Anchorage Assembly to vote on $1.35M in supportive housing grants

Five Anchorage nonprofits stand to receive $1.35 million in supportive housing grants when the Anchorage Assembly votes June 23 on a package recommended by Mayor Suzanne LaFrance. The funding blends $550,000 in federal HOME-ARP dollars — pandemic-era HUD funds from the American Rescue Plan — with $800,000 in municipal general funds, and is the latest disbursement in a broader Anchorage homelessness response that has previously supported the purchase and renovation of 15 facilities, more than 600 new housing units, and ongoing shelter operations.

"Supportive housing" describes housing combined with services — life skills training, mental health treatment, outpatient health care, outreach, and substance use treatment — for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, or fleeing domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human trafficking. The model is designed for populations whose housing instability is intertwined with other needs that conventional shelter alone doesn't address.

The five recommended awardees, scored by a three-member evaluation committee from 12 eligible proposals:

• RurAL CAP (Rural Alaska Community Action Program) — the largest award at $507,750.40 over 12 months. RurAL CAP runs supportive housing across Alaska, including Karluk Manor in Anchorage.

• Alaska Women's Aid in Crisis (AWAIC) — $316,350.40 over 10 months. AWAIC operates Anchorage's primary domestic violence shelter.

• Covenant House Alaska — $240,120.00 over 12 months. Serves young people experiencing homelessness.

• New Life Development — $166,848.00.

• Aleut Community of St. Paul Island — $118,931.20.

Seven other eligible applicants were not selected, including Anchorage Affordable Housing and Land Trust, Henning Inc., Partners for Progress, and United Way of Anchorage.

The $1.35 million sits inside a much larger Anchorage homelessness conversation that this Assembly meeting will also touch through AM 394-2026 — a separate $2.57 million federal HUD entitlement plan covering Community Development Block Grant, HOME, and Emergency Solutions Grant funds. Both are part of Mayor LaFrance's broader "10,000 Homes in 10 Years" strategy and the city's ongoing response to the homelessness crisis that has been a contested public concern across multiple administrations.

The supportive housing grants are constrained by what federal pandemic-era funding allows. HOME-ARP dollars come from the 2021 American Rescue Plan and are time-limited; once obligated, they're not replenished from the same source. Whether Anchorage's supportive housing capacity can be sustained at this level once these specific dollars are spent depends on future federal appropriations, municipal general fund decisions, and continued nonprofit fundraising — substantive open questions for the city's long-term homelessness response.