Housing and Homelessness Committee - September 17, 2025

Okay, I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Assembly Housing and Homeless Committee. It is Wednesday, September 17th at 2 PM. Um, let's, uh, start if we can, uh, by going through the members who are in attendance. Chair Paul Donnelly. Chair, uh, Councilor Constant.

Councilor Rosmaría.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, great. Um, let's get started. Uh, we first on the agenda have the mayor's office and the Anchorage Health Department. If you guys want to get us started.

Kerlie Rasch, English Health Department. Great, well, thanks for having us today. We wanted to give a little bit of a kind of overview and update so that you have the most kind of comprehensive and up-to-date information as we walk into budget season, which of course we're all preparing for. So we're not giving any like budget updates right now, but just trying to make sure you know what are the things that we're working on that will be included in our 2026 priorities. So our success measures priorities are really the same as they have been, um, really since the mayor took office.

We want to have more housing, better shelter, a lot fewer people sleeping outside, and a safer community for everyone who lives here. And I also would add to that, we have a priority around leveraging additional funding and funding from other sources and bringing a lot of partnerships in, and also providing better transparency when it comes to data and reporting back to the community. So our first, uh, part that we want to update update you on is our year-round coordinated safety net shelter system. Sorry for all of the adjectives. Uh, we are working on a graphic.

You can see a picture of it here to help people really kind of see the system that we're building. The important sort of aspects of it are that it is a safety net. So it really is— I think the metaphor of a net is a really good one because we're trying to knit all the different parts and people and places together. And we also want it to be integrated with our crisis response system because oftentimes what happens in low barrier shelter is, is, is basically it's low barrier, it's kind of where people can get into, but oftentimes what that means is that people with very acute needs are in our low barrier shelter which isn't necessarily staffed for that. So it's really important that we have a robust and functioning crisis response system that can really support people who are in crisis and also experiencing homelessness.

So making sure those two things are really Connected is a big part of our priority. I'm going to talk about this a little bit later, but one of the things that we're working on is with the HOPE team. The HOPE team has been operating since last summer. It's been an amazing, wonderful addition. Ruth and Connie are here today.

One of the things that's happened as they do their work is they've really gotten a lot of organizations and partners wanting to do the work with them, which of course is fantastic. So they've been really bringing these partners into the outreach that they do. And now what we'd really like to have is a kind of home base for them. So we want to really build on some of the other resource and navigation opportunities. Third Avenue Navigation is one option, or one location, and then Bean's Cafe is another.

So we want to create a kind of hub where people who are coming to those places can easily access all of these different partner agencies, and then we can really make sure that as we do outreach, we're coordinating and really leveraging all those partners. So that's one thing we're working on right now. Um, the mobile crisis team has been working towards being 24/7.

24/7 For quite a while, and they're right on the cusp of it. So that's really exciting. Coming off of the pilot project that we did this summer where we ran a second team and did a lot of assertive outreach in the community, we'll be really incorporating that approach into the 24/7 model. So it's going to be a real addition, or a really beneficial addition, to have them especially operating at night, 7 days a week, because during the night is oftentimes when Things happen and we need their support. The police department has been presenting to you already about their impact teams and continuing to build out the mobile intervention teams, so I won't repeat that here, but just to let you know that that is really well integrated with our other outreach and crisis response teams.

And then another thing that we've been working on that you've heard us talk about, so I don't need to go into detail, but just to let you know, it's, it's it's really bearing fruit is with the Safety Patrol and the Safety Center. We really changed the criteria for who they can serve. So now if someone's voluntary and wants to go to the Safety Center, they can go there. They don't have to be to the point where they're put under an involuntary commitment to get into the Safety Center. And then they also can stay there longer, so it's allowed people to sober up more.

And then we have our community resource connections happening right there. So it's really led to a lot more people going from the Safety Center into detox and treatment or into other community resources, which is great. We're also really interested in increasing our efforts around diversion. And what diversion is, a little bit different from prevention. Prevention is when somebody's housed, we want to prevent them from becoming unhoused.

But diversion is when somebody shows up in our system If we can easily kind of move them out, whether that's connecting them back to family and friends, connecting them to treatment, connecting them to employment and housing that they can afford, we want to make sure that we're doing that. So I'll talk a little bit more about some of the ways that we're doing that, but we're really increasing that through our coordinated outreach and through really connecting with other partners and supports. I'm going to hand it over to—. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah, I know the Navigation Center has a shuttle, and so you're talking about having like a hub of services at the Navigation Center. As a part of that, would you look at not duplicating services across different shelters, and so it's a little bit more economical to just have those services based out of the Navigation Center?

Um, we're not— so what we're talking about is really So the navigation center at Third Avenue is already a hub, like you said, and already has providers there. What we're really wanting to do is kind of, um, between Third Avenue and BEANS, really embed the HOPE team more into that and embed their outreach providers. So it's really kind of expanding on the concept that's already there. And part of the purpose of that is that when we're doing outreach and we connect with someone in the community Instead of just trying to kind of case manage out there, we can then bring them back into that hub and connect them with the partners that they need to connect to. So it's not so much changing what's happening right now, and I think in our shelter sites we have case management, we have some basic health services, but it's, it's, you know, it's kind of the first level.

So at this, at Third Avenue Navigation, at Bean's and with the HOPE team, we would be doing kind of more robust connections. So it's kind of what's happening now, but it's more just adding the Hope Team into that mix. Yeah. Yes. So is Beans actually providing services at the Navigation Center now?

They don't provide services at the Navigation Center now. They're just located just up the road. They're still doing food and employment and all the things that they do. They are. Okay.

But they have some extra space, so they're just— both places are really interested in having the Hope Team there more. So we're kind of working towards the two locations.

Do you happen to know if the Third Avenue Navigation Center has plans to increase their provider presence, um, as sort of in tandem with the OT being more present more frequently? Yeah, that's part of what we're trying to do. So we would like to have longer hours and more providers there. So yeah, great. Yeah, great, great.

Yeah, there's one other question. I'm curious about the the safety center, and where that fits in that. Would you consider it a shelter? No, it's not a shelter. It's a high shelter class.

Okay, so, but someone can go there and get out of the cold and they can sleep there, is that right? So people can sleep there. So now that we've kind of broadened the criteria, somebody— so what used to happen is because we would only take people who were who could be titled, that if the safety patrol came upon someone, say it's, you know, winter and someone is asleep outside, they come up on them, they say, you know, "Hey, how you doing?" and that person's like, "Oh, I'm doing all right." Um, there wasn't an option for that person to say, "Hey, I'd like to go indoors and sleep right now." Um, because if they weren't incapacitated, we wouldn't take them. And so now what we're doing is in that situation, they could say, "Hey," would you like to come inside for a bit? And they could come.

And so we're figuring it out right now how that's going to work operationally. I think anytime you have a mix of voluntary and involuntary in a location, which is pretty common, you have to make some triage decisions. So, you know, if it's crowded in there and someone's in there voluntarily, they're probably going to have to leave for more people to come in. So that'll be an operational question that the Safety Center and AFD will work out. But that's one of the changes is that someone's outside this, this square and they don't want to go shelter, they don't want to, but they're cold or need to get in someplace warm, this is where they go?

I would say if they are in a crisis situation. So to me, you know, in the middle of winter, that's someone sleeping on the ground when it's cold. And yeah, and if they wanted to and there was room. So yeah. Great.

