Anchorage Assembly: HHAND Commission Monthly Meeting August 2026

Um, follow the August N Commission meeting to order.

Find the agenda. We'll start with a roll call.

Uh, hi everyone, I'm Dave Rittenberg. I am a commissioner. To my left, my name is Laura Raines and I am a commissioner. I'm Ron Leva. I'm a guest and a presenter today from Real Estate Auction, leave of family.

Uh, Kendra Leigh, staff. Valerie, staff. McKenna Bacon, staff. Cheeksburg, staff. Kyle Milking, staff.

Frankie Doll, uh, Commission staffer. And then going online, just where I see them, we see Amber.

Amber McPhail, Housing and Homelessness. And Abigail, I believe.

Yes, this is Abigail with the Disability Law Center of Alaska. And then Elizabeth. Hi, good afternoon. Liz Matthews with Covenant House Alaska. Julie.

This is Julie, Commissioner.

And Michelle.

Good afternoon, Michelle Baker, Commissioner. And Thea.

Thea was— Hi, I'm on my way over there, but I'm Thea Agnew-Bedbin with the Mayor's Office. And Kimberly.

Kimberly White with the Anchorage Health Department.

Daniel? Hey everybody, Daniel Sager, Commissioner. Jessica?

Oh, and Jessica just dropped.

Uh-oh, that's Jessica Parks. Uh, and Lyla? Hi, I'm Lila Taylor. I'm the Housing Services Division Manager with the Anchorage Health Department.

Hey, we've just been dropping. We still have a forum, right? Yeah, and she's also back. She's back. Hi, Jessica.

You're back. Oh, I think I am all better now. And you are Jessica Parks with the Coalition. Yes, Jessica Parks, Commissioner. Anchorage Coalition on Homelessness.

Excellent. Thank you so much. Um, with that, I'll entertain a motion to approve the order of business. Uh, motion. Uh, motion from Laura.

I need a second.

I second. Thank you, Michelle. Discussion?

You don't have anyone from the HOPE team, is that correct? Uh, not yet. They did say they were going to be here though. Oh, okay. So we'll have them— we'll leave that on the agenda, but keep it, keep it where it is.

Yeah. Um, any other discussion? Any opposition to approval of the order of business as As it stands, going once, going twice, seeing and hearing none. That's my job. Seeing and hearing none, order of business approved.

And then moving on to a motion to approve the minutes from Last month? From June. From June. And there are—.

There are informational session notes there, but yeah. Thank you, Frankie. So could we get a motion to approve the minutes from June, please?

Motion. Thank you, Laura. And a second? Second. I'll second.

Is that you, Julie?

Or Michelle? It's hard to tell online. We'll call it Julie. Discussion. Take a moment to look them over.

Excellent job as always, Frankie.

Oh, we didn't actually—. And then Lucy blew us away with the presentation, right? And then Lucy blew us away with the presentation. Yes, yes.

Any comments on the minutes? Anything we need to change? Everything seem—. Everything seem accurate?

Look good to me.

All right.

And we don't need to take any action on the July in this because it was an informational item. It's just a— it's informational. Yeah. Okay. So we don't need to— I still think you did a great job.

Thank you. Okay, any opposition to approving the June minutes as written?

Going once, going twice.

Minutes from the June meeting are approved. Moving on to disclosures. Do we have any disclosures? From commissioners. Well, there are no action items, so there will be nothing to disclose.

Thank you, Frank. There are no action items, so no need to have any disclosures.

And see, Ms. Williams has joined us. Thank you so much.

Um, okay, we're flying through here. So we have our no disclosures.

As Frankie mentioned, we have no action items. So no ongoing business, no new business. We'll move on to informational items. And with that, Jed, you're up. Update from—.

Yeah, not a whole lot to report in this update. We're still working on the various things that I talked about previous meetings. We did just submit our action plan to HUD yesterday for the 2026 funding. So that process is moving along, um, and we will be rolling out, um, the new programs we've been working on, um, over the next few months. Um, yes, sir, you want another chance?

Shanay, could you repeat that? I don't think we heard you clearly.

Oh, okay. I wasn't speaking to the thing, but I did have a question for Chad. Sure. If he was done. Yeah, that's all I have.

You know, there's no, nothing new really, except that we have some information.

Okay, sorry about that. I was talking to someone in the office, but I had a question, Jed. Have the projects been selected for the plan yet, or, and what is that process if they haven't or if they have? So, um, the— it's a— and I did, I did see your, uh, email asking about this, so, um, yeah, we'll send those out. More formal response as well.

But the projects have not— like, the projects for the buckets of funding for which we select grantees have not been set. So what we've set in the action plan is the categories of projects that we're going to fund, and that's the level at which the money is allocated at this point. So specifically for the Chota project, for example, that money has not been allocated to grantees, and we will do a request for grant proposals for that money. And also last year's German money actually also be combined in this process. Some of the money is set aside for programs that we're in the process of setting up.

So the redevelopment program, for example, you have the market home displacement assistance program are new programs that we're in the process of sort of designing and setting up, and there will at some point be a procurement process to select operators for those programs as well, which is a little bit different from the request for grant proposals process, but it goes through the same sort of procurement processes. But that also— those operators have not been selected either.

I think I heard part of what you said. So I saw a document. Is that document that is posted out? I think it's the Home Only Hand Commission page or the homeless page. It lists— I don't have it in front of me, but are those the programs you're referring to?

