Anchorage Assembly: Housing and Homelessness Committee

Regarding the True North Recovery HUD grant to buy the Access Alaska building in Fairview. I will be putting that contract back on the assembly agenda for the meeting of July 7th. There has been robust community conversation about this purchase. When I pulled the agreement, the AM, off of the agenda in May, True North was planning a launchpad project where crisis services would be provided on-site.

After discussions with the community, meetings with the assembly and public commissions, True North has revised their proposal. I'll let them go into the details, but they are now proposing outpatient services and administrative office space to be co-located with Access Alaska. There will be no crisis services provided out of that facility. We all know that we still need more crisis care, behavioral health resources, and access to treatment. True North plans to purchase a mobile crisis command vehicle to provide these services wherever they are needed, and they will continue to work with shelter providers and other community partners to deliver crisis care in existing facilities, and this will benefit all of Anchorage.

All of our community. I want to commend the team at True North for hearing the community's concerns and finding ways to both serve people in need and to be great neighbors. The work they're already doing with the Anchorage Police Department has connected so many residents to treatment to ensure they are safe and working towards a better path. True North has shown a real commitment to their mission and their willingness to be part of the community. Particularly the Fairview neighborhood.

I also want to thank the residents of Fairview and the assembly members from that district who've worked with True North to learn more about their proposal, to suggest ideas to move forward, and to express their concerns. We are all better off when we work together. I'm excited about the opportunity to bring these much-needed services to the residents of Anchorage. I think Given what you both have been talking about, it's very clear in so many ways that we need these services. We have been laser-focused on public safety, homelessness, and community health, and True North is proposing to fill a major gap in our safety network.

I want to also note that if the Assembly approves the grant award, a good neighbor agreement is required. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] between True North and the community. Keeping in mind though, this is by-right zoning use. Behavioral health services were once provided at this location and anybody could go in and provide those services without any additional requirements. But with a grant from the municipality and through— for the HUD funding, this is when a good neighbor agreement would be required.

And so I think it's important to— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] to keep that piece in mind. So I hope you all will be supportive of this new proposal, and True North will have more details to share with all of you in case you have any questions. But again, thank you so much. I appreciate your partnership in this work that we all are doing together. Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Ms. Skow? Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Mayor LaFrance, and everyone who's worked to have these conversations. That started the day before I was sworn in, so it's been a big theme of learning how all of this works here at the municipality. One question we've— is this an appropriate time for questions?

Of course. Okay, one question we've received, Vice Chair Boland and I, from Fairview community members is regarding the enforceability of MOUs, good neighbor agreements, and even proposals that we approve grant funding for at the Assembly. How do we ensure that the proposal we are discussing now stays— yeah, stays true to what the actual programs that are implemented are? What would it take to shift and bring— I think the obvious fear here is that crisis services come back into the programming after we've approved this funding. So how do we ensure that we stay on track here if the current proposal is approved.

And Anchorage Health Department Director Kim Rasch has joined us here at the table, and so, Ms. Rasch. Good morning, everyone. Kimberly Rasch. And so with the MOU, so we have MOUs with our shelter providers currently, and so that is a collaborative process in ensuring that that communication stays strong, ensuring that with this particular project, and as Mayor LaFrance mentioned, there won't be any crisis services. The grant is for the acquisition of the building for the services outlined in the scope of work of that agreement.

Mm-hmm. And so that is what we have to abide by for our HUD funding. Ensuring that those services stay in place at that location and that it meets the national objectives of HUD. Okay. So if they were to, if True North were to make a change to the program or to the services offered at that building, what would be required process-wise?

So after the grant expires, HUD requires us to track the progress project deliverables for 5 years after the end of that grant agreement. The use of the facility as acquired has to stay the same for at least, at least 5 years up to 15 years. And so the, the use does have to stay the same. After the grant agreement expires, the services— would remain the same afterwards, essentially. Okay.

And so the services can't be changed midstream. So if we approve the grant in 2 years, True North can't come back and say, actually, we want to do all of these different things that weren't in the original proposal. Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Thanks. And I know we have lots of other questions. I wanted to, I wanted to be able to organize a little bit. First, I want to thank RRS for being here. I wanted to just briefly say on the record that the, the reports that you submit are on the municipal website under third-party oversight for municipal year-round shelters.

The current version is not there. So I would love to make sure—. The last version I see is May 6th. So we had talked about maybe sending those out, and I just want to make sure that all of us are receiving them and getting those reports, because I understand they're every 2 weeks. Is that correct?

