Homelessness in the community was discussed in a town hall event held at the Nikiski Community Recreation Center Wednesday night. Love Inc. of the Kenai Peninsula provided goals and an operational overview as well as answer community questions with several elected officials being on hand. Nearly 100 people attended the meeting to gather information, voice concerns and support and to learn details of the plans and operations of a new homeless transitional living facility in Nikiski. The townhall meeting was organized by District 29 Rep. Ben Carpenter and Leslie Rohr, Executive Director of Love Inc., and director of the new facility.
Carpenter felt there was a concern in the community and a townhall meeting can serve to address them:
“Residents, my constituents, who had asked questions of me, and I didn’t have answers. I reached out to Leslie Rohr who’s the executive director of Love Inc and I started asking questions. It dawned on me at that point that we ought to have a community and to have those questions being answered by the organization that’s going to be running the homeless shelter. I had hoped that the community would show up, ask questions, and get their questions answered from the source instead of what we hear rumors swirling around on Facebook. I’m very happy to say that we had a very good turnout tonight. There was a lot of questions, a lot of concern from the community.
The new facility is configured with 14 rooms and 22 available beds, both single and double occupancy. It also includes a TV room, a kitchen with appliances, a dining hall, and an outdoor area. It would be operated by staff and volunteers through Love Inc. The Kenai Peninsula Food Bank will be providing meals and area churches and volunteers will help with operations for the new facility.
Concerns regarding the location and the clientele were addressed at the meeting, according to Carpenter:
“I think the predominant concern is that the individuals who are homeless and the risk of negative consequences from that behavior is going to spill over into the neighborhoods and residents near the homeless shelter and Nikiski at large. I think that the risk is always there that that happens, whether there’s a homeless shelter in here or not. I think the homeless shelter has got a fairly good plan.”
For more information, call Love Inc. at (907) 262-5140, log on to www.peninsulaloveinc.org or visit them at 44410 Kalifornsky Beach Road, Soldotna, Alaska 99669 for information, to apply, or to volunteer.
Click here for more information on the shelter.