Anchorage Assembly: Health & Homelessness Committee Meeting

And Member Park joined us at 11:03.

It looks like we also have been joined by Member Handeland on the phone at 11:04. Yes, I'm here. Thanks.

Do we want to just start without the slides? Sure. Yes, I can do that. Okay, so a little bit about the history of the funding that funded this project. So as we know, or may not know, the opioid settlement funds was a nationwide settlement in 2021.

The municipality, or the State of Alaska, had agreed to participate in the settlement and 3 multi-state settlements with opioid manufacturers and a chain of pharmacies in ongoing legal actions related to the opioid crisis. The settlement funds may only be spent on activities and expenditures included on the list of opioid remediation uses, which is Exhibit E of the settlement document. This includes treatment and prevention, and they have reporting requirements between the different settlement agencies. The Municipality of Anchorage established the opioid settlement fund within the Anchorage Health Department as an annual special revenue fund to separate— in a separate account so that we could record a report on the opioid settlement proceeds and their allowable uses starting in 2022. So each of the projects that we have within the opioid settlement funds has its own line item so we can track and report out on the those different revenues, incoming revenue sources.

Another piece of notation is that when we do receive our settlement funds, they come in different spurts throughout the year. So sometimes we get $4,000, sometimes we get a couple hundred dollars. In other cases, we get large sums of funds. As it relates to Willow Commons, we use $1.2 million of the opioid funds which assisted in the build of the units and preparation of Willow Commons. In addition to that, we provided $500,000 to the Anchorage Recovery Center for startup funds for their services.

Just so that there's understanding in the delineation between the two, the Anchorage, uh, ACDA went out and procured a contractor in which the $1.2 million was used over there, and the Anchorage Health Department put out an RFP in which we have the Anchorage Recovery Center with their services. And so there's two different types of documents. So with Anchorage, or ACDA, they have a lease with Anchorage Recovery Center for the actual location. And the Anchorage Health Department has a contract with Anchorage Recovery Center for the services.

Any questions about the history of the opioid funds or how they were used so far? No. All right. The next, we're going to talk about the build, and if you could see the presentation, you would see some lovely pictures of when the build was occurring on site. And so I'm going to have Thea talk about the build, as she was quite instrumental in that process.

Thanks, Kim. Thea Agnew-Bemben, for the record. So just to back up in terms of how this concept came to be. Back in 2022, the Assembly convened two, like, citizen task forces. One was on sanctioned camping, the other was on complex behavioral health needs.

And really, the outcome of those two task forces identified, for the sanctioned camping, identified some locations as well as some structure types that could be used for that. And the Complex Behavioral Health Task Force identified the need for some type of transitional housing and a kind of low-barrier, safe form of housing and the need for services. So really, this project was a kind of merging of those, the outcomes of those two citizen task forces. So I like to remind everybody of that, 'cause I think sometimes people say, "Hey, I served in that task force. What happened with that?" Well, this is what happened with it.

Okay, so we did work from those findings to this project. The building process, as Kim mentioned, the RFP for the contractor was developed collaboratively by our internal team, and then it was released by ACDA. They managed that RFP, and we got about 12 bids. We got a lot of quality bids for that, that RFP. And the winning bidder was Visser Construction.

And part of why they were the winning bidder was the criteria for the RFP gave you more points for the number of units you could produce and also the projected cost per unit. And then also for the, the support facilities that you were gonna be able to deliver. What one of the things that was nice about Visser's proposal was that they bid— they provided a proposal with the maximum number of what was in the RFP, which was 24, but then they also provided extra space on their site plan for additional units. And that became helpful when we were actually successful at gaining some additional private funding that then allowed us to purchase those additional units. So Visser was able to do the whole build in 120 days, which, to be honest, is nothing short of a miracle.

And it wasn't even during the summer. We, I think, signed the contract with them in October, and we had the ribbon cutting December 10th on an extremely cold day, if anyone was there. That also involved a lot of cooperation from our utilities, from our Development Services departments. They really helped expedite the planning. We had one issue that came up when they were putting in the, the water sewer infrastructure and found that there was groundwater, and AWU and others like jumped right in and helped us solve those problems.

So this— or getting the bill done in 120 days was both because they did a great job, but also because many of our partners really came on board to make this happen, which was awesome.

Basically, just to remind everybody what we have there, now we have 32 housing units, traditional— or sorry, transitional living units, and then we have common spaces. So there's a shared bathroom and shower facility, a common indoor space, there's two pretty good-sized office spaces, and then there's also shared outdoor space.

A really nice deck. The last time I was there, I noticed they put up a gazebo outside, so, and there's room for doing more stuff, like there could be some awesome gardens like they put in our backyard that could totally work. There's also some screened areas for garbage. There is a space for pets, but they haven't had any pets there.

Yeah, so that's, we can go to the next slide.

Okay, we also were able to make sure that the, at least one of the transitional living units is ADA compliant and that the bathroom is compliant and also all the common areas. And the goal of the facility really is to provide safe and secure transitional living units, as well as a kind of community sort of a setting that really supports community and support between the individuals staying there and the folks that are working there. I think that's all I have to say there. So next slide.

We did— this was a massive team effort, and I really want to thank everybody who contributed to make this a success. The Health Department, as Kim mentioned, has really done the heavy lifting when it comes to making the funds available to the different departments as well as putting out the contract for the services that are provided there. We had— it says planning up here, but we also had all of development services, so our building services department, permitting, so many folks over there really came to the table. The police department was the one that made the location available to us because they used to use this location for long-term storage of police cars, but we realized it was a great spot because it was flat, it was already paved, already fenced, and very near to infrastructure. So they were willing to move those cars and make that space available to us.

ACDA did a great job with the RFP, and they continue to provide property management services. So they're the ones that Anchorage Recovery can call if they have a problem with the facility. They're also the leaseholder there. And then, as Kim mentioned, through the competitive RFP, Anchorage Recovery Center was the winning bidder there, so they are delivering the services to the folks that are staying at Willow Commons.

All right, thank you for that. Next slide. All right, so let's dive into the data that we have. The data that we are reporting on today is from March of this year to October. And really, the services with within the contract that Anchorage Recovery Center has with the Anchorage Health Department is to deliver behavioral health treatment and recovery services.

And what that means is maintaining a high-quality, compliant service delivery aligned with standards of clinical and rehabilitative care, providing peer support and mentorship, maintaining environments supportive of recovery, monitoring supporting well-being of service participants, and maintaining financially sustainable programs. In addition to that, they are to provide case management. So they're coordinating referrals to and from the MOA teams and community providers. They're collaborating with participants to develop treatment and recovery plans. They provide support to participants to complete those treatment plans, and they maintain documentation and high standards of clinical and rehabilitative care.

In addition to all of those services, they do have to maintain their facility operations and make sure that is and remains a safe and compliant facility. In addition, so what are some accomplishments that we've seen in the past 6 months? 32 Beds, as Thea mentioned, is the number of beds that we have at that location. They have been filled consistently from the beginning. 58 Individuals as of October 13th, of which 27 have had a planned treatment completion.

There was 8 transferred to other providers, and really transfers can be a gamut of different things. Either they're not— either the patient or the client is not in the correct level of care based upon their ASAM scores, the client is using or has relapsed, and they would need to go back to detox, or if the client is refusing to engage with the program. In addition to that, there have been a delivery of 400 treatment sessions. 237 Participant appointments have been scheduled, and those are of the 58 individuals. There have been 50 re-engagement attempts made by the Anchorage Recovery Center.

So like I just mentioned, re-engagement would be if an individual is no longer at Willow Commons, but is a part of the program, they would try to re-engage with one of the individuals of the 58 of those. And then 3 individuals re-engaged in the services of that.