Correct. The Health Department puts those on the website, so I will follow up with staff and make sure that those are updated, because they are coming at that frequency, and then that is the one touchpoint that they do get sent out and posted at. Right. So I would just encourage members to read those and to stay up on what's happening with shelters. Do we have any other questions for our RS at this point, or can we ask them— go ahead, Ms. Park, and then we can come back to the other topic.

Thank you, Chair. For RS, I know we've all seen people on the streets with assistive devices, with wheelchairs, with apparent dressings and casts and things like that. And I hear you saying that when they're discharged to you, you can find a place but you can't provide care. Is there any sort of outreach from the local hospitals where you could get a skilled nursing visit for a person like that?

Through the Chair to Member Park. So we are able to provide care to individuals who, like if they are using a wheelchair or a walker or they have a cast, we do provide care for those individuals. The individuals that are acutely unable to care for themselves, and they're not discharged just straight to the street. For example, yesterday we had an individual that we had to coordinate with the hospitals and MCT to be able to discharge her into hospital care. So we don't, we don't just say, hey, you have to leave, right?

So when it comes to individuals that do have a higher level or ask need for care, we have the, we work with closely with the Health Department and also the MCT CT team and connecting them with other options. We've been also working with getting a primary care—. What is it, a PCA? PCA. Yeah, so we've been working on the ability to get a PCA.

And when it comes to having— the rules for having a PCA come into shelter can be a little tricky, and we've been navigating that. But one of the options that we've been exploring is having a peer PCA so that it's somebody that's within shelter with them that can help them with their ADLs. Because we're trying anything we can. Thank you. Any other questions for RRS?

Yes, Ms. Baldwin. Yeah, I was curious, you said that there were conversations happening with hospitals and everyone's doing their best. What does that actually mean?

Through the Chair, the challenge is we have a pocket of people, about 45 to 50 people, that we see rolling around from the shelters to the hospitals to API to prop psych to the shelters to the hospitals to API, and we all take turns with the same individuals. So when we get hospital discharges, we talk about Bob and we say, what are we gonna do with Bob today? That is wearing on our emergency responders, our shelter system, and our hospitals. We don't have a place that is long-term for those individuals. So we work with them daily.

And it depends on the day and the level of acuity of the individual we're trying to serve. But that's the challenge because there's always this constant communication with the hospitals, but we're not getting anywhere. It's just this cycle of who, how are we dealing with so-and-so today? And we've got to change that into a more robust outcome. So if I could add to that, this is Thea Agnew-Bembam with the Mayor's Office.

We are also having kind of more system-level conversations with the hospitals because this affects all of them, regional, A&M-C, and Providence. Kathleen and Emily are part of those, but it also has, it affects the state. You know, it has to do with kind of the capacity of a lot of our systems. The thing we're doing very directly right now is we're applying for funding from the Rural Health Transformation Program, and the, what we are applying to do is to implement client records at all three of our departments—fire, police, and health—which we are in kind of different stages of right now, and then to be able to connect those to the health information exchange, which will allow us to actually have a way to communicate and share information with hospitals. Because if you can imagine, this is—when Emily says work herself out of a job, we—it's a game of telephone right now.

And it's very complicated, it's very time-intensive, and it's— it requires constant engagement in order for it to work, because if Emily doesn't pick up the phone, you know, and MCT is busy on a different call, that information is not getting documented anywhere. So that's also the step towards us being able to bill for services. We have 13 clinicians just between fire and police, not to mention all the clinical folks at the health department. We're not billing for those services right now, and that's revenue that we could be capturing to help meet the need. And then also included in our proposal is 6 different pilot projects.

And these are all things to test responses to the gaps that we're observing. So for example, one of them is to be able to do short-term assisted living for people who otherwise would be— Uh-huh. In shelter as a way to bridge them into the benefits that are needed to get them into actual assisted living. So, and then we have a bunch of other ones. So that's, it's a big lift.

The proposal, it's a 3-year proposal. The first year is gonna be about $3.1 million, then a couple million each year after that. So it's a big lift for us to do this, but the goal is that that will get us over a hump that will allow us to not only coordinate care within Anchorage, but also statewide. So when people have resources or are enrolled with a tribal health organization somewhere outside of Anchorage, we can also engage those resources. Thank you.

