Anchorage ordinance would drop 45-degree shelter trigger, raise site cap to 200

Anchorage opens emergency cold weather shelter when the temperature hits 45 degrees at the Merrill Field weather station. Under an ordinance before the Assembly on Tuesday, that would stop being how it works.

The rewrite strikes the 45-degree threshold, strikes the reference to Merrill Field as the official measure, and strikes the mayor's authority to open shelter during a declared civil emergency.

In their place, Anchorage Health Department Director Kimberly Rash would make a written finding that too few shelter options are available and that the lives and health of unsheltered people are at risk.

The director would also gain room to act. Municipal community centers and neighborhood recreation centers could be used as shelter outside a civil emergency, which the code now forbids. And a single site could hold 200 people rather than 150 without the Assembly voting to allow it. Last December, raising one shelter from 150 to 200 beds required an emergency Assembly meeting. Under the rewrite it would allow immediate action through the executive branch rather than waiting for the Assembly.

Sleeping in a vehicle would no longer be listed as its own category of shelter.

Two changes cut the other way, binding the department rather than freeing it. Shelter operators would get at least a week's notice before a closure, and overnight guests could not be turned out before normal closing time without good cause.

The administration recommends approval, describing the ordinance as catching up to a system Anchorage now funds year-round and giving the health director more room to judge when an emergency exists.

The changes trace to last December, when a cold snap ran past what the system could hold. Two shelters added 50 beds each, bringing the municipal total to 400, and the Assembly met in emergency session Dec. 12 to expand one of them. Members asked the administration to review the chapter then.

This year's Point-in-Time Count found the number of people sleeping outside in Anchorage down 28 percent. That figure comes with limits. It is a single-night snapshot taken Jan. 26, during a cold snap, recording where people slept rather than who has housing, and the organizations that conduct it use sampling and estimation to produce the unsheltered number. Anyone who came indoors that night counts as sheltered, whether the weather drove them in, they found somewhere else, or the city had added beds. Shelters were full or nearly full through the same stretch.

No one has gone on record against the ordinance.

The current system turns on a number any resident can check against a thermometer at a named station. The rewrite turns on a department director's written judgment. A companion ordinance is expected before the Assembly by the end of the year.