Alaska Corrections gets $1 million to expand Anchorage housing for people leaving custody

The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded the Alaska Department of Corrections a $1 million grant to expand Home for Good Anchorage, a supportive housing program, to people leaving state custody. The money was first obligated Oct. 16.

Under the proposal described in the federal award record, the expansion would serve about 12 new participants in Anchorage who are being released from Department of Corrections custody, are at moderate to high risk of reoffending and are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

The project would also set up what the award record calls the first outcomes-based contract between a housing program and the state, with Department of Corrections recidivism data used to decide who is eligible and to measure results. The record lists the expected outcomes as more stable housing, less recidivism and less use of emergency systems.

United Way of Anchorage would serve as subrecipient and program intermediary, managing operations, contracts and the Home for Good housing fund. Southcentral Foundation would be the primary service provider, delivering intensive case management and behavioral health services.

The money comes from the federal Second Chance Act Reentry Initiative, and the grant period runs from Oct. 1 through March 31, 2031. The $1 million is what has been obligated, not what has been spent.

Home for Good is not new. The award record describes it as an established pay-for-success initiative that provides supportive housing and intensive case management to people with high use of public systems. "We've supported Home for Good all of this year, which is a permanent supportive housing project for people with very high complex needs," Thea Agnew Bemben, a special assistant to the mayor, told the Anchorage Assembly on July 15, 2025.

The department's three-year recidivism rate for people released on felonies in 2022 was 55.70 percent, down from 61.47 percent for those released in 2018, according to its current offender profile. A state recidivism report says people without stable housing are more likely to reoffend, citing research that formerly incarcerated people entering homeless shelters were seven times more likely to abscond in their first month than those with housing.

In a March 2025 presentation to the Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee, the Alaska Reentry Partnership said the state does not have data showing a correlation between reentry efforts and lower recidivism, citing differing definitions of reentry and success and differing tracking periods.