Mr. Jr.? Ms. Silvers, you want to come back? Yeah, when your CoC contract produced Can you put some provisions in the new contract to have them revisit the coordinated entry system to include some of these things that you're talking about, like greater coordination, diversion, metrics of engagement, some of that stuff, instead of just the straight time on the streets that is happening now with coordinated entry? So, two things there. We did just have a conversation this morning about ways we can better measure diversion, so that's something we're certainly in terms of our data.

With coordinated entry, I think what you're speaking to is the criteria that we use to prioritize people on that list. That's certainly— so both Kim and I have different functions on the CoC, so we can certainly bring that to that group. Great. Mr. Bosque. Yeah, thanks.

I promise to leave off. Can you share with us, when you get a chance, this new entry criteria? Mm-hmm. Thanks. When was that updated?

We've been kind of piloting it during the summer pilot period and just like, as of like 3 days ago, we're starting to kind of write it down. So, okay, what do you anticipate the capacity will be? The compa— like, the physical capacity of that building is supposed to be 50, but really it's about 25 to 30 when it—. Just from a programmatic standpoint. And that's including individuals who are at the Title 47 level and others?

Yeah, that would be for the number of participants that could be there Yeah, so definitely you mentioned kind of offhandedly that it's space available. That function is very essential. It's constitutionally mandated. We want to make sure that there's also a plan to move people who might just be there because it's cold but who aren't the essential service recipients of that program. People who are, you know, kind of under that title, like I said.

Yeah, I mean, we can talk more about it. I think The program has been around for a long time and there's already been some evolution over time, and especially as it's moved from the Health Department to the Fire Department, there's already been quite a bit of policy change. Right, so I've been participating in it since it was part of the Anchorage Downtown Partnership, and so for many, many, many years I've seen that evolution. I know why it started. It started because we had people drinking themselves to death on the streets, and so I want to make sure that threat stays Primary.

Oh yeah, yeah, great. And then—. Oh, sorry, I'm curious if that function with the safety center sort of acting as another conduit into detox treatment, those kinds of things, is that something that we expect will continue sort of in perpetuity, or is this a little bit of a stopgap measure until we have, um, like the, the new crisis care center in place? Yeah, once crisis stabilization is open, I think that's going to really— we're going to need to to do some thinking as a system about who goes where, because some people are currently served at the Safety Center, can be served at the Stabilization Center. And those are criteria that are being developed and will have to be refined with South Central Foundation and Providence.

But it certainly will change the character of our facility. Sure. And where people can go when—. Okay. Yep.

Wonderful. And then Just a technical request, I guess. I mean, the document that's there to the left that is the illustration of the safety net and crisis system, is that document available somewhere as a PDF? Not yet, but it will be because we're still working on it. But okay, we're almost ready to share it.

We just have some— it has a page 2 that has addresses and we just need to make some changes, some corrections. Yeah, thank you. Okay, all right, I'm going to talk about our congregate shelters. Uh, so on— I want to first say this is the first time in a while that we've actually had everything in place, uh, before October, so that's pretty impressive. I'm excited about that.

Um, as of 8/31, uh, Henning took over at East 56th Avenue. Uh, they maintained 200 individuals until September 2nd when Linda's Place, which is located at 1911 East 5th Avenue, was able to come online. So from September 2nd to September 4th, the East 56 decompressed from 200 people to 100 people, and we increased capacity at Linda's Place. Both East 56 and Linda's Place have maintained full capacity since opening up. They are both— the transition itself went very well.

RRS was a piece of that puzzle, making sure that individuals were surveyed on who would want to go. So individuals were not forced to go from one location to the other. It was voluntary. So that transition went really well. Linda's Place has recently opened up the third floor, which is exclusive for women.

And so they're able to offer accommodations for 29 beds up on that third floor. And East 56, there has been a positive change in the routine. Guests are engaged and asking for help. Guests are returning on time for head counts and are often in their cots by 11 PM. There's been a decrease in loitering in the area and less trash on the grounds.

The perimeter checks at East 56 extend all the way down to AIH, and there's been a positive neighborhood relations being reported. As of August 31st, 3 people were moved to housing, and people seem to be receptive to hearing about treatment options. Alex Place has remained at capacity since July. And that operation is just moving along very steadily. Guests are engaged.

They did recently change the attendance policy, which began on August 27th. So instead of flipping beds every 3 days, they flip them every 2 days. MASH has been able to have 6 individuals housed in July. 8 Individuals were housed in August of 2025, and then they're on track to be at 10 individuals for September. So overall, all three operations are working very well.

They're working in coordination, and as you can see with this graphic up here, it's really being coordinated by RRS, and that whole continuum within that blue box there.

I just want to share that the woman that's the manager over at Alex—. Suzanne—. She's been attending community council meetings. It's been really a positive experience just having her hand out cards and really making connections with the community councils. So just, you know, great.

Oh yes, this is all about dance. Thank you. Can you share a little bit more about what it means to have a little bit of a reduced day versus 3?

Um, there has been, I think, really probably since we started doing non-congregate shelter, um, a policy that people could keep their room if they, um, if they missed 2 nights— or sorry, 3 nights— they would then lose their room, correct? And so what that was kind of leading to was sometimes people would miss 2 nights, come back for 1 night, miss 2 nights. So what we were noticing is we just weren't really fully utilizing the rooms. And so the policy now has changed to, um, to if you miss 2 nights, then you will lose your room. And there— that's not like, you know, like if someone's in hospital or there's other like extenuating circumstances, it's not like, you know, super rigid, like, you know.

Um, but that's, that's the change in policy overall. So we're making sure we're getting, um, full utilization of —Is that an Alex policy or an MOA policy or some—. It's a great example of the reason we're doing coordinated shelter because as a group, because we're often trying to make sure we're maximizing the space and make sure we're troubleshooting as a group, and so really as a group of providers working with RRS, that was determined as a good, good change.

Can you help? There's a question. Um, the— when you say they're full, um, there's another concept there that I think is helpful because it would be— if you're continuing to say that all of these are full, which means there's no beds available, that is not what that means. Is that correct? Correct.

That's not what that means. So the beds are turning over, um, but that every day when they go to count how many individuals are at the facility, it's 100 individuals, but doesn't mean the same individuals are staying there for long extended periods of time. So there are unique individuals circling through that system. Are we able to track, um, individuals that are not able to get into the shelter? How do we know if there are—.

If last night, for instance, there was a certain number of people that couldn't get into the shelter? So those numbers are tracked, um, how many individuals, uh, want to seek shelter and cannot seek the shelter, seek a bed within that facility. So those numbers are being tracked. In addition to individuals that are within the facility, they're also tracking how long those individuals are staying within the shelter and really working on the case management piece and working with individuals, which is why one of the reasons why I wanted to go down to 100 individuals at each of the locations, so there can be a little bit more intense case management and more integration of that, those conversations and interactions with the individuals. Ms. Silvers.

Yeah, um, so when you say that there's a lot of movement in the system, so if a person comes and they're seeking shelter and it's full and they're not able to get a bed, is that something they're able to come back the next day and get a bed or the following day? Like, are people waiting a long period of time for a bed, or are people able to find a bed pretty quickly even if not the same night?

I would say so far, um, within this past weekend, for an example, those individuals were able to find a bed, um, just not that particular night.

This is all we're getting. Yeah. Are those— are those numbers reported anywhere of the number of people who seek shelter but can't access it because the shelter is already at capacity?

