2024, MY House recorded 146 unique client enrollments. Of those, 63 lacked either a high school degree or a GED. By the end of the year, 65 percent of those clients either had obtained their diploma or GED or were enrolled in a degree program. To dig deeper, MY House surveyed their 2024 clients, receiving 94 responses. Of the 2024 survey respondents, 100 percent had succeeded in maintaining their housing. Of the 146 clients from 2024, 104 had experienced behavioral health challenges, which could include substance abuse issues. Sixty-one percent of those clients opted to engage in treatment through MY House.

The job training program has been particularly successful. In one cohort of 36 clients receiving job training, 31 transitioned directly from training to regular employment; only 5 clients did not complete job training. At intake, 74 percent of clients were unemployed. By the time MY House surveyed its 2024 clients, 65 percent of those unemployed at intake were employed. In an earlier survey from 2019, 80 percent of job training participants landed the job they had trained for or a better position, and 98 percent of clients who completed one of the job training programs remained successfully housed 3 years after program completion.

Building on Success

MY House has had a notable impact on youth experiencing homelessness in Wasilla and the surrounding community. To continue and expand on this work, MY House is developing a 3-story, 64-bed facility serving youth experiencing homelessness that will include residential treatment capacity. As successful as MY House's quantifiable outcomes have been, Overstreet is mindful of the importance of unquantifiable factors such as well-being to breaking cycles of addiction and homelessness. Some measures of success are anecdotal, such as clients, years after graduating, expressing their gratitude for the difference MY House made in their lives. In Wasilla, MY House is showing young people who have struggled that a way home exists.