Yes. So those programs, where did they come from? These are new programs. I'm trying to get an understanding. Um, they are new programs that have come about through our, um, discussions within the municipality about what the special needs are.

Um, I, I think we, you know, there we are working on developing a more robust outreach process to try to get more, um, ideas and proposals for programs and projects from the community, um, so that this process is more, um, transparent and open in the future. Um, but we are just starting that up, so the, um, programs as, uh, proposed in this action plan are mostly coming from us. Would it be helpful if I pulled up the AMAR and screen shared that? Yeah, we could screen share what the allocations as approved by the Assembly. And the Assembly members actually had some input on these as well.

So some of the programs—. No, that's not there. It's the other. So right here, there are no programs listed, but there is a document that actually lists programs. If you can bring that one up, that would be great.

And I was trying to get more information on how the programs are actually selected. So that's not the document, Frankie, that's not it. So, yeah, I think you— it's the document that's under the homelessness. I think it's dated June, the Home and Homelessness Committee. So what I heard you, what I understood you to say, Jed, that these are programs that are being brought online?

Yeah. And how were those programs selected?

That, that's what I was trying to get an understanding of. And I might be able to find that document myself. Yeah, maybe let's try to find that. I think that would—. Frankie, I think that's probably the presentation from the assembly.

Yeah, so Frankie's like, I could find the document because, yeah, I think it'd be more helpful if we could look at that. I mean, I guess the main thing I would say is the programs that we are proposing to start up are designed to meet needs that we've identified. Um, is this what you were referencing, Shané?

This presentation? This is the June presentation from the Housing Focus Group. Okay, go down. It might be.

No. No. So, um, If you— I mean, Jed, haven't you published a document with those programs listed?

Because that's what I— that's what I looked at.

Haven't you published a document with the programs listed?

Yeah, Frank, maybe pull up the actual thing. Yeah, might not be the most recent, but I was just trying to get an understanding of how those programs were selected.

Now, when you say how they were selected, um, I mean, this is basically us deciding these are the things that we would like to do with our funding.

So, I mean, I don't know that there's anything—. I guess defined is more of a better word than how the programs are defined. I'm just trying to understand where did they come from. I, I—. Well, so for example, the redevelopment program, which is one of the major ones that we're proposing, came out of the experience that municipal staff have had with trying to help owners of properties on the vacant and abandoned list, or that carry, you know, have code enforcement actions against them, and the need to redevelop those.

Has become increasingly apparent. And so allocating money for that is an attempt to meet that need that's been identified through these steps. So, so that's kind of the, the type of need that's identified. Um, so what we have up here, this is the final allocation within the action plan of the different I see Darcy has her hand raised too. Darcy, did you want to add to this?

Thea also has her hand raised. I was just gonna ask Shané just for a little more clarification, and Jed, I think just to make sure we can, we can bridge what's being asked. Are you asking like, did this come out of like, we do a consolidation plan for 5 years, or we met with community councils or with the coalition. Is that kind of what you're asking, Shanay, like where the ideas came from?

Are you all able to hear me? All right, I'm here. I'm here. I couldn't get— I couldn't get back to my screen. I'm looking for the document.

I'm asking that the document that was presented in the Hand Commission had an explanation of allocated funds for different types of projects. That's the last meeting I attended, and it was the document Franky brought up. I have seen that document with names of projects projects described. And my question is, how did those projects come about to be described for those buckets of money? What is the process to this— to select the projects to be funded?

I understand how the Choctaw works. I don't understand how those other projects work. And that's my only question. And you're talking about You're talking about the form that's on the screen right now, or that was on the screen a minute ago.

Yeah, I just want to chime in. This is Thea. I think, Jenae, I just want to be clear about how we're using the word program. So, what you just saw on the screen that is in the draft action plan. So, like, when we say housing redevelopment program, The plan is allocating funds to that program.

We have not yet selected any projects within that program, so we have not done any RFP or selected any projects that will be part of the housing redevelopment program yet. And same with, like, we added mobile home relocation. Again, that came out of, like, Darcy was saying, like, and Jen was saying, like, conversations with the community. Input through the public hearings, Assemblymember input. And so, but we haven't identified yet how will the funds for mobile home relocation go out into the community.

We haven't identified a project or a vendor for that yet. Yeah, I think that, you know, the general answer to your question, Shané, is that for most types of project, we do a request for grant, competitive process through the Purchasing Department. The—. For the 2026 action plan, we have not done that process for any of these types of projects. So, so it's more priorities and initiatives that we've set, but the specific mechanisms for that money to go out to different programs or organizations to implement those priorities or initiatives would go through that RFP process, and that has yet to happen.

And that is probably the order of things that we will do in the future. In 2025, we did try to do some of that procurement before the action plan. I apologize to doing it that way because it introduces long delays in the process. So probably in the future we will just set out priorities in the action plan, right? Programmatic level, I mean, in terms of specific approaches, but that's definitely what we're thinking.

That is exactly the question I was asking. Okay. So, I'm going to find that document and maybe that would help me because maybe I'm looking at an old document because I thought the document I looked at had those projects' names, and that's what I was asking about. And there are, there, and there are past action plans where we have done it that way. You know, we, we, we, there, there have been action plans in the past where projects were not selected through a request for grant proposals process.

