News

More than 60 inches of snow has fallen in Juneau during the last two weeks. That’s made it harder for people to get to the city’s emergency cold weather shelter in Thane.

Dave Ringle is executive director of Juneau’s St. Vincent de Paul chapter, which operates the shelter. He said the number of people staying there has increased as temperatures have dropped.

“Our numbers increased dramatically at the start of the new year,” he said. “We went from averaging 42 to averaging 52 people a night starting Jan. 1.” Click here to read more…

Juneau, Alaska – Since opening on Oct. 20, 163 individuals have come through Juneau’s cold weather emergency shelter (warming shelter).

Steven, a common resident, has been homeless for 10 years, he said, mostly living in the woods.

He said the shelter is a very good place for everybody who needs it, and the staff are good people. He’s known them for a long time because he’s stayed at previous shelters in Juneau.

When it comes to being homeless, Steven said people don’t understand that the cold can set in quickly. They don’t know what it’s like to wake up every day not knowing what’s next.

“On the streets it’s hard. If you aren’t in that crowd, you just don’t know. People just don’t know,” he said. “And I’m just a guy. A homeless guy.”

St. Vincent de Paul will operate the shelter until April 15, 2024. Click here to continue reading…

Martha Crockroft can’t say for sure, but she’s guessing she’s wrapped more than 200 donated presents a year for 15 or so years, so the number of kids tearing the paper off gifts on Christmas morning she’s handled is, well, a lot.

She was wrapping a coat for a young child at mid-morning Saturday in the community room at the St. Vincent de Paul Juneau complex on Teal Street, surrounded by hundreds of items still to be wrapped and picked up by families as part of the organization’s annual Adopt-A-Family Christmas Gift Program.

Stacked throughout the room were gifts ranging from video games to Matchbook planes (and, yes, probably some cars) to a vintage Princess Diana doll with authenticity documents awaiting decisions about which youths would be good matches for such gifts. While many of the items were timeless classics, Crockroft said both the wish lists and items donated have changed notably during her many years participating in the program.

First, Ringle gave a background on their organization.

“St. Vincent de Paul is a charity organization, we provide aid to people. That can be food, that can be utility assistance, that can be rental vouchers, but one of the things we do is we have 26 shelter rooms and 75 low-income housing units in our community. So we work primarily families and vulnerable seniors to get them off the streets and into housing. Then, once they’re in our shelter, we work on getting them into long-term rentals. We’re working hard to end the challenges of homelessness here in Alaska, and in Juneau, particularly.”

On Tuesday, January 31st there are services available at the Glory Hall in the valley and at Marine Park downtown. Click here to read more…

Point in Time Count will be January 31. This will be a community wide effort of the Juneau Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, the Glory Hall, and other service agencies with the support of a grant from Wells Fargo. Click here to listen to the interview on KINY.

In an effort to measure the number of people experiencing homelessness in communities across the country, this year’s point-in-time count will take place on Tuesday, Jan. 31.

Dave Ringle is the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul Juneau. On Juneau Afternoon, he said the count helps homeless service providers take stock of community needs and apply for funding. Click here to read more…