That's helpful. And I think the, I mean, obviously the medical record sharing is a critical piece of all of this, but, you know, for these 45 to 50 people who are in this rotation, Is the actual need here for a different kind of facility that we don't currently have, or like, what's the constellation of solutions beyond just the sharing of medical records that actually gets us to a place where we don't have these 45 to 50 extremely vulnerable humans who are cycling through instability sort of in perpetuity? Yeah, it's a couple of things. One, the state did just pass in the last legislative session the ability to license what they're calling complex care Residential facilities, I think, is the term. But that basically is a higher level facility than we have currently, but it's short of being institutionalized.

So it would allow for much more— some of them could be more secure facilities and a much higher level of supervision, because often what happens, there's a big gap between someone being at API, where there's very limited beds, often get stepped down right to assisted living, which is very unsecured. So there's a big gap there. That's one solution. Another one is something we worked on with this legislative session, which I think is actually in the operating budget waiting for the governor to sign, which is an increase in the general relief rate. And the problem we have with assisted living is you kind of have two choices.

You can take people on a waiver. You're going to get, you know, literally thousands of dollars a month for that person, or take somebody general relief. Where you're maybe only going to get $2,000 to $3,000 a month. So it's a pretty easy choice of if you can choose your client, who you're going to choose. So our folks are often general relief clients because their disabilities are not to the extent where they would otherwise be in a nursing home, which is what you have to be for a waiver.

So those are two things we're working on. But generally, yes. Also, we run up against constitutional issues because in Alaska we have the right to privacy. So our bar for committing people is very high. Mm-hmm.

We don't commit people easily, we don't take their property away easily, those are all good things, but sometimes when you see people and you're like, why is that person out and about? Well, that's why. Crisis stabilization center, another major thing that will make a big difference. Of course. And people will be there involuntarily, so that will make a big difference.

Okay, thank you. One additional question, if I may. Sure. Thank you, Chair, for your forbearance. For RRS, really love your, the comment that, you know, your interest is in work, to work yourself out of a job.

However, it appears that in our current system, you are serving an extremely critical role that is, has morphed into something that is less oversight and more like being the nerve center, more like being a two-woman navigation team. As it were, to coordinate how all of this, how our shelter system is operating. And I'm curious if that is something that continues to be a reasonable expectation of the two of you. And do you need help? I mean, there, it seems— I mean that in the most respectful way.

Because, you know, navigation and case management is a— that is a tremendous job. And as was stated a moment ago, if y'all don't answer your phones, you know, or can't answer your phones for any given reason, we have this gap that sort of widens. And I'm wondering what thoughts you have, and maybe this isn't a today conversation, I'm totally fine with that, but I think there's a conversation coming where we need to think really carefully about what we are demanding of you and what services you are providing and whether 2 people is sufficient to really carry that burden and whether that's even a sustainable expectation. So again, maybe a conversation for another day. Yeah, I think it may be, but I wanna give you an opportunity to respond.

And I think there's 2 parts of it from my perspective. There's the contract position, like what is the role that we are paying you to do, which is part of, I think, of what you're doing., and then what are the realities of, of, of the need there? And so, um, I, I, I do, I do, do think this is a longer conversation for us to have, but if you do have a response either from the, from the, from the departments or from—. Through the chair, I love this question. Um, we ask ourselves that every single day, what we're doing, and, but we love our t-shirts.

Um, RRS was created in order to pilot ideas and play outside the box. In the sense that we knew, and we always know, systems can be more robust. We just don't know how to do it. RRS loves to be on the ground to inform strategic planning that is done by you guys and the mayor's office. And in that vein, we are willing to lean in 1,000% to prove a concept and prove a gap, to report it to the mayor's office, and then say, we see this gap and this is what it is, and here are some recommendations.

That's what RS does. Ultimately, we're like Mary Poppins. We get our umbrella out because you can't work 24/7 all the time, and you float away into the next project. We love this work. We do.

We've never looked at what, what it should be or how many people you need. We've proven the concept for this command center knitting together, linking. And now the question is for this body and for the Mayor's Office and the Health Department to say, is this something something that we want to invest in in a more sustainable way. And that's a conversation for another day. Thanks.

I look forward to that. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Seeing no other questions, thank you for being here. Thank you for your presentation. My— I would, if with agreement of the body, like to do a little bit of a change of agenda just because we've already started the True North conversation. So let's move that. Up to the first part, if that's okay.

Is that okay with you? Do we start with True North? Yeah, we can just go backwards in the slide deck. That's— oh, well, you have a slide deck? Yeah.

Ah, okay. Now let's go backwards to the slide deck. Okay. That's great. But I think it would be helpful just because I think we've already started that conversation and are already keyed into it.