And those projects, by whatever means they were selected, were included specifically in the actual grant with a specific grantee's name. Since we have been moving to a more open competitive process. It has not been easy to get through that whole procurement before we draft the action plan. So, um, we don't have that level of detail in these action plans, but if we have looked at past ones, yes, there definitely are some that do have that level of detail. Well, and, Jenae, you also might be thinking about, um, kind of recently, uh, the Health Department did the $1.3 million in supportive housing RFP, and those grantees went to this assembly kind of recently.

So that might have been a list you've seen because Jed also presented that at a recent committee meeting. Yeah, it could be. And that's an example where that money was allocated in allocation plan like a couple years earlier and then declined to go, you know, to participate in it this year. And so that— yeah, but this step, before we do it, the plan comes in advance of RFP for the specific projects. Okay, I'll keep looking.

They cleared up my confusion. Thank you. I don't want to hold up too much more of the meeting. No problem. It is a good point here that yes, keep an eye out for a series of RFPs and RFGPs coming out in the next few months because we are going to have to distribute this funding that we're allocating in this way.

Okay. So, Frankie, I don't know, you probably need to move closer. Marvin is actually sitting here with me. Oh, hi, Marvin. Hey.

All right. I just wanted to be marked present. Oh, I have marked you as present. Thank you. Okay.

Anything else for CSD?

Nope, that was it.

Great. Thank you, Chad. Uh, moving— where'd I put my agenda? Moving on to probably homelessness. You—.

Hello. Um, I only have a couple of updates and then I'm gonna hand it over to McKenna because she also has one. Um, first and foremost, our 3 municipally funded shelters are all still full, but, um, Everything is going well. Their case managers are working with the clients there to try to get them into housing. And then we currently have our night-only shelter RFP posted, and it will be posted until August 11th.

So those are the only two things that I had, and then McKenna's got an update that she's going to present on.

Before we move on, any questions on those two points on Community-funded shelter or the night-only shelter RFP.

Okay. Uh, the Housing and Homelessness team is putting on a 6-month series of Lunch and Learns. Um, so they'll all be presentations done by, uh, Anchorage Health Department, uh, programs, departments, employees. Um, it's geared towards service providers of people experiencing homelessness. So we just welcome you to join us.

It'll be a Friday a month from 12:00 PM to 12:45 PM. So a 30-minute presentation, a 15-minute— up to a 15-minute Q&A just on these different topics here. I have hard flyers if anybody wants them. So if anybody's interested in joining, you can email us and we will add you to the invites.

And those are virtual. Yes, they're all virtual. Awesome. It's sort of like a bring your own lunch. Yes, yes.

Welcome. It's like, please enjoy your own lunch while you join us virtually.

Any questions for McKenna? I'm excited for those. I'm going to forward those to a bunch of my staff. I think that's— we're always looking for training opportunities for, you know, our program managers and our emerging leaders. And I think this is such a, such a a great thing and also get people connected to other people doing the work too.

So, and I love the topics. I think they're all really, really relevant, really pertinent for what people are seeing on the ground. So, yeah, we tried to funnel them like, you know, communicable disease in October, flu season, right? And cold weather before December. So hopefully we plan those accordingly.

So that's really relevant for the providers. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. All right.

Anything else from housing and homelessness or any questions from commissioners?

We are ripping through this agenda, which is good because we have two presentations today. Thea, Mayor's Office, you're up. Great. Thanks, everybody. We—.

I think I've shared with you, we submitted a proposal for the Rural Health Transformation Program with the state and focused on trying to get all of our kind of crisis system and safety net providers hooked up to the Health Information Exchange and also adding some behavioral health-focused pilot projects. So we did get some response back from them just today and we need to work on our budget. So that's still kind of in play. But in the middle of that, I also got some really good information from the Health Information Exchange, Alaska Health eConnect. We're trying to figure out how we can get better connectivity for, like, our health department teams, our police and fire teams, and also ultimately our shelter providers and have a better way of doing referrals, especially when people are coming in and out of healthcare institutions, which is often the case.

Right now, we don't really have any way of, like, you know, doing a referral that transmits relevant information so that people could potentially get to the right the right shelter or to even know if there is a vet for that person to go to. It's very ad hoc. So the good news that I learned, we're still kind of processing this internally, is that it sounds like there are ways for us to do that even if we don't have an electronic health record that each of our teams is using, or like, for example, at the shelter. So I'm kind of pushing on that now because I thought I kind of had to wait until we had money and did all these other things. And now it feels like maybe there's some, some progress we could make sooner.

So, we're kind of processing that internally and then we'll start to figure out how we can bring that into our system, which would be wonderful. McKenna and I have been redoing our safety net diagram that we use, and we've updated it with the recent housing inventory count from the coalition. And then just circulating with all of our providers to update any contact information. We also put on the back a little bit more information about like how many total beds are in our system, like our safety net system, because I think it's really helpful for people to understand, like, we actually do have like 2,400 beds and it's interesting information. So hoping to get that out.

We had a great tour on Monday. We took the mayor and a bunch of our building services folks and a bunch of our health department a team out to Big Lake to the NANA modular housing fabrications factory, which I don't know if people know about this, but it is freaking awesome and it's gigantic and it is literally a giant building where people are on an assembly line building modular housing. And right now most of that is being built for like oil and gas. Like when we were there, they're building a hotel. Which is very cool, but they're very interested in deploying that here in Anchorage, which would have required them to meet our building codes and all that kind of thing.