So the Health Department has a daily report. This is a spreadsheet that the— all the shelter operators fill out and includes the turnaways. And so I think that's not a public dashboard, but anytime you wanted to know that number, we could provide it. And what is that— I mean, is that number relatively static or does it move around?

It does move around. Um, so I would say again Using this weekend as an example, over 3 days there were 75 individuals total over 2 locations.

And is that—. And so what is the— so what's—. Not asking for like very super specific numbers, but like what's the— what does the range look like of, you know, are we— are we talking about like 15 to 70, or are we talking about 60 to 100? 20? Like, what's the, what's the box?

I guess I would have to get back to you on that. I don't specifically know. Um, yeah, that'd be great. I'd be really interested to understand what that, what those numbers look like. And do the surveying.

That's, that number is what we're going to be using to determine what we need to bring out surge capacity. Um, so that's something we need to figure out this month is like, what's the next mechanism going to be? Like, how are we going to get the, you know, kind of authority from you to be able to turn that on? And what are the conditions, you know, how are we going to manage that? So we can come back and talk about that.

Yeah, that would be great because I'm curious about that too. Is this— is if it's— and then you, you think 75 people were not able to get up? Is that correct? Yeah, so that, that would be a helpful number because obviously we want As it gets colder, we want to ensure that people get into bed. Miss Silvers?

To clarify, 75 people were unable to get to bed the night that they first arrived. Of those, how many do you think were able to get to bed the next night or the following night, and how many just were unable to get to bed, period? That I do not know.

Chair, would you like to ask Kathleen to come up because she probably has perhaps this? Sure. One more to add to that. I mean, I realize we're asking questions we didn't ask you to bring the data for, so I mean, we want to make sure that we can gather this information. But if you have some additional information to add, it would be helpful.

Through the chair, I just wanted to make just a deeper dive on the details of the 75. What we do is if somebody comes into one of the shelters, it's full, we get them into another shelter as a priority. The second thing is when we track turnaways, that is if someone calls and says I want shelter or they walk up, and those 75 are not unduplicated, there's duplications. So some— so those are 75 turnaways. 75 Total.

Um, 75 turnaways but not 75 people. Right, right.

Thanks. Well, that's, that's something to do with David. Thanks for the answers. Okay, if we're good on shelter, so housing. I'm going to share a couple specific updates, but just wanted to let you know that we, um, I think it's actually maybe on the agenda or maybe it anything from CSD to, um, do the additional Home Arc funding?

Yeah. Okay, so we will be sending forward to you, um, some reallocation of Home Arc so that we can extend, uh, funding. You'll remember that the ERA2 money ends September 30th, so we wanted to identify, um, the grantees that served more— the largest number of people who came out of homelessness into those— into that rental subsidy because they're the ones most likely to need some more assistance. And the Home Arc money doesn't have that September 30th deadline, so we are going to be reallocating some of that funding so that for the grantees that serve the most people coming out of homelessness, they have some additional rental assistance to help people stay housed. So that'll be coming forward to you.

We also are using, um, some— I think I mean it's right— previous year home funds, um, to— is this coming to this one about building trust? Not yet. Okay, another one coming soon, um, is some previous year's home funds that we're going to allocate to the affordable housing— Anchorage Affordable Housing Land Trust, who operates some of the, the really low-rent housing and transitional housing that you see at the bottom of the table. Um, and they will then be able to prioritize about 2 to 5 people per month coming from our shelters into their housing units because those funds will give them a little bit of extra case management and other things that they need in order to prioritize those folks. So that'll be coming to you soon as well.

And then as I mentioned, we're working with ICA, which manages which is the HMIS system and the coalition to put together outputs and outcomes dashboard for you. This would be something that we're still figuring out the cadence that it will be updated. It probably won't be updated monthly. I just want to put you on notice because what we're learning is actually doing monthly updates, our data, it's a little bit like when you look at your checkbook monthly and maybe not everything's cleared. Our data quality isn't really quick enough for a monthly update to be kind of the best case, so it probably will be more like quarterly.

But we want to create a dashboard that you can pull up at any point and say where we're at. So that's something we're working on pretty steadily with those two organizations.

Okay, so some exciting housing updates. Uh, micro units for recovery residents— these will be transitional living units and they'll be operated as recovery residences, which is a supportive way for people to be in substance use disorder treatment. Um, we have this— or construction under contract. Um, he reported yesterday they've got all their permits submitted and under review, so we're watching those, and everyone's doing their best to get those reviewed as quickly as we can. Uh, the RFP for the behavioral health provider was posted posted yesterday, I think.

Uh, it's going to be due October 15th, so we'll have a pre-bidders conference coming up, I think, next week, and we'll be getting the news out far and wide that that's been posted. Uh, we have some additional funding coming from a national philanthropic entity, and we're almost 99.9% positive we're gonna get it. So that means that we will be able to add an additional 8 units to the project, which is pretty awesome. And we're— so we're— so if we get that money and we have the 8 units, we're not going to meet our original deadline, but we'll be able to do it within the same project. So we'll still be completing this fall.

Uh, we had a faith communities gathering last week, and we had like many entities interested in this concept and potentially replicating it. And we'll also be hosting a community meeting on September 30th at 6 PM at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, uh, where people can learn more about this project. Good. Yeah, okay. Um, coming to the Assembly soon is the Relocatable Dwelling Units Code.

I'm not going to go into detail here, but I just want to underscore for you that this is a really wonderful change that I think will spur on redevelopment that will really benefit very low-income households. And, um, I'm super excited about this. So if it passes, I can pledge to you that we will be working very quickly and intensely to try and get some of these units created in these locations. Okay, um, we're also working with HFC, and this would be another thing that you could look for when we put our budget forward. Um, well, the, uh, HFC has already put forward this proposal to HUD, so assuming they approve and assuming HFC approves and assuming you all approve, we would have the opportunity to finally have a voucher program for Anchorage, uh, which could target people experiencing homelessness and probably some co-occurring conditions.

So something to discuss when we get into the process. This is also something that's coming soon. I'm just trying to sketch out kind of the, the, the basic concept. So this— when you remember, we were originally talking about the shelter contracts, and there was $1.3 million, and the Assembly did not want it to be allocated to shelter. They wanted it to be used for the original purpose, which was housing, and specifically rehabilitating housing.

And we know from our own just the strategy that we're pursuing, that we need to create opportunities for people who have owner-occupied properties and people who are kind of like more small-time developers to also redevelop at units, fix broken units. So that's what this would be. So we're— we've done some work with the Health Department and their team. We feel like we have some CDBG and HOME money that we could put into this. We've got the funding that the Assembly wants to reappropriate, and we also think we can bring in some partner funds.

Uh, our goals for this would be both to rehabilitate dilapidated properties, get more units. So imagine you have a small house that's kind of run down, and with today's zoning, you could have 3 units on that property. Maybe you live in one and to that you could rent, that would be the kind of project that this could invest in. We also could remove dilapidated properties if they couldn't be rehabbed, but then help that owner redevelop that property. So there's a similar fund in Juneau that's working, and then we've been working with assembly members, partners, doing our own research to come up with a concept.

So that'll be coming forward to you Sometimes, yeah. The idea generally here is that a private owner would be able to utilize these funds to be able to redevelop their property and create additional housing. Yeah, and generally it would be a kind of gap financing. So, you know, the fund could— the way the 1&Junior works is, um, say you can— your, your project, say, could develop 3 units, you would get a per-unit amount, and then that becomes kind of like a soft second on your project. So when you go to the bank You say, I've already got this part taken care of, I just need financing for this part.

