Anchorage administration tallies $31 million for shelter, outreach and crisis care

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's administration told the Anchorage Assembly on Friday that its proposed budget would spend $31.26 million next year on what it calls the Safe Anchorage budget.

The total gathers money already spread across city departments in the mayor's proposed $692.5 million operating budget. "It's not new money," said Thea Agnew-Bemben, a special assistant to the mayor, who said she puts the tally together because people often ask how much the city spends on homelessness.

Assembly Chair Anna Brawley, who represents West Anchorage, said it shouldn't all be counted that way. She pointed to lines such as child abuse prevention, domestic violence and sexual assault services, Narcan vending machines and the Finance Department's cost of running the alcohol tax. "A number of those are not just homelessness," she said. Most people the Mobile Crisis Team serves are housed, she said. "So the number is not actually as high as this."

Agnew-Bemben agreed, and said that's why the administration calls it the Safe Anchorage budget rather than a homelessness budget.

About 78%, or $24.3 million, comes from the city's general budget and alcohol tax. The rest, about $6.97 million, comes from opioid settlement money, a state grant and federal housing money. The general budget share is up this year almost entirely because of money for the seasonal surge of extra shelter beds, Agnew-Bemben said, the first increase in city and alcohol tax money for these programs since LaFrance took office.

The mayor's budget closes a gap of about $15 million mostly with one-time money, and LaFrance has warned of a fiscal cliff in 2028 without new revenue. The $3.01 million state grant in the tally runs only through June 2027, though the city plans to apply for a second year.

Shelter is the biggest piece, about $19.89 million. The city runs 300 year-round beds at the Alex Hotel, East 56th Avenue and Linda's Place and is adding beds to reach 450 by the end of November, Agnew-Bemben said. It also gives funds shelters run by others, such as Brother Francis Shelter and Covenant House.

Assembly Member Erin Baldwin Day, who represents Midtown, asked what it would cost to keep the extra beds open all year. When the city cut back to 300 beds this summer, people held onto their beds and business owners in Midtown and downtown saw a lot of people outside, Agnew-Bemben said. Her "working theory," she said, is that ending "the seasonal up and down, which we all know leads to camping," would make the system more stable, and the administration would like to find money from outside the city to do it. She said she would get the Assembly the cost.

LaFrance's budget memo says unsheltered homelessness fell 28% in the last year, "in part because of" code changes that let city teams quickly clear homeless camps. In the January Point-in-Time count, volunteers found 291 people sleeping outside. The count came during one of the coldest stretches in years and was the first to include Girdwood. More than half of the 160 unsheltered people volunteers interviewed said they weren't in shelter because there was nowhere to go. Of people who left emergency shelter early this year, the city could track 12% into permanent housing, and more than four in 10 left no record of where they went, according to city data presented in May.

The Assembly passed the city's camping ordinance in July 2025, and police began enforcing it that September. It makes camping a misdemeanor on or near trails, roads, schools, playgrounds, shelters and other protected places, and a more serious one if a person refuses a warning to move. The ordinance doesn't require a warning first, but police have chosen to give one, and officers check whether shelter is available before citing or arresting anyone, the city says. From September through June, police logged 1,085 contacts under it, according to the city's year-one report. Of those, 962 ended with people packing up and moving and 123 ended in arrest. Of the 962 who moved, 72 accepted services on the spot. The report credits the ordinance with allowing earlier, smaller interventions and counts no large-scale camp clearings this year through June.

The Assembly holds a public hearing on the budget Nov. 4, takes up amendments Nov. 6 and is scheduled to vote Nov. 17.