Juneau grants pay up to $13,500 to add a second unit, and a contractor list is coming

Juneau will pay a homeowner up to $13,500 to build an accessory dwelling unit, and the city funds 16 of them a year. Applications go in with the building permit.

That money is aimed partly at people who want to stay in their homes. Seniors over 55 make up 30 percent of Juneau's population, and 84 percent of them own their houses, according to Commission on Aging records.

The commission's housing workgroup is now assembling a directory of contractors for those homeowners, collecting names, specialties and experience with age-friendly work. It is not vetting anyone. What counts as qualifying is still being worked out, and the group meets publicly Sept. 9.

The list will anchor a resource table at an AARP summit on aging and caregiving at Centennial Hall on Nov. 4, alongside a Tlingit & Haida age-friendly housing project on Douglas.

Not everyone thinks a grant for a backyard unit reaches the people who need housing most. Juneau Senior Housing Partners and Dawson Construction, which developed Trillium Landing, have warned that the incentives may miss the lowest-income seniors, who need larger, deeply subsidized buildings rather than an addition to a house they already own.