Next slide.

So again, one of the questions we often get is what services are provided on-site, so that is at Willow Commons, and then what services are provided off-site at Lark Street. Lark Street is run by the Anchorage Recovery Center. What is provided on-site is the housing, the security within the, within the area. So that is making sure that they feel safe, comfortable living in those units. And then there is a behavioral health therapist on-site.

However, there are no billable services on-site at Willow Commons. So just to make that very clear. Off-site, the individuals that are residing at Willow Commons are transported to Lark Street on a daily basis. Where they receive their clinical services, group therapy, individual therapy, their case management services. They have peer support specialists on site and other mental health supports.

Next slide.

So when we talk about wraparound services with partner agencies, as I mentioned, as part of their deliverables and their scope of work, they work very closely with many different entities within the community. They work with the HOPE team, the mobile crisis team, the safety Patrol. They work with our mobile clinic team. They work with Arctic Recovery, Lutheran Social Services, Gospel Rescue Mission, Department of Corrections. And so really, this is a community-wide effort, and that they're working really well with all the individuals within the continuum to really make sure that there are services that are provided to the individuals that are residing at Willow Commons.

Next slide. Member Baldwin Day joined us at 11:17. And this right here is just another listing of wraparound services with partner agencies. So again, they partner with South Central, Gospel Rescue Mission, North Star, who oversees Arctic Recovery, SALA, who runs the Anchorage Safety Patrol and Safety Center, MIT, MCT, and the fire department. Next slide.

So I thought it would be helpful to really go over the terms follow-up and re-engagement. So on the previous slide, we talked about what it meant to have re-engagements and what it talked about with follow-ups. And so I wanted to delineate the two. A follow-up is that the treatment plan was completed and that Anchorage Recovery Center then reaches out 24 hours to check in on that individual, and then there is a fixed schedule to ensure support while they're no longer in the program. And so when a follow-up occurs, it means that they have graduated from the program, and they have 30, 90, 120, and 365 days from the program graduation that follow-ups occur.

Status updates regarding housing, employment, substance use, mental health, and recovery supports are part of that process. Now, what does it mean when they re-engage with an individual? So re-engagement is, uh, there are monthly alumni meetings to reach out to clients who have left the program. And again, when we talk about individuals leaving the program, it may be because they're not in the correct level of care, they have relapsed, um, they're refusing to engage, or, um, if they become violent in any way. And they ask them if they would like to return back into the program.

If a client left due to relapse, they're offered detox services and returned to the program when they completed their detox services. So again, those are the delineations between the two.

Next up.

Oh, next slide, sorry, thank you. Another question that we're asked often is how many incident reports do we have there? What are the types of incident reports that we have? And so as of, from March to October 19th, there was 15 reported incidents. And so the top number you see is just the total number for that month.

The bullet points underneath make up that same number above. So if you look at April, there were 3 reported incidents, 2 which were medical requested, and 1 was the substance use on the property. And so medical requests tend to be anything from shortness of breath, chest pains, falling off a step, pneumonia, struggling breathing, anything of that nature. There have been some bears on the campus, as you know, being in Alaska here. So that is considered an incident report.

Incident reports are reported to the Anchorage Health Department, and we do follow up with the contractor as part of the contract that we have with them.

I have a question from Member Baldwin Day. Thank you. So when medical is requested, is that Is that generally like an EMS call or is that a different kind of transport? No, that is an EMS call to the program. Okay, got it.

And then voluntary discharge, what is— can you talk a little more about what that means?

So the person has decided that they no longer want to be in the program or at that location. They can then go to any of their other locations through Anchorage Recovery Center, or they can just exit the program, but they have made that decision on their own. They weren't told that they had to remove themselves from that property location. And what is the expectation for substance use on property, just in terms of like the, in the larger scheme of this kind of operation? Is this Is this something we would anticipate seeing?

Is this something that is generally experienced in similar facilities elsewhere? I would love a little more insight on that. Yeah, so I would say it would be expected as part of services rendered. The expectation is that there will not be substance use on the property, so that is why it's considered an incident report, and the individual is then removed from the property if there is substance abuse. I think what really happens there is that sometimes the individual needs to restart their journey, and what that looks like is through the case management services that Anchorage Recovery Center completes to decide where that journey then begins again.

Yeah, so what is that— so what does that process look like? You know, someone uses a substance, that's discovered or otherwise reported, and And then what happens? Yeah, great question. So the individual, the, there is individuals on site there through Anchorage Recovery Center leadership. And so when it is identified, there is a conversation that occurs.

They go to the Lark Street location to figure out what the next steps are in the plan. Obviously, the last thing that happens is they don't want the individual to then be unhoused. So it really looks like really working with that individual to then move out of the unit into either detox or any other— they have two other locations in which they have housing.

And so I would say it's a very collaborative process as much as it can be.

So it sounds like there's a variety of RAMS. Yes. That are provided. Yes. Thank you.

Next slide.

And so these are the financials of the opioid funding. So this is only specific to the $500,000 that the Anchorage Recovery Center received as startup costs. As you can see, there's blue is what they invoiced and what was spent in that month, and then what was remaining of the $500,000. So as you can see, From March to July, it took them that long to spend the $500,000. And on the next slide, it actually shows what is allowable and approved and what was unallowable under our contract with Anchorage Recovery Center.

Next slide.

And so anything under the allowable approved is what was invoiced for. So that's personnel only at the Tudor lot, and that is Willow Commons. Security, utilities, CollaborativeMD is their billing software, telephone use, KIPU Services, which is their electronic health record, and car insurance. What was not allowable was the rent that they paid to ACDA on a monthly basis, the security deposit in which they moved in in March, the decor for the main office and case manager's office, sick leave and PTO for the staff, that the personnel and any services prior to March 19th, which is when the contract was fully executed. I have a question from Member Park.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Doctor, you mentioned billing, and I'm wondering, are all of the clients on some kind of social services that they can receive Medicaid, and who do you bill? How are those billed? So we do not, so the Health Department does not bill for any of those services.

So Anchorage Recovery Center will bill for the services that they provide to the individual. I do not know out of the individuals that stayed at Willow Commons how many are on Medicaid, but they, I would make the assumption that individuals that are on Medicaid that the then they're billed appropriately through that.

Thank you. Another question from Member Baldwin Day. Thank you. Car insurance, is that a vehicle that's used to transport clients, or what's that? Yeah, so early on in the presentation, we talked about what services are provided on-site, which ones are provided at Lark Street.

So the car insurance is the insurance for that vehicle that then transports them from the Tudor lot to Lark Street. But that vehicle is owned by Anchorage Recovery Center. The municipality does not own that. Anything that is purchased under the contract, so any, anything like bedding, anything like that, if it is purchased with grant funds or municipality funds, it becomes the property of the municipality.

Just like any other contract that we have. Thank you.

Okay, so that is all that I have today on our 6-month progress. One of the other questions that I often get is, how do we know if they're successful or not? And I think this is a great way to have a benchmark. And really, this data that we are collecting today and what I presented today is really the first 6 months. So that is the benchmark to then see what the next 6 months look like.

So our— my plan The plan is that in a year, I will come back to you and provide more updates, and then I'll be able to really tell you, like, within the 6 months, they were able to meet with X amount of people. In the next 6 months, this is what it looks like. And so really, this is just our starting point, like our starting platform, that then we can build off that data from this point.

Okay, thank you. This is Kameron. I was trying to get into the queue. Can I ask a question? Go ahead, Member Perez-Verdia.

Thank you. Just a couple of questions. I wanted to go back to the conversation about the financials. Are the services here, are we billing insurance as a part of this? The Health Department does not do any billing for this service.

The Anchorage Recovery Center does billing for their services that they have rendered to the clients in which are participating in the program.