And so it makes it much more affordable for those, those projects to go forward. And then of course there would be some criteria that would be attached to the units, um, in line with getting investment from the fund.

Yes, Mr. Thompson. So the bid express system I'll just say that. Would you please email the RTO members so they don't have to wait for permission to be added to the municipal organization to see behind the veil of public solicitations? Because at this point, our public solicitations are behind the wall.

Great, for sure.

Questions on this? Yep, this is the ball of the day. I actually have a question from, um, a couple of slides ago, but I think it's also potentially germane to the, um, the discussion about the AHFC voucher program. Um, having, having done work in rental subsidy, eviction prevention, those sorts of things. I really appreciate the immediate impact that rental assistance has for families who are on the verge of losing housing or who are obtaining housing for the first time.

One of the things that has been real in my experience is, is that, that, uh, that rental subsidy alone doesn't necessarily stabilize a household and that there are very frequently other factors that are involved beyond just an inability to pay rent for 1 or 2 or 4 months. So I'm really supportive of rental subsidy and voucher programs. I think I'm curious about that other piece that points more towards sustainability and how do we help households, you know, move from a place where they are in need of rental subsidy into a space where perhaps they don't, and evaluating that on a household-by-household basis. And I realize that that's a— that's a tall order. Requires quite a bit of sometimes fairly intensive case management to ensure that families have access to the resources they need, that they have, you know, pathways into more stable employment or those sorts of things, stable transportation perhaps.

But I think if we're going to continue to contemplate rental assistance and voucher programs, that there has to be some kind of connection to like long-term sustainability for households so that we are patching meeting the immediate need but also providing a pathway where, like, this— the family or the household doesn't remain in that cycle. And so I'm curious what, what the thought is or what the plans are in terms of, you know, providing that kind of support for households who are, who are sheltered or are coming out of homelessness or who have been involved in the special assistance program to date and are in need of additional support. Through the chair, I mean, I think that's one of the advantages of working with HST because they, for example, they have the Returning Home Voucher, which is for people coming out of corrections, and the data from that program is pretty remarkable, like the extent to which it really reduces recidivism to jail. They also have the Moving Home Voucher, which is for people with disabilities. And so I think we can— and also because we would, you know, be working with the health department and and, um, probably specifically like Jed's team, that's where we maybe could consider like, do we want to put some other like home funds or whatever that can be used for the case management or that type of service, like, you know, kind of, uh, partner those two things together.

Um, so I think we can totally explore that. Yeah, I think that's something that feels really, really important, um, to me. You know, if we— if it, um, I mean, how— what is that— what is that total? What's the home arc that we have available to move into the rental assistance pot? Um, HomeArts, one time, so it would just be our home funds.

We get about $700,000 a year from those, um, but you know, there's other things to be decided on. So I think that's again kind of what we would discuss in the budgeting. That's awesome. Yeah, I think I'm obviously— we'll see, for myself only and not all members, but I think that's something that's of particular, particular interest to to me is ensuring that when we're investing in rental subsidy and voucher programs, that we are doing so with an eye towards sustainability for the family. And making sure that we're asking some of those deeper questions, not just, you know, how much money do you need for rental assistance, but also like what other supports are necessary for you to be in a different place in 6 months or a year's time.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I'm sorry to go backwards. But the 75 number, I guess, I think the numbers that we need is how many unique individuals were unable to find shelter anywhere. Because I think if, you know, we have 30 people that were turned down at 2 different shelters but found shelter in a 3rd location and you counted them, you know, 60 times, that's not very helpful to know. I think what's helpful to know is how many people couldn't find shelter anywhere, and then in addition to that, because you said that if they can't find shelter, you prioritize them. For shelter, how many people were unable to find shelter anywhere within, let's say, 2 days or 3 days, you know, so we can see like how much movement we actually have in the system and how quickly we are able to shelter people.

Great. Just one other thing around the ARPA funds, just trying to understand, again, we don't have between even this is, is, um, as we're thinking about keeping people in where they live through rental assistance, other kinds of support services, how much of that work is done by the city and how much of that is done by our partners? And I'm just wondering about the long-term sustainability of a lot of that work, particularly the sort of wraparound support kinds of services that are necessary there. And whether— is that granted out, or is that— how does that funds— those funds— those funds come directly from the Department of Health to the person in the unit, correct? It's not— it's through a third party?

It is, correct? So we have several different pots of funds from HUD that run through CSD. One of our funding streams which is ESG Emergency Solutions Grant, and those funds are used as a preventative measure. And so those funds, if you have an eviction or, um, or, you know, you're having a hard time and you can provide information as to why you can't pay your rent, then we're paying those landlords directly. And that is to a little over $200K that we receive in that small amount.

And then through CDBG funds, we have, uh, we grant those funds out to grantees, and all of that is listed in our HUD Action Plan. And then if we make changes to that, that comes in front of the body as to when we reallocate those funds and what that purpose is.

Okay, and then we gotta wrap it up. So just a quick update on crisis care. Um, we did a pilot project this summer. We'll be able to bring the data to you, um, I think at the Public Health and Safety meeting is where we'll do that. But the good news is we do definitely increase encounters and connections and also, um, kind of just, uh, oriented some of our teams more to addressing the needs of people who are in public places and on streets.

And so I think that's really going to carry over into just our ongoing operations. As I mentioned earlier, we're working on a coordinated outreach hub for the HOPE team. SALA has been doing great work doing mobile clinics that's really more about physical health needs but also connecting people with behavioral health at shelter sites. We talked about safety patrol. We have planning for medication-assisted treatment, access to that underway through mostly through the fire department, but our whole crisis Response workgroup is working on that.

And then I know I keep telling you this data dashboard is coming soon, but it really is. So yeah, we'll see that soon. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, and then just, uh, I think I've touched on most of this or a couple of these things already. Um, I want to tell you something super awesome that we're working on with Katie Peterson here. We are going to be launching what we're calling a Good Neighbor Fund.

I think many of you are aware that we have some community members who have been involved with our HOPE team, with RRS, and really make a difference for people experiencing homelessness in very tangible ways. That can be sometimes a couple nights in a hotel, it can be a plane ticket home, it can be the fee that it costs you to get your driver's license. But these are like kind of finite expenses that we can't cover through our other funds, but that absolutely make the difference and are a big part of diverting people out of homelessness. So we're now kind of really taking that to scale. We've established a fund at the Alaska Community Foundation, and we're just about to get the final paperwork in place.

This will allow other donors to put their money in there, and then the funds will go out in a similar fashion through the Hope Team, or R.S. And through Third Avenue and a Half, um, again, to just kind of grease the wheels, fill the gaps for people and help divert them. So we're very excited about that. We'll be making that a public announcement soon. I wanted to let you know that that's, that's coming.

Um, we also responded to a request for information from the Department of Health on the Rural Health Transformation Projects. This is part of the federal budget bill proposal, and Alaska potentially stands to get quite a lot of money over the next 5 years. So we put in a proposal that does focus on our crisis response system, but also focuses on information sharing and increasing our connectivity with rural regions and just kind of increasing our connectivity with aging disability resource centers. So just kind of pumping up what we're doing and expanding it. And then we're also putting a proposal together for the Mental Health Trust.

We've been talking about it for a long time, but I think we're actually going to do it now. So that'll go to them next month. Thanks, that's awesome. Thanks. So I know Kenny handed me a one-pager.