So, we're excited about figuring out how that kind of fits with some of the work that the health department's— these new projects that we have, because we're trying to really figure out how do we bring on housing units that are lower cost and quicker to produce, that could be produced, you know, year-round. So, more to come on that, but that's, that's really exciting. We're also looking for other funding to kind of match with our funds. So we'll be applying to Rasmussen for, for some of that, which is also cool. We've been doing a lot of work with our distressed properties, kind of interdepartmental team.

We have a few different— we have a very a difficult one in Fairview that we're hoping we can actually get demolished this month. It's 907 East 11th. It was burned. It's been causing a ton of neighborhood problems. Um, and then we're also hoping to make some progress with, um, some in Mountain View.

So that's part of the reason for us to try to do this housing redevelopment fund is we really want to have a way when we do clear a distressed property to really help that owner quickly add new housing units onto that property. Um, I think those are kind of the main— oh, just also want to let people know, and I know Michelle's online here, tomorrow the Public Health and Safety Committee meeting was rescheduled to 3 o'clock, but folks from South Central will be there. Michelle, do you want to talk about your presentation tomorrow?

Yes, thank you, Thea. So tomorrow South Central Foundation will be doing two presentations. One, an update on our Yes, Yes, Ta building. So the building at the corner of Tudor and Elmore and the phases of the programs in those programs and when they will open and what those services in that building will entail. And the second presentation will be done by one of our vice presidents, Brian McCutcheon.

He'll be speaking about our Kiana Kanka building downtown on 225 Eagle Street. You might see some renovations happening down there or site work happening down there. We are building a new building and growing that program that we hope to have finished in 2028. So Brian will be talking about the services in that building and the work we'll be doing between now and 2028 to grow that program.

Thanks, Michelle. And then just a couple other upcoming presentations.

At the Housing and Homelessness Committee meeting on the 19th, we'll be doing a kind of cross-department presentation around unsheltered homelessness and the work that municipality has been doing to address camping. So you'll see that was on the— there was an assembly information memo on this last meeting, but we'll actually be presenting that on the 19th. And then in September, on September 9th, I think it is, we'll be doing a presentation of the Housing and Homelessness— wait, sorry, wrong committee. I think it must be the 23rd or the 9th, 16th. 16Th, that's it.

Thank you. On the 16th, we'll be doing a presentation of the Housing and Homelessness dashboard for the first two quarters of the year. So that's going to have to be—. Yes, questions? Yes, Mayor's Office.

Nothing.

Well, the modular building seems crazy. Um, in building a hotel, they just like build it in pieces and they put it together like they go. It was really Cool, actually, because they had one packed up, so it was just like the room itself, and then they just put them together. So it's like a stack of tents. Yeah, that's very neat.

Yeah, it's very cool.

Okay, quick check before we get into presentations. Public comment, Jamie? Is that it? Yeah, yeah, but I'm just making sure that we're saving time. Sure.

Yeah, anybody else public comment here?

All right, going on to new business. Unfortunately, don't see the HOPE team here, so we will leapfrog over that. If they do arrive, we can have them go after our esteemed member Ron. So, Ron, excited for your presentation. Well, here we are.

Oh, good deal. Uh, where should I go? Over here? Anywhere? Where?

I think you're— I mean, pretty informative. Let's try to keep it to, let's say, 10 minutes and then, uh, a couple minutes for questions after that. That sound—. Hey, that's fine. It's hard for me to condense because we all know the problem.

It's not going to be condensed and identified because it's expanding, contracting, new Dolphins come in and it's like a new drug. That's throws in a real curve. My name is Ronald Ava. I've been adjacent to the shelter for 46, uh, I was going to say miserable years, but I survived. And no one, I think, knows the homeless situation better than someone who's been adjacent to the magnet of services and the overflow that it creates.

And that's what I'm offering is not only identifying the problem, but offering a solution. And the solution is Bindlestick Park.

The resource center is, you know, a nucleus of services and we want to utilize it to the maximum. So being adjacent to it, Uh, it makes it easy access and, hey, get people directed into the right services. But Bindlestick Park is part of Habitat for the Homeless. Now, I've toured many homeless shelters, including one of the best was in Las Vegas by Southern Charities, Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada, and their program, very successful. My program is a blend of that along with Habitat for Humanity, where I right now have a construction camp that can house 24 people.

I'm housing them, I'm employing them, I'm advising them to seek out other more productive employment. I offer training, and then most importantly, uh, I offer them opportunities to not only earn money but to be aware of other services and potentially avenues to get back on their feet. The ultimate being stable housing. And stable housing, you get stable employment, and from there, hopefully you become and re-enter as productive members of society. So the handouts are self-explanatory, and, you know, the vision statement— everyone hopefully knows what a pindu stick is.

Anyone not know?

Oh, that's good. Anyone not know, don't raise your hand.

Okay, but moving forward, uh, Most important thing is to take a tour, and a tour is a work in progress. I have sponsors. It's going semi-well, but the reason I'm here, it's going a little too slow as the fireweed reaches the top. Now, safety first. When you house someone, you can take them out from under a tree and put them in a tent, a little better.

You You can put them in a rough shelter, but there's other elements— sanitation, you know, there are challenges of charging their phone, you know, food storage, and all the issues that come into play, including sanitation, meaning the spreading of disease. And this is all done with compassion and with responsibility. The people who come in overflow from the shelter— don't Google me, just come and visit with me, and then you'll get a little better sense of who I am and how I relate to the homeless. Because right now the philosophy is I haven't asked for any money. Some money's come in, But our goal is to have Kelly with Solid Waste Services make an Eastside recycling center that we will man and process recyclables that will generate itself sufficiently, provide funds to maintain Kendall State Park.