Okay, so what I'm trying to figure out is, is this a sustainable model in that at some point all of the costs could potentially be covered by insurance? Yeah, so as of right now, if you look at those financials, they ended in July of this year, so the municipality is not providing any other funding for this operation. So They are sustainable because they're not receiving any other funding. And really, that funding was just to start up, so to get the personnel in place because this is such a new endeavor for us. But as of right now, they're not receiving any additional funding.

Great. And just one other follow-up. You had mentioned that some of the members had left because of a need for a different level of service. I'm wondering what level of service this provides. If you could give us a description of like what is the ideal client for this particular service.

Yeah, this is Thea. I can answer that question. So Kim referred to ASAM levels, so that's the American Society of Addiction Medicine. And when somebody is in Alaska, if they are going to engage in behavioral health treatment, and this is specifically if, if that treatment provider is certified by Alaska Medicaid, they first go through what's called an integrated behavioral health assessment. And that looks at both a whole range of things, but including your mental health and your substance use.

And partly through that assessment, the provider determines what level of care that person would, would most benefit from. And so I think a lot of people are, you know, just sort of casually familiar with like, going to treatment means going to residential care and being gone for 30 to 60 to 90 days, that's only one level of care, and it's actually a pretty high level of care. And so what we often find is that many people, one, can't go and live somewhere else for 3 months without their family or anything else. That just isn't very practical. Excuse me.

And so the level of care that's being offered for folks who are staying at Willow Commons is, it's kind of an annoying term, but it's called partial hospitalization program. It's not at all related to a hospital. Hospital, but what that means, probably a more casual way to say it is just day treatment. So you're receiving treatment during the day and then you go home at night. Of course, if you're someone who's experiencing homelessness, that's hard to do.

So Willow Commons is really providing that safe sheltered transitional location for people to live, to stay while they're engaging in what's called ASAM Level 2.5 partial hospitalization. Treatment, and then they might step down from there into what's called intensive outpatient. So, and these levels of care all have requirements in terms of how many hours of treatment a person needs to participate in on a weekly basis. And then from intensive outpatient, you might just step down to outpatient or, you know, kind of recovery supports as you— so the ideal is that people go from a higher level of care and keep stepping down until they're able to maintain without, you know, constant engagement.

Thank you. That's really helpful that this is not really a typical inpatient program, but it's in some ways sort of an outpatient program where they live there, but they're participating in treatment. Would that be correct? Yeah. And if you want to get really technical, if you say inpatient, that means someone is actually hospitalized.

So they're, they're in a facility. Residential care, while they are staying somewhere and engaging in treatment, is, is, is, is a step down from what we would call inpatient. And then outpatient care, partial hospitalization is like the highest level of outpatient care. Gotcha. Okay.

Thanks very much. That was really helpful to understand who's there and what kind of treatment they're receiving. Thank you, Chair. Okay, I have another question from Member Baldwin Day. Yeah, thank you.

I'm wondering if we have any visibility into what the actual operating costs are for this facility, sort of irrespective of Medicaid reimbursement and things like that. Do we know how much— do we have any window into the operator's financials?

I don't have that with me today, no, but I can certainly get that and get a more holistic overview of what does it actually cost to provide care. And perhaps I could break that down by a per-person rate, but it might— each person has different levels, so I guess that might not work either. So do we have any idea what just the sort of the raw costs, if we were to remove treatment from the equation and we're just talking about operating micro-units as like a housing intervention. Do we know what that, what that looks like as far as utilities, security, snow removal? I mean, just sort of the basic basics of facility operation.

Yeah, sorry. So I think that we've shared at some other meetings, this project has like numerous evaluators. Some of them are associated with Bloomberg, who's one of our funders, and some of them are separate. So Megan Holtan, who just finished her PhD, she's now a professor at University of Alaska Southeast, she included Willow Commons in her, basically her PhD work, which looked at, I think, 9 different Alaska housing interventions. And I can share this with you, but she did a profile for each of them.

And so in the profile, she shares that the utilities, excuse me, between December and June were $4,611 per month. So that included electricity, which does provide the heat for the units and power. And then property management was $850 a month. Insurance was just over $2,000 a year. And then they're paying $100 a month in rent to ACDA.

I thought that was actually higher, so I'm not positive about that last number. But there probably is more detail that we could get from Megan if you were interested in that. Yeah, I really, I really am. You know, I know there's been, as you all mentioned at the very beginning of your presentation, there's been this really long arc of a conversation about things like sanctioned camping, right? There was a whole— there was a task force that dealt with that.

And, and I'm— I think I'm— my curiosity really is, you know, around how, how does this framework potentially become an alternative to sanctioned camping, you know, since there were and continue to be a whole host of safety concerns around what a sanctioned camp would look like. And so just as we're thinking about the the breadth of ways that we try to support folks who are unhoused. I was curious about what this really, what this could look like if we were operating, you know, a couple of small micro unit villages as a sanctioned camp alternative. And what, what is the price tag for that? And how does that compare with congregate and non-congregate shelter?

You know, again, thinking about how we intersect with a variety of different populations who are looking for housing. So, yeah. So I guess just to speak to that, 'cause people do ask about that a lot. When you look, for example, at East 56, the Health Department leases that facility and the municipality covers all the utilities and repairs and whatnot to the tune of about $568,000 a year. And then for the services that our contractor provides, which includes all the staffing, having case management there, behavioral health, meals, all the things for 24/7 care, it's about $84 per person per year, or sorry, per person per day.

Sorry. So I think the important thing to know is that, and it would be wonderful for you guys to invite In Our Backyard to come and share their experience too, because they're also, you know, we kind of built from their success. But I think what I've heard them say recently is that, you know, building the buildings is easy, and you heard that took 120 days, and I wouldn't say it's easy, but it's a one-and-done. Keeping people supported and safe and on the right path, that is a 24/7 never-ending task. And if you want to do that with staff, you have to pay them.

So the reason that Willow Commons has the operating model that it does, like Director Rasch was saying, is that we didn't have operating funds to add another 32 transitional living units to our inventory. But when we operate them using a behavioral health treatment provider, beyond that startup cost, they are covering the cost because they are billing for their services. And then that is what covers the staffing and the, you know, all the things. That said, they have to be— the people staying there are participating in treatment, so that it's not the same as I think what people mean when they say sanctioned camping, which I think what they mean is anyone can be there. I guess I'm— that's unclear to me.

What do people mean? That you can be there and do whatever you want? Because I think we know what that looks like. We've tried that here. We tried that at Centennial Park for the summer, and I'm not willing to take that over again.

Not that I did it before. I never would do that. I think that's absurd. So I'm not sure what people mean, but I think if you want to have people be safe and have a location where they can close the door and keep their stuff safe and keep themselves safe and have people there to monitor that, It's not easy, it's not cheap. It's, I think it's a fantasy if people think that they can do that in some way.

I think we've done that already. Yeah, I guess my curiosity comes from two parts. One is, you know, this is a question that I hear quite a bit from the public. And so having good information to share back to the public about the actual cost of operations of something like this relative to, you know, congregate and non-congregate shelter and some of the other options that we have is really useful. I mean, because I think giving people dollars and cents insight into what that really means and what it would look like for us to try to stand up something like this, if it were a sober camp or something along those lines.

What, you know, what does that really look like in terms of staffing? And I don't think that that's entirely clear to the public. And I think it's I think it would go a long way if some of that information was more visible to say, no, it actually costs X hundred thousand dollars annually to, you know, offer this as an option. And, and here are the reasons why that doesn't make sense in our current model. So that's one piece of it.

I think the second piece is, to your point about, you know, what do people mean when they talk about sanctioned camping?