I love the concept, and I love Kenny, we've been working on it a long time. And Kenny described kind of the methodology, whose names are on the boards there, you know, thank you Um, who makes decisions? I think that I'm going to recommend anybody who works for the uni is in one of those positions, if they have a conversation with Paula Rossi, just to make sure everybody's covered and it's all good. So just a suggestion. Yeah, I think the way that it's set up there is it's a donor advice fund, or it's actually called a project fund, but we'll have a set of advisors who are mostly donors.

So that's the— I understand that. I think though, as I heard, there might be some municipal people who are in some position of authority, and so I think just to be wise before you go much further down the road, for someone to sit down with Paul and have a chat about it, just to kind of vet some of the thoughts and how's it— otherwise, okay, I support it. It's a great concept.

That's it. The other question I have is around transports, and I know that we have the— certainly the MIT that is in the— in this sort of new coordinated attempt by Crisis Care and NCT and MIT and Hope Team, that sort of thing. Has there been any change in terms of transporting people from from point A to point B with Third Avenue navigation. There's a lot of opportunity, I think, to get people where they need to go. And just curious if our transporting of people has shifted or changed or rethought now that they're all coordinating in a different way.

Yeah, one of the changes MCT made during our outreach pilot that they're going to keep on with is they can transport people now. They weren't doing that before, and they are starting to do that now. We also have the state of Mitchell will transport people, as I mentioned earlier. And then, did you want to speak to our idea of—. [SPEAKING CHINESE] So one of the things that we have been working on, especially with our shelter operators, is really how do we transport people either to and from shelters or outside of that location.

In the past we've used bus passes, and that's been written into the contracts and the proposers have put forth how much it would cost. Really looking at, do we have other funding available, what would that look like in order to increase the movement of individuals in our system outside of the Third Avenue and half-center buses that we currently—. That the shelter operators currently use. And so we're currently working on that piece.

Uh, I don't see any other questions. Thank you so much for your presentation today, we appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, uh, next, uh, we're gonna invite Jessica from the Coalition.

It is so important, isn't it?

Um, thank you for being here. Share your name for the record and you can All right, thank you so much. My name is Jessica Marks. I'm the interim executive director of the Anchorage Coalition Against Homelessness, and I thank you greatly for this opportunity to talk a little bit about the data and the information that we have about the people who were accessing the municipally operated shelters during the 2024-2025 winter shelter season. So when we look at the, uh, '24-'25 winter shelter season, what we're talking about is from the time that first winter shelter or cold weather shelter was opened in 2024 until June 30th, 2025.

So that's kind of the, the group, um, the time frame that we're looking at there. We had 5 shelters open during that time frame. We had 2 of them located at the Alex Hotel There's two buildings of that hotel, so one was operated by Henning, one was operated by MASH. We have the 56th Avenue shelter, which of course had been running as a year-round shelter at that point, so we just picked it up during that season time. Downtown, Henning was operating the Henning House at the former Henry House location, and then a block of rooms as a shelter at the Merrill Field Inn.

So we had a total of 532 beds that were in operation during that time frame. Next slide. So when we look at the number of unique individuals served during this time frame, we served 2,256 unique individuals across all 5 of those sites. And then this is a little snapshot of where were they before they came to the shelter. And so for people who may have come more than once, this is the first time that they came to that shelter.

The majority of them came from outside, so in HUD speak we call that place not meant for human habitation. You've heard us mention that before, but that means someone who was sleeping outside in a tent, in a car, in a shed, something like that is what's captured in that outside. We had 831 people who came from another emergency shelter. Shelters. They may have been staying in a different shelter and then come into one of these shelters.

That happens a lot, moving people between shelters. Sometimes people need to be in a different area of town. They may have a job, they may have family support, something like that in a different location, or they may just have needs that can't be met at that shelter, and so they'll move to a different shelter. 206 Came from a temporary or transitional location. Institution.

So this might be a transitional housing program. This could be someone who is staying with family or friends but not permanently. So they weren't on the lease, they were couch surfing, something like that. 85 People came from an institution, so that would be a hospital, a jail, something like that. They exited from that institution into one of these 5 shelters.

And a very small number, 32 out of that 2,256, came from some kind of permanent situation. So they may have been housed, lost that housing, they may have been in a roommate situation and had to leave that, but it was a permanent situation that they then came to one of those shelters. And then at the bottom here, we looked at some data about those stays. So the median length of stay was 22 days across all of those shelter stays. But the piece I really want to highlight there is that we had 849 of those 2,256 people that had been experiencing homelessness for 1 year or more, and almost 500 of those 849 had been experiencing homelessness for 2 years or longer before they came into this shelter.

So we have a lot of people accessing our cold weather shelter system that have been outside, they've been experiencing homelessness for a really long time in our community.

This is a breakdown of some special populations that were served in our cold weather shelter season this year. We had 111 veterans come through those shelters, and of those 111, 40% of them would be what we classify as chronic veterans. To be considered chronically homeless, that means you have been— you are experiencing one or more disabling conditions and you have either been experiencing homelessness for 12— more than 12 consecutive months, or you have had more than 12— or more than 4 experiences of homelessness, episodes of homelessness in the past 3 years. We served 182 transition-age youth, so those are youth that are between the age of 18 and 24. And we had 575 people who reported being survivors of domestic violence or sexual assault.

And out of those 575, 106 of them had had that experience within the last 3 months. So it was a very recent— they're either actively fleeing or it had just happened to them. I have a couple questions for you. Okay. Mr. Erker, and then I'll move on to Mr.

Thompson. Oh, okay. Just a recommendation. I would suggest relabeling that box that says chronic veterans. Your box clearly can hold more text, and what I think you mean is chronically homeless veterans.

Yes. And so I think it communicates something different than what's on it.

All right, this is a breakdown of the ages of those clients that were served. Um, so again, the transition age youth up at the top there, and then a breakdown between, um, each 10-year, uh, kind of category, uh, going through there. You can see the, the vast majority of the clients are between the ages of 25 and 54, but we did have 142 people that were 65 or older that accessed the shelter. So out of those 2,200 unique individuals, 142, um, meeting that age criteria of 65 plus. And just as an aside, one thing that we do as a system when we have people experiencing homelessness that are over the age of 62, they do qualify for subsidized senior housing through Austin Housing Finance Corporation within the housing authority.

So So we try to prioritize getting them on those wait lists for that subsidized housing along with other supports that might be in place. So those are something that they qualify for at that age. Next slide. This is just a breakdown of self-reported disabling conditions. So part of that intake and part of that assessment that's being done We ask a lot of really personal questions about someone's disabling conditions.

These are—.

These do have people who may be reporting more than one of those, so if you add up all of those percentages, it will not equal 100%. So 41%, or 935, of people accessing our municipally operated shelter reported having reporting a mental health disability. Alcohol or drug use, or both, was 582, or 26%. 25% Reported a chronic health condition. That can be anything from diabetes to congestive health failure.

A small number, but a number of people reported HIV positive or AIDS 16% report a developmental disability, and 28%, or 624 people, report a physical disability. Sometimes when we see the, the moves between different shelters, it is because of a physical disability. We might be moving someone from a shelter that has stairs, for example, to a shelter that has space available on a first floor or is a little bit more accessible. Next slide. And then looking at the exits from shelter, one thing I do want to highlight is the bottom number.

I'll start at the bottom and go up. That we had a little over 1,000 of those exits were just marked as to an unknown destination, or there wasn't an exit interview done. So I do want to highlight that this is of the exits that we, that were reported, or that we knew. 208 Exited to a permanent situation. That could be permanent housing, so a rental or an ownership situation of their own.

