“Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek isn’t letting his fight with cancer stop him from helping those in need.
Trebek and his wife just helped open a housing facility for the homeless near his Hollywood neighborhood.
The newly opened “Alex and Jean Trebek Community Room” will offer temporary housing to 25 women and 60 men trying to get back on their feet.
The Trebeks say homelessness happens to ordinary people facing bad circumstances and they deserve help, not judgment.
“I’m not one of those people who thinks that we can’t deal with the homeless near my house because that’s bad,” the game show host said. “I don’t feel that way. I wish more people would react in a positive way to reaching out and trying to help their fellow member of the community.”
The facility will allow the homeless to “become folks who we know are human beings and can feel that humanity again,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
The “Alex and Jean Trebek Community Room” is part of “A Bridge Home” program which was started in 2018.
“Bridge housing” provides a temporary location for people experiencing homelessness to become stable again. And residents who move in must find permanent housing before they leave.
“The goal of A Bridge Home was very simple – to put A Bridge Home shelter in every one of LA’s 15 council districts and deliver the services they need to save their lives now,” Garcetti added.
With assistance from the Trebeks, who donated more than half a million dollars, the 15th shelter opened in North Hollywood on July 3.
Also, Trebek and his wife donated funds for the “Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission” shelter which plans to open in 2021.
“We feel it is incumbent upon people like us…to start putting back into the system to help those who are less fortunate because when you do that, you help unify the community, the society,” Trebek said.
Alex Trebek has been battling a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis for more than a year. In March, Trebek said he has found the will to fight through his faith in God and the prayers of millions of people around the world.