A place to call home

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

By Matthew Irwin

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. We’re speaking of homelessness in Jackson Hole.

It’s a form that seems unique to this community, but afflicts other resort regions – as full of great individual acts of giving as it is lacking in long-term solutions, and then, there’s the economy.

Smokey Rhea, executive director of Community Resource Center: “Lots of people are losing housing because of the economy. They are living with family and friends, but not in their own homes. People who thought they wouldn’t be in this position, are now seeing the other side.”

But we are also talking about street homeless having no place to go during winter daytime hours, about people moving from Nevada for false rumors of work, about affordable rentals crumbling for high-end condos.

Enough – CRC is working on a new program to confront homelessness on a systemic level with area churches, Community Counseling Center, Good Samaritan Mission, among other local service organizations, as well as state and federal agencies and national organizations. At the moment, the group is researching and identifying the issues.

“We’re not reinventing the wheel,” Rhea said. “We have different issues than a lot of people in the state, but we’re not unusual nationwide, in resort communities.”
Already CRC acts as a “bridge” for people stuck in a bind. Most clients, Rhea said, are area residents of 15 years or more. The organization helps with medical costs and the ensuing transportation costs, as many folks have to travel outside the valley to get care. CRC also helps with occasional mortgage payments, but only for people who fall behind because of lost or reduced work, not for people who got in over their heads to begin with.

But the number of people seeking help from CRC has increased significantly over the last year, Rhea said.

The economic situation – now referred to as the “jobless recovery” – has created an urgency to create long-term solutions that do drain funds from existing programs. The people of Jackson Hole have always been giving, Rhea said, especially during individual crises, but the ideal would be to create an environment in which fewer people need crisis assistance.

Two big concerns are: affordable rentals and daytime shelters for the homeless. Tack on to the latter concern, Rhea said, an uptick in women, especially mothers, who are not quite homeless but could easily be with a minor catastrophe.
“When an old hotel or trailer park closes, we lose affordable rentals,” Rhea said. “It’s not the fault of the [landowner]; it’s just that places once available are not there.”

As of now, homeless spend their days in public places like Albertson’s and Smith’s, Teton County Library and Mountain House, part of CCC. And it’s not enough to provide them a place to go for coffee, Rhea said, but also to provide something meaningful for the homeless and unemployed, such as resources to find work, job training and housing – in short, to keep people in Jackson Hole who want to remain.

“We will always have snow. We will always have the Tetons,” Rhea said. “So we always need people to work those service jobs. And if they move over to Victor or Driggs, we risk losing them to those communities.” JHW

File photo
Smokey Rhea, executive director of Community Resource Center.


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A place to call home | Planet JH News Article: General News

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