It could be reunited with friends or family in a permanent situation, which would mean you'd be on the lease, you know, you have that security with that. A transitional situation exit would be some of those same types of things to a transitional housing program. Or to friends or family where it is not a permanent, permanent destination for you, but it is, uh, housing. Uh, 56 would be exited to an institution. Again, those are hospitals, jails.

Um, one thing that is categorized in there would be, um, things like long-term care facilities. Uh, 315 exited to another emergency shelter. Uh, 253 exited to outside or a place not meant for human habitation, and then as I said, just over 1,000 unknown. So, uh, it is challenging when we don't have that information. Uh, it's very difficult sometimes in these larger shelters to get that information as people are exiting.

You don't always know when someone is walking out the door, is that them walking out the door for good Or is that them walking outside to have a smoke, to chat with some friends? By having a strategy to have smaller shelters, you'll be able to get better data around access. You will have just fewer people walking in and out of the door to be able to have those conversations.

That was it. Did I miss anything, Thea and Kim, that you want me to highlight? Yeah, so my question is around, uh, some of the permanent transitional housing that people are exiting to. What is your average vacancy rate on, um, housing that's available to serve unhoused individuals? So for example, you have a housing unit that has come up, but you have pulled a name from the top of the list and you're looking for that person and you can't find that person.

So what is the average vacancy rate? How long are —staying vacant. So exits that are through coordinated entry, which is what you're describing, it can vary. I can't tell you the vacancy rates. That would be each individual program would know that information.

I've seen referrals from the time the referral is accepted to the time the person moves in be as few as 10 days, and I've seen it go as long as 3 months. So really it depends on and how document-ready that person is. Most of these housing programs at a minimum are going to require that you have an ID, that you have some way to verify your Social Security number, whether that's a Social Security number card or a benefit statement, you know, something that has that information on it, as well as a verification of disability. So sometimes it can take some time to get those documents together. Okay, so in some cases you're holding housing vacant for 3 months while you're waiting for somebody to get an ID or something like that.

Yeah, it would be the individual programs, so it would be like Rural Pathways or something, but yes, sometimes they could be held vacant at home. But they're required to pull that name off the coordinated entry list and hold that available? They are required to fill their vacancies using a coordinated entry referral. They would have their own internal policies on how, how long a referral stays open, how long it takes to do some of that. Okay, thank you.

Yes, Miss, uh, yeah, thanks, um, I'm, um, I'm curious about some of the, some of the, the numbers and how they relate to one another. So The number of unique individuals served, 2,256.

And then adding where people stayed before coming to shelter, all those numbers add to a different number. And then the numbers for— let's see— the numbers that pertain to ages of clients adds up to a different —number. So I'm curious which of those is the most accurate number. So then the people— where do people stay before coming into shelter? That's going to capture— some people came more than once.

Some people may have had, you know, 5 or 6 unique stays or entries, I would say, into one of those shelters. The age number— some people don't report a date of birth. Birth. I did not include that number on there of people who didn't report a date of birth or that their date of birth wasn't collected. Gotcha.

Okay. Um, and then I think the— you said that these are— this is data that is related to municipally operated shelters. This does not include other shelters that are not operated by the municipality. Do, do we actually have like aggregate data For all, all shelter operators who are doing this work in the East Valley, if they are using HMIS, our Homeless Management Information System, then yes, we could pull that information across any of the shelters that are, that are part of that. We do have two shelters that do not use our HMIS system.

Okay. And which are those? The Gospel Rescue Mission, Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission, and the Downtown Hope Center. Okay, and then I think anecdotally I have heard that there are, there are shelter providers that use another system, but they also use HMIS in addition. Is that correct?

Yes, there are some shelter well, I would say there's probably multiple providers in Anchorage that use a separate database to track program-related data. So they may have a program where they're billing Medicaid, for example. So there are some shelters that do track other data in a different database. Gotcha. So, so this is really just a partial— this is really partial understanding of what's actually happening with regard to homelessness our shelter utilization in Anchorage?

Yes, it's a snapshot of just the municipally operated shelters. Okay. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah, so this report, you remember the last committee meeting, RRS kind of gave their report of last year's cold weather shelter, and so we wanted to follow that, which is kind of the qualitative report with a quantitative report. So so we wanted to kind of wrap up what happened last year, give you the information. Um, when, as I mentioned, we're working on this dashboard for you that will somewhat be organized in the same way that that graphic that I put in the slide is.

So we'll be able to look at the shelter programs that we're 100% operating, the ones that we're funding, and then the ones that participate in HMIS but that we don't fund. So we'll look at you'll be able to see those as groups within that dashboard. Gotcha. On the slide that pertains to exits from shelter, how many— I mean, so these are exits. Do we have any data on like reentry?

So let's say you have 208 people to exit to a permanent situation. Do we know how many of those 208 might return to shelter in the same in the same year, or, you know, who go to an institution and come back to shelters? Is there a way to envision the loops that might be happening and, and to understand both outflow but also like re-inflow? Absolutely, and we call that returns to homelessness. If somebody exits to a permanent destination and then returns to homelessness within the next 24 months, that would be a— we would track return statuses, and we can do that.

Is that something that could be sent to interested members separate from this presentation? Yeah, I think that would be really, really helpful, really interesting to see how that cycle works and what our, what our true outflow is versus recirculation. I think that would be really helpful to understand. Absolutely. Thank you.

Thanks. Just a couple questions before I have to run out. So, um, what are you— how do you define a safe room shelter? What's the definition of a safe room shelter? Um, I understand there are all these various places people go or kind of But what does it mean?

So in this situation here, an exit is they left the shelter. Like, they were— we have a program in HMIS, and so they were exited from that program. So the conversation about they missed 2 med checks, they were exited from that. Um, to truly exit homelessness though, you exit to a permanent destination. Right.

So, okay, that's helpful just to understand that this is kind of a narrower definition. Definition that kind of—. It's exits from the shelter programs, not necessarily an exit from their homelessness. Understood. And then, um, so to your point, um, Ms. Saunders, about how providers are holding beds open so they might be there, this gets into one of the difficulties with treatment provision.

Like, people that receive therapeutic treatments, whether it's behavioral health, you know, mental health services, or in particular substance use disorder services that might take 90 days, 5 months, and they're housed before, or they have some kind of circumstance that categorizes them as housed, if they're going to avail themselves of a therapeutic intervention that puts them in a residential program, they effectively lose that housing and then are in a position where, as they're trying to figure out their to get their way out of a therapeutic program have to identify a housing situation for themselves to successfully leave. And so there's actually risk involved in going into a therapeutic program to get help or permanency in your illness because it might put you at risk for housing, which is a conundrum. And some providers do hold a bed open, and that's hard because someone else might fill in that bed and that's part of the conversation about the Alaska Center for Treatment, about having a residential program— not a residential treatment program— residences where they could be seeking outpatient treatment so that they would not leave a place vacant while they are receiving the treatment services. And so some of this work that's occurring right now to establish this Alaska Center is an effort to mitigate and reduce the functionality of that gap that creates vulnerability or creates a wasted bed. And so, um, it's been an interesting process to be moving towards this.

