Willow Commons stays full in its first six months, health department says

Willow Commons has kept all 32 of its transitional living units full since it opened in March, Anchorage Health Department Director Kimberly Rash told an Assembly committee Wednesday. Of 58 people served through Oct. 13, 27 completed planned treatment, she said.

Willow Commons is a city-backed cluster of 32 small transitional living units with a shared bathroom and shower building and common space. It houses people experiencing homelessness while they go through day treatment for substance use with Anchorage Recovery Center, which runs the site. The project grew out of two Assembly task forces in 2022, one on sanctioned camping and one on complex behavioral health needs, and Visser Construction built it in 120 days, said Thea Agnew Bemben, the city's special assistant for homelessness and health.

Rash said $1.2 million in opioid settlement money helped build and prepare the site on the Tudor lot. Anchorage Recovery Center also received $500,000 in settlement startup money, which ran out in July. Rash said the city now provides no other funding for operations.

Asked by West Anchorage Assembly Member Kameron Perez-Verdia whether the model was sustainable, Rash told the Health and Homelessness Committee, "They are sustainable because they're not receiving any other funding." The center bills for the treatment it provides. Residents ride daily to its Lark Street site for what Agnew Bemben called ASAM Level 2.5 partial hospitalization, which she said is more simply described as day treatment.

Eight residents were transferred to other providers, for reasons including relapse and refusal to engage. Fifteen incidents from March through Oct. 19 included EMS calls, residents choosing to leave, substance use and bears on the campus. Residents who use substances on the property are removed, Rash said.

Midtown Assembly Member Erin Baldwin Day asked what the site costs to operate, whether micro-unit villages could serve as an alternative to sanctioned camping and how their costs compare with shelters. City officials said they didn't have the operator's financials with them but could get them.

Agnew Bemben cited a researcher's profile of the site: utilities averaging $4,611 a month from December through June and $100 monthly rent paid to the Anchorage Community Development Authority, though she said she wasn't sure the rent figure was right. By comparison, she said, the city spends about $568,000 a year on utilities and repairs at the East 56th Avenue shelter, plus about $84 per person per day for services. She said Willow Commons differs from sanctioned camping because residents must take part in treatment.

Jamie Lopez, a formerly homeless East Anchorage resident, said people without substance use issues can't get in and must first enter the center's program. "It's sort of a cherry-picked environment," he said. Agnew Bemben said the center has 35 people on its treatment waitlist.

Rash called the first six months a benchmark and plans to return in about a year with more data.