So if we could bring up the presentation, that would be great.

And one, while we're waiting for Jed and Darci to come up here, I did confirm with my team that they are posting the missing RRS report, and then we just received one, so that one is in review. So there'll be one more added.

So Jed Drolet, Community Systems Program Manager, Anchorage Health Department, and I think we'll queue up the True North section of the presentation first. It's toward the end.

And I'm Darcy Montalvo. I'm the Human Services Division Manager for the Anchorage Health Department. Okay. Well, thank you for having us here. This presentation is a general overview of many of our different HUD programs and grants, but due to the interest in the True North Project specifically, we'll start with that one.

So, this is the, this is the building. I went out and actually took a picture of what it looks like right now. It's currently the Access Alaska building on 10th Avenue in Fairview. I'll go to the next slide. So, overview of the project just in general.

This is a recommended grant for $750,000 of Community Development Block Grant funding that was selected through a competitive request for grant proposals in spring of 2025 for purchase of a building that True North Recovery is proposing to use as a base for operations in Anchorage. It took until April 2026 for them to actually identify the specific building that they were proposing to, to acquire for the services that they were proposing. And so that was when this kind of became a topic of conversation over a specific proposal that will require Assembly approval to move forward. Next slide, please. So this is the location.

It's at 1217 East 10th Avenue in Fairview. It's currently owned by Access Alaska.

Which is another nonprofit that provides durable medical goods and other services. Access Alaska is proposing to lease space back in the building, so they would continue to operate their current services. They would just no longer be the building owner. They would be renting it from True North. The building was formerly a health clinic, and it is zoned PLI, public land and institutions, which means that behavioral health services are a by-right use under the zoning.

There's no zoning variance required. A wide variety of health services can be provided there by any owner of the building. Next slide, please. So, community engagement. So, as I mentioned, True North identified this building in April of 2026, notified us immediately.

We started the process of moving toward assembly approval. It did end up on an early assembly agenda, somewhat faster than we were expecting. It sometimes takes a while to go through those approvals. We were doing several different steps concurrently there. There was some concern among the community, and so True North and the Health Department have attended a series of meetings with the community that we were at the May 4th Fairbury Community Council Executive Board meeting, Assembly Public Health and Safety Committee meeting on May 6th, Also on May 6th was the monthly meeting of the Housing, Homeless, and Neighborhood Development Commission, which is an advisory commission of the community.

There was discussion there when True North representatives were there as well. They attended the May 14th regular Fairview Community Council meeting. Hosted a public meeting on June 12th at the Access Alaska building itself. And then this meeting on June 17th, Housing and Homelessness Committee meeting, is the latest in that series of meetings at which this project is being discussed. Next slide, please.

So as the mayor mentioned, True North Recovery, in response to the public concerns from the community and the Fairview Community Council, has revised their scope of proposed services and what they are proposing to do with the building. Under the revised proposal, these are the services that they are proposing to offer at this location. This would include integrated behavioral health assessments, telehealth therapy, medication-assisted treatment, medication management. All those would be outpatient services only, not any inpatient or residential services. Um, it also housed their administrative offices, office space for their mobile outreach staff, They are, as, as mentioned, also purchasing a mobile command center vehicle that they will use to move around the city to provide crisis services.

And then they would complement the existing services. As I mentioned, Access Alaska would continue to operate out of the building. Services not proposed: crisis services. There'd be no crisis services at this facility. They will continue their current work of providing providing that through mobile outreach, and the new vehicle will assist in that and make that a more streamlined and efficient process, or any inpatient or residential treatment that would not occur at this location.

True North does have facilities in the Mat-Su Valley that provide those types of services, but that's not what they're proposing here. Next slide, please. So next step, as the mayor mentioned, she is putting this forward to the Assembly again for Assembly action at the July 7th meeting. This will be a revised Assembly memorandum outlining the revised scope of services being proposed by True North and requesting Assembly approval of the grant agreement. Contingent on the Assembly action, we're expecting that we would get the agreement executed by August and get the transaction closed around that time and begin services in September.

Some of this is contingent on aspects of the real estate closing process, so that some of these may change. These are estimated dates. Next slide, please. So that's, that's the TrueNorth section of my presentation, and I will open up for any questions on this part. Ms. Skow.

Thank you. I've had a head start on coming up with questions. So first, I just want to make sure that the True North proposal in its current iteration is shared with members. I have that, so I'm happy to send it around to the clerk or whoever to distribute that. But if you all could do that, that'd also be helpful.