And the park consists of not only— well, let's call them tiny homes, modified construction camp housing units,, but also I have commercial Arctic tents, and then I have space for car parking, RV parking, etc. If you don't know my location, I'm next to the shelter. They recently vacated some roads there and discovered that I own the sidewalk. The survey showed that little miscalculation, but the shelter sidewalk going by the shelter is my property. I haven't restricted it.

I'm not going to say eminent domain applies, but it can be blocked legally. So, and because the shelter is on a truck road, this park would reroute hopefully the bus stop and get people safer to access through the back the Brother Francis Shelter and the Resource Center, because that is a truck route both directions, 4th Avenue and 3rd Avenue, and there's no crosswalks. Crosswalks meaning where the lights change, you have a flashing light and you're supposed to stop. Doesn't happen. So it's very dangerous for the most vulnerable.

But we have the problem, we have the solution. And what are the benefits? Economics. Watching the rate of return per dollar spent, well, it's pretty nauseating because if you want to solve the problem and not increase the problem. And my philosophy is there's no such thing as a free lunch.

You're going to come to lunch. If someone's late for work or doesn't show up, They get a garbage bag and they gotta go out and we adopted the streets. We picked up 400 bags of garbage. It's up to 5. Then they come back and then they get to go to work.

I give them a token, a hand raise, and hey, they did it. So they take some responsibility for not only cleanup, but acknowledge the responsibility of showing up on time, This is what it takes to go to a job. And hey, when you eat, someone's not giving you a free meal. Someone paid for that. And you have to understand that if someone paid for it, it's a gift.

How do you appreciate that gift and how do you earn it yourself? Harry Kamenov said that. No such thing as a free lunch. But there's more to it because the camp not only has its own showers, its own kitchen, it has a chapel. We have doggy kennels, daycare.

We have bike repair, mini cottage industries where, hey, they can repair their own transportation. They understand other trades that they can work on their own unit. And just like Habitat, if you put sweat equity She mentioned Big Lake and the modular homes. They already had that all out on 100th Avenue. And then also the Department of Corrections at McKenzie will make a prototype which can be replicated with recycled goods, which is like Habitat.

They don't have the room for the timber, the roofing, the trusses. I do. You put together a tiny home, find a new location for it, somebody adopts it like an EDU, and a qualified screened homeless person gets to move under the guidance of an individual or a church for wherever they relocate this facility. Now, the benefits are cost and rates of return, and I think Well, they built the last tiny homes down on Post Road. I cleared the building, but we ended up with 800 extra doors, and they built those tiny homes there.

I hired the homeless to clean the building. The contractor who built them brought up relatives from Iowa and didn't hire a single homeless. Now, the programs are diverse, that even in the winter We have Hydrants of Hope where you get a homeless person, sponsor them, they shovel the snow, and you get to name the hydrant. You can name it after your dog, or in my case, I named one Trump, and I hope the dogs do their duty on that specific hydrant as much as possible. Little message.

So I think my time is up. Dave? You got a couple more minutes. Do I? Yeah, I just want to make sure we have time for questions.

Oh well, listen, I, I— there's a lot to this, and, uh, I've invited an assembly. Guess what? Too dangerous to come down. I'm going, how do you think I feel? I witnessed sexual assaults.

Kind of sad. I asked for a chaplain because it plays with your head, and she couldn't come down. But got a chaperone, et cetera. Gave me the armor of salvation. That means refueling, retooling, and it's not easy.

The homeless are an energy drain beyond belief. And you have to really have shields that protect you, that give them a chance, give them another chance, and never give up. That's kind of my philosophy. Sisu, it's a Finnish term. But Never give up.

Although I did get punched and almost knocked on the ground, but I got back up. And that's the way you gotta approach the homeless. Never give up. But if you get de-energized, then we will train you, call timeout, reset, just like someone who's on drugs. If they relapse, say, slow down and start again.

And every day when I pay 'em cash, which, thanks to Trump, it's a tip— non-taxable, non-reportable. So they get their money, and if anyone asks for $20, I refuse, because $20 is the amount you need for a shot of fentanyl, clear or black tar heroin, and that'll only survive them for a day. So I make them do extra duty and make sure that I counsel them one-on-one, that I give them a domino. This is a block, block from a wall, wall that's high, thick, and it gets wider and thicker. Take out a block, break it up with tiny steps, and reformat it into a brick for a new foundation for your life.

And tiny steps, believe it or not, even for myself Don't stop, don't go backwards, just recognize tiny steps build up to a big leap in your life. And hey, it'll work. Any questions?

Anybody here not think that that was the best presentation you heard in your life? Don't raise your hands. Ron, I'll chime in here and I just, um, I really appreciate the thought that has been put into this and the emphasis on wraparound services, you know, and recognizing that there's not just one solution for everybody. And, you know, the illustration that you have here really shows, you know, a well-thought-out campus that has, you know, like I mentioned, wraparound services. And I really, I really appreciate the perspective on don't give up.

You know, people are gonna make mistakes and people are gonna fall flat. And sometimes, yes, we do need to take a step back and recharge ourselves before we can go back out there. So I really appreciate that. Question I do have, I know you have that property down there. I'm familiar with it, as you know.

