People Are Dying in Mat-Su and Nobody Is Paying Attention
Contributed by Crystal Howard
People are sleeping in cars, in tents, in abandoned buildings. They are cold, hungry, sick, and afraid. When they die, there is no record. No acknowledgement. Their deaths vanish without a trace. Some of us have already lost friends and neighbors, and the world did not notice. Some of us are furious because their lives mattered and nobody counted them.
Family Promise takes some families if churches are willing to host. MY House serves some youth, and maybe one day it will have sixty-four beds, but right now it reaches far too few. Single adults have nowhere to go. They sleep wherever they can and survive however they can. The shelters that exist have rules that push people out. No pets, sobriety requirements, must be part of a family. People are turned away in the dead of winter and left to survive alone.
How are we supposed to know what services are needed in the Mat‑Su Valley when we have no data, no tracking, no understanding of who is out there or who dies? How are we supposed to plan when the system erases the people it is supposed to serve? How are we supposed to say we care when we do nothing while people freeze and starve and die?
The Coalition organizes one-day events. People show up, they get help for a few hours, and then they are back on the streets. There is no outreach to find people where they are, no shelters to take them in when they need it most, no one counting the dead, so their lives mean anything. People live and die and nobody keeps track.
We need beds for everyone who needs them. We need people who go out and find those who are struggling. We need a system that counts every person who dies alone. We need warmth, food, safety, respect, and action that meets people where they are. Anything less is unforgivable. If our community cannot do this, then we are complicit. When will we stop pretending? When will we demand that every life matters?