One thing that I have repeatedly asked throughout these conversations of both True North and the administration is what other locations have been explored for the site. So when we started having these community conversations about a month or so ago, True North promised to look at other possible locations that weren't in Fairview to acquire a building for this grant funding to be used for. Can we get a list of other locations that were explored? Through the Chair, the member Scout. Yes, I believe Carl from True North is on the phone and he should be able to respond to that.

Hey, sure, I can answer that question maybe a little informally. I've reviewed the active MLS for the last year. Still to this day, I'm looking. We looked at a couple of buildings in the Spinard area. I met with a lady that was selling a building over in Mountain View.

Talked to a few folks after— Our conversations started about a month ago and explored some other options in Mountain View. I don't have an exhaustive list to present, but we've been looking literally at every available commercial property on the active MLS. Okay. Thank you. And Carl, nice to hear you in this meeting.

One question I have Sort of relatedly, just ensuring that I'm doing my due diligence here for the community. Is it possible for us to get insight into other funding acquired for this project? So obviously the $750,000 grant before the assembly goes to the building, and for that we would approve these specific services and not others. Is it possible for us to get insight into other funding acquired for this project and what deliverables are attached to that funding? Through the Chair to Member Scout, once again, I will defer that one to Carl, which, yes, they have gotten significant other funding and I'm sure they can provide those details, but I'll send it to Carl.

Sure. So, the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, just approved $1,017,000 for staffing. All of that is public record and available on the Trust website, the proposal and subsequent funding approval. The other funding that we have through APD, a contract with them, the city I'm sure would have access to. Mm-hmm.

Rural Health Transformation funding is still pending. Again, a public process. And so those are all readily available.

Okay. Yeah, I guess this is maybe a bigger picture question, but one kind of systemic level conversation that we've had throughout Yeah, throughout this process about this project specifically, but bigger picture is about the concentration of services in Fairview. And one thing that has been used as a rationale for this project is that the existing building, the Access Alaska building, which has been on the market, I believe, 4 years or so, is zoned PLI. One thing I've been wondering about is whether part of our follow-through on the commitment to deconcentrate and better disperse services throughout the city would require zoning changes. Is that something that might not be for you, but is that something that's been explored or is a possibility?

That would not be us, the Health Department. My apologies. Yeah, that would, that would not be us, but it's certainly something that the municipality, municipality as a whole would look at. I think the planning department would be probably the main focus for rezonings. The municipality does now have the ability to initiate rezonings itself, which is a recent code change.

Yeah, I don't know if that particular issue has been mentioned in that context. Thea may know more about those conversations. Um, through the chair, are you specifically asking about rezoning this property or just in general? In like these kinds of properties as a whole where we have historical concentration of services in specific neighborhoods, properties that are zoned this way. I think about Carl looking around for different properties to purchase and know that likely there would be more options in specific neighborhoods because of the history of where services have been in the past.

And so how do we get ourselves out of this? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] corner, basically, zoning-wise, to actually follow through on our commitment to spread services throughout the city and not just have them in neighborhoods where they've historically been offered. So I guess I would just speak to that. When this has been asked, we were asked to produce a map. We have a map.

We've produced a link to that map. I've added all the behavioral health similar facilities to that map. I think when you look at that map, you will see that they are all over there in every zip code. So I dispute that. When you want to talk about zoning, we don't have a whole ton of PLI that's being used for this type of use.

When you look at that map, you'll see that many healthcare facilities are using other zones such as B-3, for example. Mm-hmm. So I think, you know, if you want to kind of Kind of go to that sort of 10,000-foot level. Generally, parts of our community where there's going to be more commercial serving space is going to have more sort of retail functions, such as healthcare. So if you looked at all of our commercial spaces in our community, you would see many similar functions.

So If you looked at a zip code where there's primarily residential use, you will not see very many retail and commercial functions, which is— healthcare is a type of business. It's one of the only growing parts of our economy. Yeah. And it's—. I think Providence and actually what we heard at NMC is after they do their expansion, they will be the largest employer in our community between South Central and ANTHC.

So I think that's kind of, if you, if it's a concentration, it's going to be concentrated in places where there is more commercial property, business property, because it's a, it's a business, it's a public function. And I would just say that it's a, it's, I think it's informed by this, this information, but it's an assembly project. If you want to look at zoning and you want to look at how zoning impacts the concentration of things, that's a, that's a wonderful sort of project for someone to engage in. Thank you. I don't mean to rabbit hole us too much.