How much of this has been put into practice and how much of this is still theory? Well, actually, you know, I've been under the wire and I want to say it's a team effort. I'm not doing this by myself. I mean, I've been there 46 years. Theo over here is one of the most dynamic and productive homeless assistants to the mayor, or just independently brings everyone together.

And so that's why I'm here, that when I put out the flyer for Labor Covenant House, Linda House, Clare House, the calls came in from all over. And some of them worked out, some of them didn't. And the team effort, Dee, you know, I know we have a little fence between us, but it's not a wall. And we have our kind of differences of how to handle the homeless. And so, well, throw out the bad ideas, polish the good ones, and let's move forward.

It's going to be— we're not going to solve it. We're going to adjust to minimize it, control it, and be successful as much as possible in every fraction that comes up. And everyone can play a role. Artists, musicians, Every people would have financial backgrounds and people who know how to work a shovel. Mando.

Yeah. Thank you. I very much enjoyed coming down and Kenny's been part of it too. And husband did. So, thanks.

I'm happy that you're doing good stuff on your property. I was hoping you could just talk a little bit about, because you mentioned fentanyl. Obviously it's a huge issue that we're all dealing with, not just that, but other, other issues related to behavioral health. Can you talk a little bit about how you've been addressing that with the folks that are working for you? Because I know you've also had theft and other things happen.

And then how, how is it working for you to work with True North, or you've joined AMDOT, you're on our 9 AM meetings? Like, how are you kind of doing your own thing? And then also, how are you like taking advantage of behavioral health? Well, I have to first of all thank Thea. I'm not a— I'm a little crude with my language.

She had me polish it up a little bit. But I'm not quite that way when someone comes in and says, I'm here for a job. My first question to them is, what is your drug of choice? And they go, oh, I do some beer, I do some smoke. And I go, listen, I won't call you a liar, but that— I can smell bullshit, I can hear bullshit, and that's bullshit.

So tell me your drug of choice, because we got Narcan here and we got to be careful. If you OD, you know, a lot of people don't care if you die, but if you die on my property, then I got to deal with you. So, hey, what is it? And they'll come clean and say, I do fanny. And I go, you're doing fanny?

Where's the casher? $20 A day. And then it gets a little spooky because this fentanyl changes the mindset and the behavior. And it's unbelievable.

They're—. Well, their whole work ethic and habit. They take a little more monitoring. But I'm trying to adjust to it, but it's so out of the norm that it's got to be documented so we are all on the same plane. And it's coming in in different dosages and strengths and really tough.

Clear is a form of meth. How do you do it? Do you smoke it? Do you inject it? And then I hate to tell you that for H, I'm diabetic, ran out of syringes, so I went there.

They don't give out syringes for diabetics. They give out over a million needles. And so I asked them, how many come back? And they said, oh, we don't know. I said, why not?

You know, how many are coming back? So you use that as a tool. How many are in the street? And they said, "Well, we can't con 'em." I said, "You don't have to con 'em, you can win." But drugs are really difficult. But they come clean and I understand.

And when they relapse, then I take 'em when I peel one-on-one and I have a little inspirational talk. It's not about me. You're not working for me. You're here for yourself. And you asked about True North.

I pay him an extra hour. True North came down and picked up a client, and then he leaves early. I pay him the extra hour to go to a CA meeting. He's so appreciative that he bonds with me with his work ethic. And well, you know, I don't want any of them to drop a dime on me, but I'm not up to code.

And I respect code, but this silver tongue can talk me around code that we're under construction. We don't— same zoning laws don't apply to me. It's a camp and we're building, and it's a lot of my own background that zoning— bring them on, they don't have anything on me. Uh, Amber. Oh, who's in?

Hey, Ron, thank you for the presentation. I loved it. And forgive me if I missed this during this, but are you proposing with that picture of the different resources and everything, are you going to repurpose your land? Or you're saying we need an additional space? So if I missed that, I apologize.

No, no, I, I have, uh, on the First lot, almost 3 acres. I have a warehouse and a shop that I hope to do training and repairs for vehicles and detail, simple jobs. And then the other lot, 3 lots, would be for parking. If you had to have a— your vehicle, your RV, it's a little, little restrictive, or part of it will be just tents. Because under a tree, if they're staying in an Arctic tent temporarily, it's better than being in the rain.

And these are Arctic tents, 30 of them, from sizes 17 by 31 down to 8 by 10. So we have it. And if they ever do a military exercise, which they did from New Hampshire They did an emergency setup of an entire city. And we need the military, National Guard, the Boy Scouts, whoever to replicate that, and it'll work.

I'm putting out the chapel first because we start with prayers, and hey, hopefully we buy lottery tickets and win.

We recycled just in scrap copper rather than steal it. I hit $17,000 by recycling. Had a guy strip copper. Kenny Peterson sponsored a stripper and a shredder, and that's all we needed was extension cords and wire. And by donations, it came in from contractors.

We stripped it and sold it above board fare. I dispersed it as tips. They enjoyed the bonus of being productive. All the homeless can work. My belief is the guy in the wheelchair drooling, he gets the lick stamps.

Fair enough, but he's not going to get a free meal, not on Bindle Stick.

Next question. Hey, thank you, Ron. Oh, you're welcome, Amber. Come on down, you're all welcome to take a tour. Uh, and if people want to tour, reach out to you.