My, I'm not coming from this perspective where, you know, y'all come and do whatever you want is the understanding or the model. And I'm aware that there have been some really successful projects done elsewhere where it wasn't necessarily a behavioral health model, but there were community norms that the community themselves developed and then enforced. And it was intentionally developed as a safe space for people to exist who were not interested in participating in illicit or illegal activities.

So again, I think it's a useful conversation to have, and I understand that it's very fraught because of the way that things have happened in the past. But I think it's something that we need to continue to educate the public about. And that's kind of the genesis of my questions along these lines. So thank you. I can also confirm that the rent is $100 a month, and then the security deposit was around $22,000.

Thank you. Okay, um, I have a question from Member Park. Thank you, Chair. I'm wondering, how are the food services handled? Do the people have access to money?

Do I—. And I know that some of the facilities do allow a microwave in the unit. So is there group food accessibility, or do they have money to go buy something? Yes, so they purchase their own food. There are microwaves in the units.

And then in the little clubhouse, they also— a bunch of them have provided like snacks and stuff. So sometimes they have potlucks and things like that. But yes, they provide their own food. Thank you. Okay, we're going to— Okay, we have several other presentations.

I promise this is the last one. Is there a waitlist right now for Willow Commons?

The latest information we have is that Anchorage Recovery Center has a total of 60 beds. So they have two other locations where they also have people in recovery residences. And so they're seeing 60 clients a day in their treatment, and they have 35 people on the waitlist. So those aren't necessarily for Willow Commons, but to get into treatment services. So some of them then might come into Willow Commons.

Perfect, thank you.

Great, thank you. And so next we have a shelter surge capacity update, and that's also the Anchorage Health Department and also RRS.

All right, thank you so much. So many already know, many probably don't, we have surged. We started surging earlier this year so that we could make sure that we had enough space for everyone. As of right now, today, on October 21st, we have 150 beds at East 56 and 150 beds at Linda's Place. With the passage of 16.120 at the last assembly meeting, the Anchorage Health Department is allowed to go up to 200 beds at one location before assembly approval is needed, so we will continue to surge at East 56 up to 200, and we will be at the maximum of 200 by November 30th.

And the way that we staggered it with the funding that we have is that we increased every other week, and so our next surge will start at East 56 next week, and then it will go every other week until we get up to 200 by the end of November. As of last year, we didn't surge up to 200 until almost the end of December. And so again, it would be, it's always dependent on, you know, the population and the weather and really what we're seeing there. Any questions on surge? I have a question.

Do you have any plans for warming?

So warming, just to make sure that everyone understands what warming is, so warming in the context aspects of what we do here at the municipality or what we've historically done in the past, warming is that an individual cannot sleep all night. They have to stay up and that's due to fire code. And so warming isn't ideal because imagine you having to stay up and someone trying to poke you awake all through the night while you're like, hey, I'm warm, I'm, you know, I have a snack and I, you know, I'm not thirsty anymore. And it just does not work well. And so really what we have, we've gone away from warming and what we have in place is our surge.

And so we're surging beds up. If in addition last year there was an additional activation of additional usage of the Anchorage Safety Center, which was at, which was run by SALA. And so we're still looking at what those options are for when We really do need to increase perhaps a little bit more when it gets really cold. Historically, those is based upon when it's negative temperature, but we have gotten away from warming. It's just, it's not ideal for an individual to be awake all night like that.

Thank you.

I'm Kathleen McLaughlin with RRS. Just wanted to make a couple comments on the surge. We targeted placement for surges ever since the— we started this about a month ago, and what I mean by that is we went to certain areas of the town that had the highest visible homelessness issues. So the first group, we had 40, we targeted Midtown, then we went to Mountain View. Last, this last surge of up to 20, we went directly to the Safety Center and we pulled people out of the Safety Center who were there to rest and who were not using the Safety Center for title.

Next Monday, we'll add another 10 beds. That will be done at Homeless Connect, which is expecting to have a large homeless population coming for services, and we will fill those beds from there, and the goal is to try to target the highest areas of being outside. One of the gaps that we do have and we continue to have is, uh, we were fortunate with going to the Safety Center. We took 15 people from the Safety Center and 11 have continued to stay in shelter of those 15, and that's been 10 days. So that we view as a, as a quiet win.

On the flip side, we also are seeing people congregating in certain areas of downtown and who are not really wanting to be in shelter but they are needing to be in shelter and we need to figure out how to more aggressively engage in that population because I think they are at higher risk. And there are people that we know, Emily Cho was supposed to be giving this presentation but somebody that's an assembly person that I won't name needed some assistance and so that's where she's at right now.

The other thing I just wanted to point out on the surge beds is we are trying to use the Alex Hotel as a more intensive case management and we're also seeing a lot of hospital discharges of individuals that are medically vulnerable and that wouldn't do well in the congregate setting. So we are doing a lot of maneuvering between the shelters as well as with the Hope Center, Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission, and BEANS in order to give people the level of care that they need.

And one notation too, all of our reports are located online, so the most up-to-date one is if you go to the muni.org Health Department, Housing and Homelessness, there's actual tab that says third-party oversight, and then the list from all of 25 and 26 is listed there.

Does anybody have any questions? Okay, Member Baldwin Day. Thank you. So when we're saying surge, what we're really talking about is just ramping up into the colder months. Okay, yes.

So, so it's not like we're surging and then we're going to pull back, it's we are actually stair-stepping into— Correct. More shelter beds, great. Yeah, and then the plan would be to remain at the heightened level until such time that either individuals are moved into other locations. So that may be housing or detox recovery, or, you know, the work that Kathleen and her team do. But yeah, the plan is to remain at that.

So just for clarity, how many shelter beds do we have now and how many do we expect that we will have open, say, in like December. So right now it's 150 at each location, so East 56 and Linda's Place, and then we have the 100 at the Alex Hotel, and then we will be increasing capacity up to 200 by November 30th at East 56. We will remain at 150 at Linda's Place and 100 at Alex.

And if that's 450, gotcha. And if we have a— if we have an extremely cold snap as we did last winter, do we have a contingency plan for that? Yeah, and so that's continually what Thea and I are working on is what does that look like funding for this year. We have put funding in the 2027 proposed budget for additional beds in the colder months but we're still working on that right now. Thank you.

Okay, I think that looks like all the questions. Thank you and it looks like we will move on next to the Department of Law.

Hello, Joe Bussa, Deputy Municipal Attorney. I'm happy to give you a few hopefully quick updates. First, on item 3C, which you didn't put this on the agenda, it's not really a potential abatement. There is an actual ongoing abatement occurring, I believe, at Campbell, right next to Far North Bicentennial, for the Tudor and Elmore. Am I wrong about that, Thea?

It's actually in Far North. It's an area bounded by the Chuck Albrecht ball fields and Elmore, and then down to where Dowling would go through. So it is in far north, across the road from Campbell. Yes, but it is on Campbell Creek. So that's just one quick note.

The other quick note is we are at sort of a milestone in a set of cases that we're challenging the constitutionality of our civil abatement code. And so we just wanted to give you a very quick one— rundown of where we're at in that. It's not the end of the road, there's more to come, but we wanted to give you the quick update anyway. Um, there have been 4 cases in state and federal district court seeking to challenge the constitutionality of our civil abatement code, and all of them are now concluded at the trial court level and have now moved on to an appellate stage. Um, I could give you the rundown of the cases, but I think might be more helpful just to give you a rundown of the types of constitutional claims the courts have resolved, in general how the courts have resolved them, and then what the road ahead looks like.