And I don't know that the residency recovery units are the way that fixes that problem, but that outpatient program, Cognitive 2, person having residence, if they're diagnosed into that, if their placement criteria would allow— it actually argues in a state way down —go back to the ASAM people and argue for a different level of care, which is some form of quasi-residential where they're able to stay in an outpatient setting but receive the level of care that they would in a residential program. Because if we don't do that, we will always have that some differential that's a meaningful amount of either money holding beds open where someone else can't go or people becoming homeless. It's unique and confounding problem. Just to speak briefly to that, one of the providers that's operating in Anchorage, they're operating what's called a— they're one of the newer providers—. Is operating what's called—.

It's kind of a wonky name— partial hospitalization program. And what that means is you're basically engaging in a similar level of treatment programming during the days you would in a residential setting, but you're living somewhere else. And so that's one of the options options potentially for micro-units is that they could provide that kind of sober housing and people could be engaging in partial hospitalization during the day or other types of intensive outpatient. So I think that's a really big one. Yeah, just is— we've been working on fixing that problem for a long time.

It is confounding as all heck, but we have a solution, not the solution, but a solution coming. Thank you, sorry for—. Anything else you have to add? I just wanted to to just highlight a couple of things that I think stood out to me. One is this number that, um, 849 people experiencing homelessness a year or more, then 500 people 2 years or more.

And for me, that changes these inflows and outflows a bit in that there are— there seem to be a group of people that are moving from shelter to shelter or moving in and out of homelessness for a— there is a population that is experiencing homelessness for a longer period of time, and then there's another group that is coming in and coming out, right? And so it's interesting to think about how we're addressing those folks in different ways. And so that's One piece I think is helpful to understand is how different this population is. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I was just going to share our community's prioritization for those referrals. The primary factor of that prioritization right now is length of time homeless, so we are trying to address that in terms of vulnerability of a person, you know, how long have they been outside.

Yeah. Yes, I'm sorry.

So what are you doing— going to that point, um, how are you addressing kind of the upstream? So like, how are you helping people before they have become homeless, unhoused for 2 years, um, when now, uh, they are more likely to have experienced trauma, to experience to have experienced drug abuse. And so how are you helping people before they get to that point when your only prioritization is length of time unhoused? And so you're continuing, continuing to kind of feed into the very traumatized population of people because you're not helping them before they reach that point. So how do we address that?

Yeah, I think that's a great question. We do, as Theo was talking about, we do a lot of diversion activities. So when someone is coming in, we're really honest with them and saying, you know, you have not experienced homelessness for a really long time, here's some programs that would be a great referral for you. Not every single housing program uses coordinated The HUD Continuum of Care Fund programs have to, but the other programs do not. And so we do make referrals to other types of programs, referrals to transitional housing programs that might have a sliding fee scale where someone might be able to afford a little bit of rent but not all of the rent.

When we have opportunities like the Alaska Housing Voucher Program opening, we really try to just blanket, get over 5,000 applications go in during that one-month open period. So we really try to push any type of referral, any type of program that might be a good fit for that person. And then our, our continuum of care has a community coordinated entry committee, and that's what they do is they constantly look at those outcomes and look at what is our prioritization criteria for our programs, what should it be? And they're always looking at that. What is the best measure of someone's vulnerability?

Because that's really the only— the only guidelines are that you serve the most vulnerable. So how are we identifying who the most vulnerable in our community is?

So what percentage of housing options or program options would you say, uh, go through the coordinated entry system and what percent do not? That's one question. Another question is, how successful is using the coordinated entry system at keeping people housed?

And the next question—. Well, let's start with those two. I would have to pull the exact numbers for the what percent, especially if we're talking talking about what percent of housing that is dedicated for people experiencing homelessness versus just low-income housing, which is accessible to anyone who meets that income criteria. But I can pull those percentages for you. On the, uh, second question, um, highly successful— our housing retention— so it's called housing retention rates, um, in our CoC-funded programs is over 90%.

So that means that at the end 24-month period, over 50% are still in that housing. So it's really high. Okay, thank you. That's good to hear. Okay, I think we're done.

I want to just give you 2 minutes to tell you—. Tell everybody what's going to happen next week. We'll just share a little information about the event next week. Oh, thank you so much. Uh, so next Tuesday we are holding our annual Project Homeless Connect event.

Uh, we are back down at the at the Higgins Center again. So Tuesday from 10 AM to 4 PM. I like to think of Project Homeless Connect as like a big giant resource fair for people experiencing homelessness. We are really excited this year. We have, I believe, 82 service providers signed up right now to be there and almost 100 volunteers who will be there.

We will be offering, like I said, all those different service providers being there. We have a hot meal being served through the Eden Center catering. We have cold weather gear, so people who are experiencing homelessness, we can outfit them with some boots, a coat, hat, gloves. All of our gear this year is very brightly colored. There's a whole bunch of coats that are this color that I'm super excited about.

So, uh, really trying to make sure that we're helping people stay safe, whether that safety is whether that safety is warmth. We have bike partners out there, so we have people who are able to do some bike valet parking for people who rode their bike there, and then doing some minor repairs and outfitting those bikes with some safety equipment like flashing lights, reflective— I'm not a biker— those little reflective things that strap onto your bike. We have veterans serving in the military, We have food services, we're gonna have legal services down there. If you need help signing up for your SNAP benefits or need help with an appeal for your SNAP benefits, we'll have people that can do that. We'll have two different providers doing lifeline phones, so GCI and a second provider out there being able to help people sign up for lifeline.

We have haircuts, foot care, healthcare providers, all sorts of things. So if you have not signed up to volunteer and you want to, it is not too late. Let me know and we can slot you into a spot. Or if you just want to come down and see what's going on, come on down. Thanks very much.

Thanks for being here today. Okay, we're going to move on to our public comments. We have people in the audience who would like to speak at this time. Okay, so we can set up the microphone. Come on up.

You'll have 3 minutes to speak. There'll be a timer up on the screen there. Um, first, first, just wanna— we'll set up a little chair for you, Greta.

All right, welcome. Share your name for the record, and you'll have 3 minutes. And hit the little button on there until the lights change. Thank you. My name is Kenny Peterson, and I was just looking at my emails.

I realized that I've been at Solutions for 16 years when I first started with LB Gray Jackson and Take Back Our Park. And, um, and so this Good Neighbor Fund is what got me off my chair at my place of work. I was looking down from my desk to the folks on the street corner below our office, and I, uh, what got What can I do to help? And I recall that you had the same question when you were going over the recent ordinance about arresting folks, that you took 6 hours of time for people to say there's a better solution. That's what I looked for 16 years ago.

I think that this Good Neighbor Fund is the response to that. And I'll share it in this context. There was a, um, something I read about 14 years ago, I said, "That's it, that's the solution." And it was related to a concept called the fast offerings, which we use in our church to help take care of needs. And so if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share what started me for it and why I think the Good Neighbor Fund is a great idea. In particular, the question is, "What can everybody do?" And this is what everybody can do to contribute.

It's a 2,500-year-old statement from Isaiah 58:6. It says, is this not a fast? A fast is to go without food and drink voluntarily for a certain length of time. And a fast offering is to give the value of those funds into, uh, to help care for the needy. Isaiah 58:6-11 12: Is not this the fast that I have chosen?

To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke Yoke. And this is where it ties into homelessness and what we're going through. Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? So the relationship. That thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, that thy hide not thyself from thine own flesh.

And then the promises, I saw this is for our community. Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily. Thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward. Thou shalt call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. So you have a connection with God, or with the higher power, if you will.