Pardon me? We have people do want to tour, reach out to you directly. Well, we know— come on down. Just, uh, I have a safe word, it's called priest. I had a priest trying to get back under the wire.

ICE was after him. So I hid him for a year. But I raised the security word to Pope. So if you say Pope, because hopefully he'll come to America and have a good message and give a piece of pie to that elected official who is a pumpkinhead. Thank you.

I don't want to get political, but you already did. Okay, who knows who's a pumpkinhead? Okay, well, thank you very much for allowing me to present. Uh, usually I'm at the assembly, and the final thing I whisper into the microscope is, beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life here. There is in this room.

So if we can all work together in the right direction for you. Fair enough. Not him, not me. No, apparently I'm, you know, he's banned from asking questions. Yes, come down.

No, what's your question? Well, well, uh, two questions. One, uh, when is the next time you're going to the assembly meetings? You stop going to them and you bring a certain vibrance and energy, uh, that cannot be denied. So that was quite important.

And, uh, question two, uh, is, is this a carrot or a stick, or is it a bit of both? Um, I'm still trying trying to figure that one out, but it looks like it's Karen. What? Why I don't go to assembly meeting? No, no, no, I'm saying what's the next time you go?

Oh, the next time? Well, unfortunately, Karen Braga got killed in a car accident.

They should recognize the great loss that she was a very good assembly person, a good person, and she had great concern for the homeless. And so if the assembly and the mayor acknowledge sympathy and condolences to their family and the great loss to the city, I think that would be an appearance. The mayor did mention in the mayor's report yesterday. Okay, well, it's good for her. And then the reason I don't attend— well, I've been escorted out by the chief of police and security multiple times.

I trespassed once, which was invalid, and I'm a little verbose. And my line about "beaming me up," that was serious.

Humor. Keep your humor. Keep smiling. It energizes you, brings out endorphins, oxytocins, and dopamines that don't have to be artificially stimulated. By drugs.

And that's what I try to provide to the homeless, let them know that, you know. Thanks, Ron. Yeah, thank you all. Comment, and there's interest in setting up a tour for the AM Commission, so we'll reach out to you about that. Okay, thank you.

Any, any good ideas, you're all welcome for a tour. Uh, bring a helmet and get a tetanus shot. All right, thank you, Ron. Uh, now we'll move on to general public comments. Oh, I missed it all.

Yeah, okay. Uh, we'll get the, the gong ready. Yeah, timer ready.

All right, uh, start. Not quite yet. One. Think about what you want to say. Yeah, so off the top of my head.

Danny? I'm good. Jamie Lopez, East Anchorage formerly Coalition for the Homeless. So I prepared remarks. Any different ways that could support this?

So currently there's Alaska Housing Summit. It is August 19th and August 20th. And the unfortunate part about that thing is it's $150 a ticket to get in. And when you set a price for $150, that is not inclusive, that is exclusive, and that basically means it's not really open to people like me or to people on the street. It's, uh, there's advocacy, but it's not advocacy for all.

So I was sort of semi-disappointed to see the price associated with that. So aside from that, um, basically yesterday, um, there was a report that was pushed through the assembly, by the mayor with little fanfare. And it was a report on AO 2025-74-S2, the anti-camping ban ordinance. And so more or less, um, it was done pretty quickly. It was done based on this dashboard, which is 123 arrests, 962 voluntarily complied, and 72 accepted services.

And so more or less, uh, what they did not say on APD was that the 72 is a subset of 962.. And so if you do the math and you include the arrests and the subjects that voluntarily complied, total is 1,085. 72 Divided by 1,085, 6.6% acceptance rate of services. If you do the 72 divided by 962 exclusively, it's 7.5%. But it's effectively a failure.

And so more or less, this is going into a larger topic, which I've done before, and that's paying for outreach. And so, um, When you attach outreach services to law enforcement, there are a number of people that are not going to accept it for the simple reason it's a barrier. They've been traumatized and they just won't take it. And then some do take it and then literally they're right back out on the street in short order. And I just came across two today who had been over at Centennial for a couple of weeks and then they're back out on the street.

And so that number really does not reflect those people. That are being housed. Aside from all that, 4 years, 10,000 hours of field outreach experience, 3 years past, I've been doing it since exiting homelessness, spent all of my savings. And more or less what I've been watching play out is nobody will pay to do this sort of job. They're afraid of liability.

They just don't wanna pay in general. And so basically it costs $177.89 per person per day to house a single person up to 100 people for Kim Rash, and he's 56. That basically is $62,000 a year to house a single person in that building. $89 Is going to him. $108 Per person per day for Linda's Place.

That is $40 grand. And so I'm about to be on the street again. And if anybody does not want to pay for good work, I'm gonna go over there and I will be a net negative. But there is one last thing. So I applaud Ron for what he's doing.

This is a positive step in the right direction. People need places to go and they don't have it right now. But with that said, there is a tidal wave coming and people are not ready for it. And that is called AI. Artificial general intelligence is about 5 years away.

Basically, what you have is individual models very good at doing individual things, and it hasn't quite reached the point where it's good at doing everything. That, that moment is coming very soon, and any number of industries are about to get displaced, and you will have endless waves of people that no longer have a value to their labor. You will need universal basic income to solve that problem, to prevent chaos on the streets, and, and then it will go to our actual super intelligence. But anyways, all that said, uh, appreciate the time, appreciate the presentation. Uh, Ron did well, and, uh, I hope people support Thank you.