And of course, we're in active litigation, so I won't be able to, you know, give you a very large amount of detail. And of course, my esteemed opposing counsel is in the room, and, you know, so if you have more confidential questions, you know, please do come to me. I'm happy to talk with you one-on-one. But just from a high-level overview, Judge Gleason in the federal district court case issued a decision determining that the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment are not violated when we post a 10-day notice for abatement and then move in and clear out anything that remains in the abatement area after the posting of that 10-day notice. Um, Judge Gleason concluded that we have significant government interests in abating, um, prohibited encampments and that the procedures, the extensive procedures you've put in code requiring notice, an opportunity to appeal, the opportunity for storage during any pending appeal, are more than reasonable and satisfy the requirements of the Fourth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

There's a set of three other cases that have raised both federal constitutional claims and also state law, state law analogs to those federal constitutional claims, and they've raised a broader set of arguments, not only allegations about search and seizure and due process, but also cruel and unusual punishment, the right to privacy, and Alaska, Alaska constitutional provisions regarding provision for the public health and welfare, vagueness requirements. The Constitution prohibits unconstitutionally vague laws and the fundamental right to travel. And on all of those issues, the state court judges, and on the Superior Court level, that's Judge Zeman in the Aguila case and Judge Lamoureux in the Banks case have concluded that our civil abatement code complies with all of those constitutional requirements. All of those cases are now on appeal in the state Supreme Court, where we expect our friends on the other side to file opening briefs in the next several months, and then we will defend the judgments below. And those— I would expect those cases to be argued about 3 to 4 months after briefing is complete is how the state supreme court's been operating recently.

And then the state supreme court can take essentially as long as it wants to decide any case, and sometimes they do take quite a while, especially if they're trying to make sure they're getting it exactly right. So I wouldn't expect a swift resolution to this appellate stage. I would expect a decision sometime a year or two from now in these cases. But now that the trial court stage is wrapped up and we are moving towards appeals and all of those cases. I just wanted to give you that quick update.

I'm happy to answer any questions if there are any. A question from Member Park. Thank you. Can you tell me the case numbers in the appellate court? Um, I can tell you the case numbers in the appellate court.

Actually, I can email that to you directly right after this. I don't have it written down on my quick notes. And Judge Gleason's as well? Yes, I will do that as well. I can actually— so I believe we've sent you all three of the trial court decisions at issue here, and I'm happy just to to send those out again with the lower court case numbers, and I'll send you the appellate case number as well.

Thank you. I have a question from Dean Gates. Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I mean, litigation is exciting to me, so I have a question. I was just curious, Mr.

Busse, is there any stay on enforcement or stay on, I guess, property dispositions during the appeal? No, so we prevailed in all of the cases below, and the other side has not asked for a stay pending appeal or any injunctions pending appeal. And so no, there is no current judicial decree interfering with our ability to continue to use the civil abatement code going forward.

Do we have any other questions?

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, now we have an update on the housing voucher program. Yes, thank you so much. I'm gonna invite up Frankie Dahl. Frankie is the outreach coordinator within the Community Safety and Development team within the Anchorage Health Department. In addition, the Human Services Division Manager Darcy Montalvo.

Frankie will be providing the update today, and there is a presentation on it. Thank you, Angel.

Hi folks, thanks so much for having us here today. My name is Frankie, I work for Community Safety and Development. Our program supervisor Jed Drolet is out of office this week, so I will I will be giving this presentation in his stead. I will do my best to answer any questions you might have comprehensively, but anything that I cannot answer, I will make sure to bring back to our team. Next slide.

Thank you. We can go 2 more, I think. Yeah. So we're here today to give an update about our Homelessness to Housing Voucher Program. Next slide.

Thank you. So this is a partnership between the Municipality of Anchorage and AHFC, the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. We are using both our municipal entitlement HUD funds as well as dedicated funds from AHFC to make this program happen. This is going to be a small but key part of homelessness response.

Next slide.

So, uh, to fund this program, we are using our Home Investment Partnerships funds. Um, these are an entitlement grant that we get from HUD directly. Um, we get usually around $600,000 a year for this, and there is no limit on how much of this can be used for tenant-based rental assistance. Typically, we allocate about $250,000 for that annually. We are also working with AHFC.

They set aside about the same amount of money for Housing Choice Vouchers to use in coordination with our funds.

Oh, also known as Section 8, just referencing my notes. Thank you. Next slide.

So this program came out of a parallel process that started in 2025. We had set aside about home funding in TIBRA, or for TIBRA, in our 2025 action plan. And at the same time, the mayor's office had requested or proposed a voucher set aside to AHFC. We had learned about that in early 2026 and realized that we could do this work in coordination with one another and, and make a bigger impact.

We, yeah, early in 2026, around February, is when those negotiations started. Next slide.

So what we are intending to do with this program is to provide a dedicated set-aside of vouchers for people experiencing homelessness that are ready for housing. There is a small typo on the slide that total funding amount is supposed to be $531,380.

But we're hoping that that will get us about 40 vouchers in our first year of this program. So the, the amounts that are making up that total, we've got $250,000 from our Home Investment Partnerships Program, as well as about $31,000 from our home admin costs to help with their administrative costs, uh, to help with AHSC's administrative costs. Um, and AHSC— next slide.

So we have included TBRA in our 2026 action plan as well. HFC has not determined whether or not they will be able to match those funds again, but we know that we will have access to another $250,000 to continue this. If that, if we find that the amount, our estimated amount of people that we can help is consistent, hopefully that'll be another 20 folks that we can help with 2026 funds. Next slide. Okay.

Where we're at now with this— this program did have slightly— so our funds have slightly different requirements than AHFC's program does. The Home Investment Partnership federal regulations slightly differ from the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher regulations. So we have received answers on HUD waivers to some of those regulations to try and bring our two processes into compliance with one another.

We were allowed to have AHFC use its current processes for income— yeah, income eligibility verification. We were not allowed to have AHFC waive their annual inspection requirement. Typically, they inspect the units once every 2 years, but they are willing to do that, and that is part of of, I believe, the administrative funds that we are giving to them. Yeah. All right.

And so we are currently working on negotiating that agreement with AHFC. It's, I would say, close to its final stages, but there are a couple of things still to work out.

And next slide.

So you can—. Yeah.

Hi, for the record, I'm Simone Talbot, Human Services Division Manager. So this has been delayed a couple times actually. We had initially planned to get this off the ground in like April The biggest thing, we don't want to rush, right? These are new programs for us, and I don't know if you all remember when we had our ERA II funds. That was a program that we had large amount of money to spend in a short amount of time, and we wound up having to give some money back.

So we want to make sure that this is going to be an effective program. Additionally, we— waiting on the waiver requests from HUD took longer, far longer than anticipated. So from May to August, we waited for an answer and then sorting out the administrative fees and what's not allowed by HUD standards for tenant-based rental assistance regulations. So checking to make sure that we are following compliance and regulations on all sides Additionally, we have been looking into a software platform program that's going to help with the vouchers. It's going to help with a lot of things, a lot of additional data.

It's called Neighborly, and trying to get our legal team and our IT team and Neighborly together has been quite a process, but we are on the homestretch with that. We're going to be meeting this afternoon, I believe, to just implement some following things. What we have kind of come to the conclusion on is that we're going to take this in stages rather than try to just dive in and get it all going at once, so that we can evaluate and reevaluate and navigate, pivot if necessary. And then finally, you know, the, the Community Safety and Development team is a team of 5. It's 2 project managers, the program manager, our outreach coordinator, and our program planner.

So it's a limited capacity with the other things that we were getting off the ground, like the True North Project, for example. Anything else you want to add in there, Frankie?

We've also focused our attention on our annual action plan, which was due in August, and responding to the audit that we have a meeting for later today. So there has been some split attention in our program for sure.