If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in obscurity, as a community, thy darkness be as noonday, which is which is pretty good in Alaska in the summer. And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones. Thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not. And then I was taught that there's another verse, verse 12, that I didn't know. And verse 12 says, and they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places.

Thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations. Thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach and the restorer of paths of violence. So I believe that this will actually bring together everyone on both sides by giving up a little bit and helping out. So this is what got me off my chair 15 years ago. It got us officially established a week ago, and there's a flyer here for it, but I'm really excited.

So thanks, thanks so much for being here today. Thanks for your comments. Hey, oh yeah, actually, actually, sir, just a second. Come on back, we got a quick question for you. So, you want me to read it?

Okay. First of all, thank you for the work that you do in the community, and I just actually kind of wanted to make a comment. Covenant House has kind of a similar program to the Good Neighbor. Have you talked to them? I talk to them all the time.

Okay, it's been very successful, so I was very excited to see that today. Yeah, in fact, one of the things that I say on here is that Whoever your trusted organization is, give to them. And if you want to do this outreach to the tip of the spear, the folks who are out there, this is a nice alternative as well. So this doesn't take away from anyone. Do that as well, or do that instead also.

All right, thanks. Thanks. Okay, next up please.

All right, share your name for the record and go on in 3 minutes. Sure, Roger Branson, District 3. Long-time mental health advocate. I'd like to welcome you to Prior County. I just want to talk about how pleased I am to see the data that's available to you guys.

There was a day when we didn't have reliable data, or the data only resided with the individual providers who use it for their own needs. And here we are with HMIS. That, uh, Sia was talking about, the other two shelters are going to be able to congregate that data so it can be observed. And, um, ICA does an awesome job for it with the KHRS gathering data, and I'm very pleased to see the depth of questions that you guys were asking about that data. And I want to encourage you all to keep doing that, to send the that we can track because with this data, with this database, we can track over a 10-year period, we can track over shorter periods, longer periods, and establish equal impact.

And so the things that are important to you guys to keep watch of are also the things that are important to the community. And so I just want to express my appreciation for that and what a huge advantage it is to our community.

Second to that, I just want to this step. Why don't you give Kenny a plug with his project and his ongoing work that he does, and thank you all for your inputs as well. Thanks, nice meeting you today. Okay, next up. Welcome, Shanae from the Dark Heart in the Life Through Dance.

My name is Shanae Williams, I am the president and CEO of Charlotte Community Housing. We have been providing prevention services in the city of Anchorage for over 20-some years. I am anxiously awaiting when self-sustainability is a priority for the funding. Um, we are developing a one-stop shop for people that are at risk for homelessness, and we could really use some help. Uh, we have a furniture bank that we have been operating for over a year with no support.

We have served over 100 families with pre-funger with no support. So our services are prevention services, and I'm just hoping and waiting for self-sustainability to come a priority. Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your comments.

Welcome. Share your name for the record. Okay, uh, Jamie Wilbessy, St. Bridge, formerly Coalition for the Homeless. Uh, unprepared remarks. Uh, Mr. Peterson, uh, you stole my thunder.

So, um, yeah, where am I gonna go with this? Um, uh, lots of different things to talk about. Uh, I'm concerned. Um, so this It's sort of a land to me, and I don't mean that in a rude way, but there is a very, very large disconnect between people that live in houses and those that are outside. And even so far as, you know, the response, the planning, the execution, you know, how fast you go, how slow you go, you know, people get up the next day, hey, it's just center today, but time matters out there in the amount of people that live, die, or, you know, lose fingers and toes.

And so what I'm seeing today is not planned, because the plan should also include how you support the people outside, how you keep them alive. You need, you know, water at least every 2 days. You need food. A human being can support on Earth— they can live without food for approximately 3 weeks. And so similar to what I sort of discussed in a similar meeting a few weeks ago, uh, when you remove sources of free stuff, people take more because they have to, and they have to survive.

And it's no great mystery why the amount of homeless camps in civilization tend to sort of congregate and grow around supermarkets and grocery stores and convenience stores, because those are places they can get food. Similar People need electricity, they need heat, and they need places to go for that. So, Somali collaboration and such. You have the 2025 Suivi Forest 2 with maps that are supposed to tell people where they can and can't go. But these people are in the Stone Age.

They can't even charge their own phones, or they don't have phones at all. So the police are handing them these cards that say, "Follow these cards," and meanwhile they don't have access to anything. Yeah, the maps, they say they're for informational purposes only, no legal binding. There's a woman I ran into yesterday, Laura Wile, and, uh, so she found the area, uh, unmapped. It says it's perfectly acceptable to be there.

Police visited her a few days ago and told her she had to leave, and she said, okay, uh, where am I supposed to go? Oh, by the way, uh, it says on this map it's perfectly okay. Oh, it's illegal to camp anywhere publicly, and she has to speak to the whole team, and the to them. This is not the first time that I've heard this, where, uh, the police officers— someone wanting to get a boat team that is doing some good things, uh, and on the other hand you have the chaos and despair of the rest of, you know, certain people that are endlessly displacing people. And so, you know, once you see the hope, then the despair is eventually coming, typically because they're linked, but also, uh, because these people, the enforcement side, are not actually trying to link things to people.

There's one other thing, uh, if you're not able to charge your phones, how do you, you know, access the maps? And somebody went over to Lionsville recently and was telling me they're in siphon power. I had to talk to somebody about this, and clearly, yeah, well, no, the police officer said you can't use the charging port to charge your phone. So again, how do you access the maps? All right, thanks for your comments.

Anybody else like to speak at this time?

Anybody else? I see, I see potential— no? Yes? Oh, yes, okay. I want to try to convince you.

This is my job, make sure we don't leave anybody out. All right, share your name for the record and you'll have 3 minutes. So my name is Dave Kiper. I am with Christian Health Associates and 2 things I'd like I'd like to thank the group and the city for the support that you've given to us as we sought to provide emergency cold weather shelter for families over the last several winters. And I've been desperately trying to verify the data that I've got here to report it accurately, but this last year, um, this last season, We served 32 non-duplicated families in our single site that we, that we operate, and 74 families in the hotel, in a hotel overflow that we have rented.

That's 100 8 individuals in single site and 247 individuals in the hotel. And, um, housing exits from the hotel were 41 persons that exited to housing, and out of the single site, 58 individuals, uh, were exited to housing. Those are for the months of October through April of 2024-25, and we're gearing up to get started on October 11th. So thank you. Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else before we close the meeting? Okay. Oh, yep, come on up.

I wasn't planning on saying something, so I heard Kenny was like, "Go, go." A couple of things. I think overall I just want to share my optimism, I guess, at the way that the system works. I know it doesn't work perfectly, and it doesn't work perfectly for everybody, but if you listen to what Kenny said here at the microphone earlier, if you listen to what Jamie said just now, and what Jamie said This isn't every public meeting. If you, you talked to Kathleen last week after two people were murdered in Davis Park in Mountain View. And what I think the thing that encourages me is to say we have a system that is working, not working, whatever, but the system is compassionate and I'm really proud of that.

Like, I think that we have a city who really does care. We have a lot of people from private individuals putting together funds, to private individuals who bring food to homeless people every single day walking, who volunteer at food banks, who come and publicly advocate for things. And even those in charge, those with authority, those with power, are asking hard questions, you know, when difficult things happen. Like how, you know, like How do we stop this from happening again? And I think that's worth just saying out loud and saying that we have a compassionate system.

I think that's good. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Okay, last call. Seeing no one, thanks everyone for being here.

Thank you for your work this evening.