Any other general public comment? Anyone online? I don't have a comment, but I just want to tell Jamie— hi, Jamie, this is Shané. I really appreciate what you do, and I just wanted you to know that. I see you.

Can I hear you?

Um, I just wanted to share that the data that you shared, um, Jamie, yeah, there's updated data in the presentation that was part of the assembly informational memorandum that was on the agenda, and that's what's going to be presented on the 19th. Yeah, it's basically the same thing, but it's right here. Oops, apologies. So yeah, it's this slide deck that was uploaded on Friday to OnBase, and, uh, 72 accepted services out of 890. Basically subtract the 72 from 962, and then I get 7.5 acceptance rate.

Yeah, I think that— I just want to share that, you know, certainly when we're doing enforcement That is not like, that is not the first, that's not the first step in the process. The first step in the process is outreach and outreach is multidisciplinary outreach team. There's only one officer on that. Everybody else is a community partner from all different agencies, including the coalition and the health department. They don't know where to go now 'cause they're endlessly displaced.

I have people asking. Key to find people. And people are not even giving their locations to Coalition now. And part of what we do, the way that we do find people, is we have online reports which the community is giving us all the time, um, because I get emails every time somebody else reports. And so we're sharing that information every morning at 9:00 AM with that big outreach team.

And then we are also, um, right now kind of organizing the team so that there are certain places that every— that we have a person assigned to, to go to every day. And then we have additional places that are identified through reporting, um, to find other folks. So that's what—. Well, I'm saying every single night I'm going out and I'm feeding people on the street. And so they're out there.

No doubt, absolutely true that there are people on the street. I think we have someone else for public comment. Is that Alan? I see your raised hand. Are you wanting to provide public comment?

I am. All right, let's get the timer up and take it away. Okay, so Alan Kemplum, uh, President, Fairview Community Council, and just wanted to express my appreciation to, um, you know, the Hand Commission as a staff. Jed was at our last month's meeting, announced that the CDBG funds were going to be used to provide water utilities to Perseverance Gardens. And so I've been to the commission several times over the past, you know, year, couple years, you know, asking for, you know, the commission to realize the opportunities that exist in this community for neighborhood development, not just homelessness and housing, but the ND of the commission— homelessness, housing, and neighborhood development.

So, and I appreciate their support, you know, staff support for neighborhood development and, you know, Anchorage, and to let folks know that, you know, more opportunities are coming in the future. So I look forward to working with everybody as we move forward with revitalization of the Gamble-Ingrid corridor and make it a prosperous place to live, work, and play. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Jack.

Yeah, thanks. Um, we did find the, uh, the presentation that, uh, was asking about before. Um, I don't know if we really need to go into the details, but we can follow up individually if you have specific questions about that. Uh, now moving on to Commissioner comments. Any comments from Commissioners other than I need to jump off early.

I need to jump off early.

Jessica. Jessica. Yes, I have 2 things. First, I wanted to share that tomorrow there is a CoC meeting to do 2 things. First, to approve the community application for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project and Youth Homelessness System Improvement grant application that is being submitted next week.

The second is to review and approve the priority listing for the Continuum of Care renewal and new project applications. Everyone who is a CoC member is eligible to vote, and you can become a CoC member by nature of going to that meeting, so don't feel like this meeting isn't for you. I am excited to share that we had just over $5.6 million available to our community and we received just over $10.1 million worth of applications. So we had a large grouping of really good applications submitted and the Rank and Review Committee rank and review team had their work cut out for them reviewing that. I do want to thank Thea and Jed for participating in that rank and review.

Having your insights was really helpful into that particular meeting. So meeting tomorrow to go over that at 10 AM, and I'm happy to send the link if anybody would like the link directly. You can also come here to our office and attend in person, or it's on Teams. The second thing, Jamie already talked about it as well, but there is a housing summit. It is a joint event being held by the Anchorage Coalition on Homelessness and the Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

It is August 19th and 20th, and we did have scholarships available, but we had to close scholarships a month before for the event, so we knew how many spaces we were reserving for that. I believe right now there's about 20 tickets available still, so if you are interested in attending the Housing Summit, you can find the link to the purchase tickets on our website and the Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness website. And thank you all for a great meeting, and thank you, Ron. I always love hearing about the really cool things you're doing.

I have one question. I'm going to see if there's any other comments from commissioners.

I have a question. So, question is for Jessica. So, uh, if there are people that want to attend this thing but do not have the financial means to do so, uh, whether it's people on the street or anybody else, uh, are you going to turn them We have a capacity for the building, so we are only allowed to have a certain number of participants, and we are selling tickets right up to that amount. So if somebody didn't apply for a scholarship and receive a ticket through the scholarship, then if we are at capacity, we can't accommodate walk-ups. So the answer is no.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, um, I don't think we have any reports this month, so with that, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Well, I have a question. I think I didn't hear what Jed said. He said that they found the document And Jed, are you going to stay on and just— you can— I don't care if the meeting closed and you can just explain it to me. I didn't hear your comment. I said that I heard you say you found it, but I didn't hear what was going to happen next.

Yeah, I just said we could follow up with you individually about that. Okay, that's fine. Yeah, so maybe we'll set a time tomorrow. We can go over it. You're around.

Yeah. Okay, sounds good.

I believe Laura made a motion to adjourn. I need a second. I second. Second from Michelle. Any opposition?

Once, going twice, going three times. Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you very much.

And there we go.