Thank you for mentioning the audit. That is something we'll be presenting on today, but we hadn't had an audit in I don't know how long. I've been on staff since 2024. It was something that was really important to us. Personally, I love audits because I think it tells you where you've been and where you need to get to.

So we have been really taking that into consideration on the findings of our audit. So tune in later today for that presentation. But as we take these steps, I think that some of what we have seen is in the past we've really just pushed go and didn't consider all the ins and outs, just being very transparent. So I will turn this back over to Frankie. Thank you.

So thanks, Darcy. Any questions on this slide before I move on?

Yeah. Erin Baldwin Day. Thank you. So a few questions. First is the sort of the purpose of the software that's been— that we're procuring.

What does that software do that the $31,380 that we're paying to AHFC for administrative costs doesn't do. So the $31,000 of administrative costs has to do specifically with— it's either the inspections or the administrative work that they are doing to actually, like, facilitate their side of locating housing, doing all of the other eligibility things that they are doing. Currently, the municipality, at least what I have found, does not have a way that we can accept documents securely to be able to pass that along to AHFC. So Neighborly is going to have a lot of uses, one of which is going to be application intake. Which we don't currently have an efficient, secure way to do that.

It's going to allow us to effectively manage a waitlist, make sure that we have all of the backup documentation that we need, and, and securely get all of that information. We are also going to be using Neighborly for several other projects. Housing Redevelopment Fund is going to utilize an application portal for that as well. We are going to use it for public service, and there are 2 others, our community housing development organization application and project management as well. That's a subset of home funding, and we're potentially using it as a historical loan database.

So, so there are a lot of things that Neighborly is going to be used outside of this project, but it is going to be instrumental in making sure that our team has enough capacity to actually administer this program well. Yeah. And as far as the timeline for that goes, Darcy is correct. We're meeting internally today to discuss some final aspects of it. We've cleared what I believe is the last IT hurdle, and the next thing is going to be getting the contract signed and implementation.

And the purpose of scaling back, we're going to do it in stages. So we're hoping to get a very focused start with our highest priority projects, which this voucher program is on that list. So I think what I'm hearing is that the division of labor among the municipality and, and HFC is— HFC is going to be working on the, on the sort of like landlord building side of the equation. And we will be the point of contact, will be the intake or the agency, essentially. Yes.

Okay. So does, does Neighborly talk to or integrate with HFC's administrative platforms, or is there—. I don't know that we'll be able to integrate directly with their platform. I think that would be fairly complex. What we are working on setting up is that when we get the documentation and application information that we need, that that system can render a copy of HSC's application so we can pass that on directly to them, completely filled out and ready to go so they can act on it.

Great. So we won't be expecting folks to interface both with MOA and HSC. No. Just be talking to the main—. No.

And I think that speaks to the encryption piece. As well. I just wanted to add, yeah, I will say they'll be going through us for that like initial point of contact, and once we do some really basic eligibility verification, then it will get passed to AHFC and they will be working with AHFC for directly for the housing voucher itself and for finding housing, if that makes sense. I'm just trying to think about where folks might fall through the cracks. Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay. Awesome. And then I think the other, the other question I have is, is, you know, you had a note about eligibility requirements. What are the actual eligibility requirements as currently designed?

So what I will say is that this is a program that is focused on people who are currently unhoused. Unhoused. A lot of the federal— a lot of the federal regulations around this money will— a lot of the requirements for the funds that we have will be met as people who are unhoused or presumed beneficiaries of like low-income programs.

The program design that we are looking at might answer that a little bit more completely than thinking about like eligibility as a whole. Sorry, you were saying this one was just—. Oh, yeah, what we're looking at.

Yeah, I think further on in the presentation we'll talk more about program design. Would you—. Okay, yeah, we'll Yeah, I'm seeing that you— we've got a couple of slides upcoming. Having, having sort of worked in this space and assisted people who are trying to figure out whether or not they qualified or were eligible for services, I think some detail around what that actually means in terms of documentation that folks would be expected to submit, you know, any sort of mitigating factors, income, run into all sorts of interesting snags and pitfalls with folks who are trying to access vouchers. And so I'm just curious, like, what this threshold will be relative to others.

Yeah. Did you—. To Member Baldwin Day through the Chair, this may make a little more sense shortly as we talk about the requirements for the voucher program. If not, please ask again. Yeah, happy to wait.

I see that we have slides coming up, so happy to answer that question as we go. Thanks. Any other questions before we move on to the next slide? Okay, next slide.

So the eligibility and scope, this is directed at people who are experiencing homelessness are ready for housing. Case management is a vital aspect of this. We are going to be relying on case managers to refer to us people who think they are ready for housing, for this kind of stabilizing service, and continuing case management is a requirement of these vouchers as well. It is likely, I will say almost entirely sure, that the case management that allows people to apply for this program is not going to be the same case management that they have over the course of their voucher. We are going to be relying pretty heavily on shelter operators, and, and shelter case managers don't provide folks for people who are not in shelter.

So they are going to be working through all of the eligibility requirements, all of the documentation that they need, with someone directly assisting them And again, we're expecting about 40 vouchers for this first year of funding and 20 next year unless AHFC can match. As far as what the actual eligibility requirements are, the documents that they would need, I would need to refer back to regulations to be able to answer that very confidently. But I will say income eligibility, people need like identifying documents, Yeah. Next slide. I have a question.

Yes. 40 Vouchers per year. Are you talking about 40 people on vouchers? Yes, 40 households on vouchers, and that is approximate. The amount of money that is spent per person is going to depend on the size of the unit that they need.

And so the folks who need more bedrooms are going to cost a little bit more than somebody who needs a one bedroom. Okay, thank you. Yeah. And to put a finer point on that, it would be up to 40. So as Frankie has mentioned, if a household is much larger and needs a larger unit, then it wouldn't go past the 40 vouchers.

It would actually be less. All right, next slide.

So again, the roles that folks will be playing— case managers are going to submit applications through that Neighborly portal. Behalf of clients. They will get that direct assistance in, in making sure that they have complete documentation. We're going to receive those client applications and pass eligible applications off to AHFC. We are going to be responsible for managing any waitlists.

We don't have fully outlined policies for how to prioritize waitlists, but we are working on that now. And AHFC will process applications as part of their regular voucher operations and issues those vouchers.

Yeah. All right. Next slide.

And here's just another graphic that kind of shows that flow. Case managers, shelters, outreach teams, et cetera, will be identifying clients that are ready for housing. And again, they will pass those off to us. When we will verify eligibility based on homelessness status and then pass that along to AHFC to verify other eligibility criteria and issue vouchers.

Next slide.

So as far as next steps, the timeline that we are expecting for this, we are going to finalize agreement terms with AHFC and submit purchase requisition in SAP. The purchasing department will review what we have submitted and ensure that the procurement type that we have is appropriate. This is an intergovernmental contract, which our program has not handled recently, so we are looking forward to their input on that. And then it'll go to you, Assembly members, for review and approval. And once we have that contract reviewed and approved, Once Neighborly is implemented, hopefully in December, we will be meeting with shelter case managers to explain the system and how to submit applications, really finalizing those details.

And we are hoping to start accepting applications for the portal in January. That is pending any hiccups with those steps, which sometimes happens. Yeah. Next slide.

Okay, final questions. Yeah. Okay, Member Baldwin Day. So I have a bunch of questions. So the first is, so if we're routing these requests through shelter and outreach teams, and then we have this multi-stage process where a client might be interacting with multiple different individuals.

Is there— how does that actually happen? I mean, is there one person that's going to be making sure that that sort of cascade of information happens in a way that keeps the client connected? I think I'm a little concerned that there are several points at which a client could get lost. I think now you're understanding why we have delayed this, because these are some of the things that we do want to make sure that we can process before something like that happens.