Just wanted to get some insight, and I will follow up. Are you through your questions? Yes. Okay, great. All right, still on the True North.

Any other questions? Yes, Ms. Baldwin-Day. Mr. Jarley, would you, or whomever is piloting, could we go back one slide? Maybe two? Okay, here we are.

So I'm curious about the— I'm curious about how this service change impacts financial feasibility of this project, if at all, for True North. It sounds like, based on the feasibility study, that those, the mobile services were actually the least financially viable or stable in the long haul, and there were some questions about whether or not that, that particular line of service could even be sustained after the first 2 years of operation if additional grant funds were not made available. And so I just want to be sure that as we're making, as we're considering this investment, that we are tracking with sustainability and that we're still meeting the need of our community even with this different sort of model. I would love for you or for— I've just forgotten his last name, the gentleman from True North who's on the phone to speak to that. Yeah, Carl.

Thank you. Thanks, Chair, to Member Baldemar Mondes. Yes, this is another one that I'll defer to Carl about. What the different financial impacts are from the different types of services to their business model.

Sure, actually, I really appreciate that question. It's a really good question. What is not necessarily financially sustainable long-term is mobile crisis teams. And this approach is, basically peer crisis stabilization. So it's a different billing mechanism than mobile crisis teams.

And so it is a program that we've deployed here in the Mat-Su Valley and have been effective with that. It does help to have a home base. And I think the new approach allows us to build up some infrastructure within the partnerships that already exist in the community. And this is a different, billing mechanism than mobile crisis teams. The concept of mobility was in response to the concerns that were addressed in the Fairview community of us going throughout the city and bringing individuals to that one location.

This is just a shift of us bringing those same kind of outreach staff into preexisting relationships and organizations that already have similar like services. Mm-hmm. And gives us an opportunity to kind of build some rapport there, teach some of the mechanisms that we found to be effective. And I think in terms of sustainability, those crisis services lead to long-term relationships, and the long-term relationships that we build with clients and provide services to sustain those front-end kind of crisis services. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Okay, I think I'm talking with you.

So I'm— in looking at the peer navigation section of the feasibility memo, it looks like you're expecting a pretty significant chunk of the work to be the crisis stabilization itself. I guess I'm— so are we transitioning— are you transitioning the crisis stabilization to other local providers, and you are providing essentially the initial contact and transportation, and then the stabilization's happening elsewhere? And if so, then how does that affect your billing, because you aren't actually the one doing the stabilizing, someone else is? Yeah. Yeah, again, good question.

We're not transferring the services to another provider. We're gonna be still providing those services just in locations that we already have built relationships. And so at Bean's Cafe, at Third Street Navigation Center, we just put a full-time peer in Covenant House within the shelters that we're already doing work in. We're still the ones that are going to be providing that service. And it is a big component of where we proposed, but it's, it's a starting point for us.

We looked at the Anchorage Feasibility Study and talked to a ton of different providers, and ultimately that was where the biggest need was identified. And so for us as an organization, it's the starting point. I think building out additional outpatient services, bringing in some psychiatric care, psychiatric med management, bringing in some medical providers, additional telehealth capacity. All of these things are services that we want to integrate into Anchorage over time. It just— our starting line was the crisis services.

Okay. So, so if I'm understanding you correctly, you would essentially be borrowing space from other local agencies to do the crisis stabilization work rather than doing it at this particular location in Fairview. Is that, is that accurate?

Yes, and we already have those spaces and partnerships in place. We also have a vehicle that we proposed purchasing that we could mobilize some of these efforts. Okay, and so how does that affect the scope of your services then if you are, say, beholden to the hours of operation for like the Third Avenue Navigation Center, which closes at 3:00 PM? That is just one of the locations that certainly creates challenges. I mean, we're gonna have to be mobile and on the street.

We're doing street outreach now. That's essentially how we got started in Anchorage, and so we would just expand upon that. And we built in some appointment-based services, and so I think— sorry, I hear myself in like an echo. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] It's a little hard to respond and talk over myself, but yeah, I think we're gonna— it's gonna be a case-by-case. Kind of approach.

And so if we're working with an individual at Third Street Navigation Center and they close at 3, we can step outside and continue that work. I mean, ultimately, the goal is to land them in long-term care, and it's not to engage in hours' worth of services at these locations. These locations offer a starting point. Yeah, I'm just jumping— I saw Ms. Agnew-Bimble, I think you might wanna jump in on that too. Yeah, if I could just add.

