Anchorage Assembly members want behavioral health funding in the city's ask of the state

Anchorage Assembly members Erin Baldwin Day and Donald Handeland pressed the mayor's office Friday to add a behavioral health funding request to the city's draft state legislative program, arguing that homelessness and addiction are statewide problems landing in Anchorage.

The program is the city's list of requests to the Legislature each session. Its public safety section calls for stronger state drug interdiction, so troopers can intercept drugs before they reach Anchorage. It would also return first-offense possession of methamphetamine and cocaine to a Class C felony.

At the Assembly's Legislative Committee meeting, Baldwin Day said the draft names behavioral health but seeks no investment in care. Asking for interdiction and tougher penalties without prevention and intervention, she said, is only half the equation. She proposed no amount or program: "I don't know what specifically that ask ought to look like or how it could be structured."

Anna Brawley, the committee's vice chair, said the felony item "does give me pause" because it would require more resources for corrections and the courts. Nolan Klouda of the mayor's office said the police department and city legal staff identified that item, and that stronger penalties also create more options to steer people into treatment.

Handeland said Anchorage has 40% of the state's population and likely a larger share of its homeless residents. He called the city "the bottom of the funnel" for a state problem paid for mostly by Anchorage taxpayers.

Susanne Fleek-Green, the mayor's chief of staff, said crisis stabilization centers being opened by Providence and Southcentral Foundation this winter will not be enough. "Fairbanks closed their shelter. The Mat-Su will not open one. So we are the place where people come," she said. She said the administration will draft new language.

Brawley recalled a 2024 letter that listed the cost of police and fire call-outs. She said that push won a one-time $4 million grant to run the Midtown shelter, and she plans to make the argument again in Juneau.

Committee chair Janice Park said that when the governor cuts mental health services, "we shouldn't be surprised when people end up on the street." The state's fiscal 2027 veto summary lists $3.557 million vetoed from behavioral health treatment and recovery grants and $723,000 from prevention and early-intervention grants. It cites the need to preserve general fund money for long-term fiscal stability and says about $52.3 million remains in the base budget for those programs.

The program goes to the full Assembly for introduction Nov. 17. City code requires approval by Dec. 10.