Yeah, I think the— and the question I have that sort of dovetails with that one is And I think I will probably start to sound like a broken record at some point on this, but you know, when we talk about case management, that is such a nebulous term and it's not well-defined. It means different things to different entities, different agencies. It has meant different things across departments within the muni. And so I'm really curious to understand what does— when we talk about case management in this program, what does that actually look like? And I mean, for some programs, case management means like you meet once with a person one time, you know, for an hour.

And if the goal here is to help people move from homelessness to stability, that doesn't feel sufficient. So I guess I'm trying to understand where does that capacity come from to do what I think is the level of case management we would be hoping for, to, you know, for someone to get into a more stable situation? And then, you know, how does that— how does that relationship evolve over time? And where are those people is, I think, a corollary to that. So would love for you to share.

So case management, you're right, is pretty nebulous and can take on a lot of different forms. We are going to rely pretty heavily on, like, deciding what that looks like in conversation with shelter operators, which is a conversation that has happened to some degree but not to the level of detail where we have, like, very rigid expectations outlined. Continuing case management is a requirement of this program. There is no world in which there's just a single 1-hour meeting and we consider that to be sufficient.

The—. What that case management looks like is going to be on a case-by-case basis because different people have different needs. So our expectation is that in, in concert with the application, or part of the application, is going to be an explanation of what their plan for continuing case management is to make sure that is sufficient so that people can remain stabilized. Our team at CSD, we are not case managers. We don't have the capacity to provide that kind of case management management, and I think that is a very coherent concern to have.

Um, and so I don't know that I have a very firm answer on precisely what our expectations are in regards to making sure the application is complete, but that is top of mind for us. Um, yeah, and maybe I could add, if that's okay, um, through the chair to Member Baldwin Day. So, you know, the goal here is that we have, uh, we can cover the housing side of somebody who needs to exit from shelter. I think what we often find is that, for example, if someone goes into one of our more supportive housing programs, there's a level of case management and support provided there. If we can and get them enrolled, for example, at South Central Foundation in intensive case management, and then this provides the housing support, we're kind of using the proven model from Home for Good, but doing that through other means.

So So I think, you know, since we are targeting people who are in our shelters, I think the first part of the process is— will be well taken care of because that's what our case managers in shelter are doing all the time is helping people get their documents and do all that piece that will lead them to Frankie's team. And then I think part of figuring out is this voucher going to work is going to be determining what type of case management is going to benefit that person. They may be participating in outpatient treatment and have case management. So that— so I mean, there's lots of different ways it could happen for different people, and I think that'll be part of the application is figuring out what version of that's going to fit. Yeah, thank you.

That makes a lot of sense that there, you know, might be folks who already have a case management relationship that exists. I mean, I'm thinking through, you know, in the event that that isn't necessarily the case, that And what's the mechanism by which we actually connect with someone and who ultimately, right, that it requires a body. So like who does that work ultimately if someone doesn't come in with an existing case management relationship? And if they do have an existing case management relationship, how will we go about communicating expectations from our side, like based on the requirements of the voucher program itself? So yeah.

So really curious to hear how all of that evolves. And then the second thing I'm also interested in understanding is the prioritization piece. And, you know, as we have applications coming in, how will that triage work? I know there's been a lot of discussion around whether, you know, the threshold that's been used, for example, at ACH, is appropriate. Or is desirable, and if, if, you know, coordinated entry is going to be the pathway, or if there's going to be some other mechanism that we, that we think about.

So I would love to understand more about that. It sounds like that's in development still, but at some point it would be really great to get a more fulsome look at that. So that's really probably more of a comment than a question, but thank you. Through the chair to Member Baldwin Day, that's an excellent question. I will say that we have been working, collaborating with our Housing and Homelessness Services team and with the shelter.

Jed Drolet, who is the program manager for this program, or Community Safety and Development, is not here today. He has had conversations with shelter, but we would rely quite heavily on the shelter case management system to prioritize, and that is conversation discussions that we have had, we need their expertise to kind of determine, you know, what the priority is, and we would follow suit from there.

To, to add to that as well, what I will say, one thing that we have discussed a lot internally is that something that tends to slow down the process of housing someone with a voucher is incomplete documents. And so, like, having an entirely complete application with all of the correct supplemental documentation and a case management plan is going to factor into how we prioritize who gets access to vouchers.

Let me just ask real quick, how many people in the room want to give testimony? I'm sorry, just now. Okay, not yet. I just wanna know how many.

Okay, thank you. So I'm gonna move to extend this meeting 10 minutes. Okay, thanks.

Any other questions? No, that's it for me. Thank you. Okay, thank you. And if you think of anything, please feel free to reach out.

We are happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay, thank you for your presentation.

So the final thing that we have to talk about is the committee purpose statement for the website. And let me pull up what I have prepared.

The main change is that we removed the housing part and added the health part. So it's the Health and Homelessness Committee now. And the mission statement draft that I've come up with so far is: The Health and Homelessness Committee focuses on legislative policy and resource allocation matters related to public health and homelessness in Anchorage. The committee serves as a key public interface for the assembly on issues concerning public health health, homelessness prevention, outreach, shelter, and supportive services. It collaborates with municipal departments including the Anchorage Health Department, Parks and Recreation, and the Anchorage Police Department, as well as the Mayor's Office, community organizations, and service providers to coordinate efforts and address community needs.

Does anybody have any comments on that?

This is Thea. My question really is that public health is a really big topic, and the Health Department does many things in public health, many things outside of homelessness. So is your intention that all public health topics would still come to this committee, or only the public health topics that pertain to homelessness?

I think that's kind of still in development, and I kind of had an idea that it would kind of form organically.

I would like to maybe follow the health department's lead on that a little bit. In my mind, I kind of think maybe there should be a little bit of separation there, depending on whether what you're speaking about is directly related to public safety. I think if it's directly related to public safety, it should go— but I'm welcome to other ideas— but it should go in the Public Safety meeting. And if it's related to anything else, then probably in the Homelessness Committee. But I welcome your ideas as well.

Yeah, so my understanding of the separation between what we had before and this, I think, is going to be a little bit difficult because I think the intention was to reduce the number of meetings that I would go to, which I'm totally fine going to any meetings. But I think the hard part is that we have now created an organic system within the municipality where Health Department is now part of Public Safety. And I know that in the past many people have used the term like we're the third leg of the stool of fire and police. And so trying to delineate what should go in the Public Safety Committee as a whole and what should go in Health and Homelessness, because not all issues related to homelessness have to do with health and trying to put those two together is sometimes hard for me to understand. You know, like kratom is a health issue, but we put it in public safety because it's a public safety issue.

And so just trying to understand where the topics go and how I present, because, you know, police and fire can come to this meeting because, you know, when we have, you know, fires in encampments or we're doing abatements, that's where this would be, but then I then go to the other meeting. So I think if we can just really define that would help me a lot in understanding where I need to go and what topics I should be bringing to either group.

And Member Park? My only question around that would be where, where would public health concerns go other than here? Because I don't think they fit logically in any other standing committees? The public safety, so like the Kreatom, I believe you spoke about that in the public safety committee. Correct.

I'm thinking in terms of WIC vaccination clinics, those kinds of things. Unless it was here, they wouldn't really have a home. Call them, right? Correct, they would not. Because I mean, when you look at the Health Department, it's more than just public health.

It's— we have a human services side, we have ADRC, we have child care licensing. There's just— the gamut is so huge that essentially, like, we could go to the Housing Committee because we have CSD. Like, there's so many pockets that we could fit into. I just—. I think just trying to really define the term of, like, what is health and homelessness us because the Health Department is very different than what you see in the lower 48.

We have such a wide variety of services. I think it's going to be hard to fit us into just here.