So I think maybe the way to think about it is that, you know, there's, as we've talked about, when we talk about our crisis response, there's really different entry points and different levels of care that a person needs. And what Carl and True North will be doing in terms of their mobile crisis response is really a kind of, It's an accompaniment to all the other teams that we're already delivering that service through. So mobile crisis team, for example, or even some of the things that Kathleen and Emily were speaking to earlier. So their teams are doing that now. They're part of our multidisciplinary outreach team.

They are going to where people are. You know, when I get reports from the public, I bring that to MDOT. People respond and they go to where the person is. That's the point of mobile services. So, and, and like Carl said, those are then entry points into other levels of care.

So yes, at some point they might be taking people to South Central Foundation. They might take them out to the Valley to their other services, which is, which is what they do now. They might take somebody to Akila or Anchorage Recovery. So it's a, it's a, it's a knitting together of our system, which is, and they are just one component of this multidisciplinary approach that we're growing here. And they're a very critical piece of it because they bring that peer to the outreach.

And that is what we see as being very effective. Yeah, that absolutely makes sense to me. I think I'm, I'm just curious about how this impacts the financial feasibility of the program overall and what that looks like in terms of, you know, our, our our upfront investment and then their longevity. And maybe I could speak to that a little bit because I don't want Carl to have to toot his own horn. True North Recovery bills, like, of all statewide billing for these services, for community behavioral health services, they over the past 6 or 7 years have grown to bill the majority of those services in the state.

They are a very effective, incredible organization, and they operate in Fairbanks, in the valley, in Ketchikan, and they are desperately trying to serve our community. So I, I just really want that to be on the table as you're hearing these other concerns and having sort of skepticism about this project. We are very lucky that a community of this caliber exists at all. Mm-hmm. It could not have existed 8 years ago, 9 years ago, 10 years ago.

I've been doing this work for a really long time. We've needed people to do the type of work that they're willing to do forever, and now we have it, and now they want to come here. So you can hear my voice. I want there to be some cooperation on this project because we are very lucky to have this opportunity. Thank you.

I just want to put that on the record. No, I absolutely appreciate that, and I'm not at all denigrating the services or what this looks like for our community. I think from my standpoint, when I look at a feasibility study and there's an entire paragraph that says, you know, the mobile outreach team is the service line with the least amount of billable revenue associated given the target population of the service line, and then there's a question at the end about operational impacts if additional grant funding isn't made available. I have questions about sustainability when it sounds like we're shifting harder into that mobile outreach model. It has nothing at all to do with whether or not I think this is an outstanding project or provider or something that our community desperately needs.

I just wanna be sure that as we're shifting a proposal, that we're doing our due diligence to make, to make sure that our investment has legs for the long haul. And so thank you for the information that you provided. I— Thank you. Was not intending to come across as denigrating anyone's capacity. I only want to be sure that we're instigating a sustainable project if we're changing the original proposal.

And I guess what I'm pointing out by that is that their business model is clearly working. So, and we're not, we're not taking, we're not running their business for them. We're providing a portion of the funding. There's even, we're not even covering the full costs of this purchase, for them to make a capital purchase. I just think we need to kind of keep a little bit in perspective, like, what our role is here.

It's not to sort of affirm their entire operation, or— we're trying to make a decision about a grant agreement, which we make tons of grant agreements, the Muni does. I mean, hundreds, right? So we're making an investment in a capital purchase. Mm-hmm. For a building.

And I just think we need to make sure we're treating that similar to other projects where we gave Providence almost $2 million for their crisis stabilization center in 2022. Not open yet. You know, I'm just saying, I'm not calling them out. I'm just saying, like, we do this a lot. So just want to make sure we're being fair.

And to that point, we made that investment and there's still no crisis stabilization center open at Prov. And they are a massive organization with very deep pockets and lots of access to resources. And so I, again, I think that this line of questioning is fair when we're evaluating a $750,000 investment. And it is not about the need, it is purely about, are we, can we reasonably expect expect for this to be a fruitful partnership that has legs. And that is my only concern here.

And again, no disrespect to the provider or to the work that's been done today.

Okay, thank you. Anyone else have some questions? Any other questions for— regarding True North? Okay, great. We're going to go ahead and move on, move on by going back.