Member Baldwin Day. Yeah, thank you. I, I think we may have inadvertently created a scenario in which the Health Department is sort of everywhere.

What? Or nowhere. Yeah, indeed. I mean, I think, I mean, I personally think about childcare as both a public health question, but also as an economic development question.

So, I mean, for this discussion's purposes, like, I could see a report on childcare licensing happening here. I could also see it happening in in the Housing and Community Economic Development Committee, because that is a community economic development question. So I think maybe for a little while there might just be, it might be a moving target as to what types of information is delivered at different committees. And I personally think that things that deal with, vaccination clinics and those sorts of topics do belong in this committee specifically. I know, I'm thinking about like the measles update that we heard absolutely belongs here.

But then there are, I think there are going to be some issues that sort of bleed out into other spaces. And I don't know that we've done you any favors, Director Rasch, because this retool is making things a little bit more complicated for you, particularly. And I'm not sure how we fix that.

Thea? I think it's not a problem if the agenda has two sections to it. One is health, and all the things that we do related to health can be there, and one is homelessness. And you rewrite the mission statement so that you actually are interested in health, health and homelessness as two topics that you're covering in the same committee. But the way the mission statement is currently written, really it should be called Homelessness Committee, and health is of interest because of course that's a, that's a, that's an issue that relates to addressing homelessness.

So I think you just have to decide, is it a homelessness committee or is it a health and homelessness committee? And if so, you need to have equal weight on those two topics, have separation between them. Yeah, I think that's a good, good idea, good plan.

I candidly did not do my homework on trying to help workshop the mission statement, so if we could maybe do that through the clerk or something, I would be happy to help with wordsmithing. Yeah, yeah, I think we can follow up by email. Yeah, through the clerk, or—. Yeah, thank you. Okay, I think we'll go to public comment now.

So that the light is green, and then introduce yourself for the record and then go into your comments, and you'll have 3 minutes.

The button, please, so that it's green.

How about that? I'm sorry. There you go. All right. I apologize for the scene that was made earlier today.

I do not know why I'm just feeling so, so, so dizzy.

I am pre-diabetic, but this has never happened before. Maybe it's because I'm really nervous and this is important to me. So I know there's two of us, and I know that both of us love this community on the northeast side of of Anchorage, oh for goodness sake, I am having technical problems as well. So again, I apologize. And what I want to ask, I have timed this statement at 4 minutes and I have much, much more I would like to say, but I will stop there and I respectfully ask the committee to allow me to that time.

I know that another person that is in here that wants to make a statement also loves this community. We are both on the, on the, on the street. So I request, if there's enough time for the meeting, committee meeting to end, I request that you really allow us the full time that we want to speak. I promise you that we will respect the time of when this— oh my goodness.

Okay, so my name is Colette Thibodeau and I've been a resident of Russian Jack for nearly 40 years since I moved to Anchorage in 1989. I do not know as much as Jamie knows, so please understand that he's been doing this a lot longer. Over the last couple of summers, I have watched homelessness in my neighborhood become more visible and more desperate. I live near Pine DeBar in Bergah. I was I watched the Pine Street encampment grow larger and larger, Davis Camp as well, so I'm just gonna paraphrase.

One thing I've learned is that there is no single face on homelessness. We have college students who attend classes by day and sleep at the airport at night. We have veterans, we have single fathers, single mothers, Alaskan natives for one reason or another are sent to Anchorage and cannot return home. I have heard stories about minors from villages being lured here through social media with promises of modeling and acting and become vulnerable to sexual exploitation. I've heard about people coming from the Lower 48 after being promised lucrative fishing industry jobs, only to arrive and find themselves stranded.

And yes, we have people struggling with addiction and fentanyl. Homelessness has many faces. Oh, my computer went wacky when I came. So homelessness has many faces and many different causes, and we cannot look at someone standing on the corner and assume we know how that person is. So I'm gonna try, one of the things I heard here at this meeting, some I agree with, some I do not, The population that is in the northeast side of town, they have told me they're not going, going away, and I think that is against their rights to say that.

If you come to my home and say you have to leave for whatever reason, I'm not going to leave. And this population feels the same way. This is my neighborhood, and I've told them that they just happen to have I have a corner in my neighborhood. And I love them very much, and I know Jamie loves them very much. And what they want is the sanctioned idea of encampment, and I would ask the committee to really reconsider that.

It sounds like we are, but then it sounds like we're not. Oh my goodness, I will come back, ma'am. I have a story that happened last night with police involvement. And the officer said it's an investigation in process. It definitely had to do with the homeless victim.

The fit— I don't want to, I want to present, I have my notes and I will just keep taking notes until I speak what I see in that community, in that corner. Jamie does it a different way, I do it a different way, we don't agree but we love this community and we believe that it's not filled with—. Thank you, thank you very much. Okay, I'll come back. Can we extend for another 3 minutes?

Okay. All right, so good morning, guys. Uh, Jamie Lopez, East Anchorage, formerly Coalition, formerly homeless. So there is money for intensive case management, SUDS, uh, mental health police. There is no money to keep people alive.

And I think you all know this pretty well. If you would cut 10 police officers and hire 10 good people to go outside, your results would be much better. Uh, APD as of September 30th, basically 7 arrests, uh, 85 voluntarily complied, 11 accepted services, bumped up to about a 12 to 13% rate. But if you do the complete total, 152 arrests, 1,313 voluntarily complied, 103 accepted services. Again, it's 7 to 7.8.

You're driving people like cattle and they're not getting help. So Willow Commons, uh, it is not accessible to homeless with no SUDs issues or those directly on the street. It's not representative at all of the people that are desperate in need, and they have to go through the program in Anchorage Recovery before they can even enter that place. It's sort of a cherry-picked environment. Uh, AR 2023-188-S1 is what, uh, sort of Thea was talking about, and more or less that said free Wi-Fi, free electricity, potable water, sanitation, food, pilot houses, harm reduction, and it was about stabilizing people, emergency management.

That is not being offered to those outside. Uh, 2026 budget to actuals under first responders, it listed basically, uh, HOPE and MDOT, uh, Multidisciplinary Outreach Team, Third Ave Navigation Center, $500,000 in the approved budget, $500,000 encumbered. With expenditures. What the heck is that for? They meet at Bean's Cafe every day.

Where's that $500,000 sunk cost going? I have a question about that. So last night I got a call from someone working at camp. They've been warned. They're sort of living under a tarp.

I also met a lady, 70 years old, same thing, more or less. She doesn't know about what options exist. Just a nice elderly lady, nice as day, pun intended. So we get to the last thing. Uh, can I have a timer somewhere so I understand how much time I have left?

Uh, 1 minute, seriously? Okay, standards of care. September 27th, I met 2 people from Utah. They had absolutely no help. They got stranded here.

September 30th, at the Bremerton City Hall, I supplied 2 pulse fasteners of my own. Uh, Thea approached. Call was placed to Kathleen, and I heard the words Black Angus, and I was like, are you shitting me? I looked straight night at basically the— and I said, uh, you can't spend a couple dollars for, you know, uh, basically the puffing in, uh, and more or less there's $100,000 in a slush fund, but the Good Neighbor Fund was used to put people there. Uh, one week later they are still here.

They were not flown out. And more or less, uh, there were roaches in their room. That is not a trauma-informed experience, uh, that is trauma-induced. And I would ask you to spend a night, uh, where you're going to send— spend someone there. And aside from that, I brought him in another time, and more or less they had absolutely no care, and they ended up back out on the street.

And so you're not following through. You're failing people. And I hope, if anything, you start to learn from this experience and maybe pay some money, uh, to help people, because they're not getting help right now. Sorry, I did cut a lot.