[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Go back to the beginning of the slide. Back to the beginning of the slide, yeah, please. One thing to note while they're going back is that at any time we provide HUD funding, whether it's a contract or grant agreement, and the use of it changes, so if it's a land acquisition, the use changes, the grantee or the contractor is required to pay the entity who provided the funds back. The funding, the full amount. So there's just that note as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, well, we'll go back to the beginning here and cover the other topics in this conversation. Go to the next slide, please. So I'm Jed Rolley again, Community Systems Program Manager with the Anchorage Health Department.

Excellent. So the agenda here, we can cross out True North Recovery at the end there, which we just discussed, but the other items we'll cover here are the 2026 Action Plan, our— an update on our housing redevelopment program that we're developing, supportive housing services grants, some homelessness response programs, and yeah, then we'll end with that. So next slide, please. So I came here in February and presented to this committee, and so I just wanted to give a quick snapshot update of the progress of all of these things since then. So for the action plan, at the time in February, we were just going to the Hand Commission and doing the initial hearing.

We have now gone through the public comment period, and an AM for the action plan is on the June 23rd agenda for the assembly. Housing Redevelopment Program, we were in a public comment period for reallocation of funds at that time. That's been approved, was approved, and so we're working on the design of program the and the specifics. Supporting Housing Services, at that time we were planning the request for grant proposals. We have now gone through that whole process and recommended awardees, and the AM for those grant awards is also on the June 23rd agenda.

The Homelessness to Housing Voucher Program, which is a partnership with Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, we were just beginning negotiations over the MOU with AHFC at that time. That is still progressing. We've made— we've gotten through some of the issues involved there and are working on the remaining ones. And then True North Recovery was not on anyone's radar at that time, as they were still looking for sites at that time and had not selected one. Now have selected the Fairview site, and that community engagement is ongoing.

Next slide, please. So, 2026 Annual Action Plan. So, this picture is of a a project that we are now proposing to put in the action plan. I'll start— I'll talk a little more about it later. This is the Perseverance Garden in Fairview, and we got several comments on our draft action plan requesting funding to extend a water line to the community garden so that they'll be able to more effectively garden there.

I'll show some pictures later about what they're currently doing. Next slide, please. Thank you. So in the HUD Action Plan, this is kind of the big picture of the grants that we get. We get Community Development Block Grant, Home Investment Partnerships, and Emergency Solutions Grants as our 3 big grants that we get every year.

They're not all big, but those are our 3 grants we get every year as an entitlement community. The allocations have been announced by HUD, and so these are the actual amounts we'll get. CDBG is about $1.788 million. Home is about $616,000, and ESG is about $166,000. This is typical of the amounts that we get each year.

These, these fluctuate from, from year to year as they do the allocation calculation, but this is pretty typical of what we get. Um, priorities that have been identified through our community outreach and our consolidated plan: affordable housing, housing stability, Homelessness prevention, community facilities, supportive services. These are the types of things that we have typically funded in recent years and are proposing to continue this year. The timeline for this, so the public comment period ended May 29th, 2026. As I said, we actually got several comments this year.

The Assembly review of this is on the agenda for June 20th, 2026. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Um, the deadline for HUD submission is August 16th, um, but we are expecting to be, uh, at least, uh, a month or so ahead of that deadline this year and probably submit in July. Next slide, please. So proposed projects. So this will show the specific projects we're proposing in each grant.

So this is Community Development Block Grant. This is our biggest grant. Um, and we have an administrative cut of this and then what we call activity delivery costs. And these costs of municipal staff time allocated to specific projects. We kind of break it down into specific project costs in addition to the general administrative costs.

There is, in the version that has gone to the Assembly, there is a to be, to be determined, a couple of to be determined lines here. One is the public services cut. This is a maximum amount that we can do, 15% of each CDBG grant for public services, and we are very open to ideas about what public services we may fund with that, with 2026 money. We also have a TBD line for the capital project there for about $1 million, which we are now proposing to use for that Perseverance Garden water line due to the community comment that we got during the comment period. Next slide, please.

Home program. This is a smaller program, and it has some some cuts into it. There's an administra— smaller administrative portion, and then there was a couple of portions that were required to set aside for what are known as Community Housing Development Organizations, or CHODOs. And so that's the CHODO operating expense and housing development pieces there. We have in past years only had one CHODO in Anchorage, and that was Habitat for Humanity.

We now have two additional ones. Um, And Habitat is working on recertification. So we are expecting to have 3 and to actually do a competitive request for grant proposals for CHODO projects, which we have not done in a very long time. We are also setting aside some money for tenant-based rental assistance, potentially as an extension of the AHFC partnership, or maybe a different, different type of tenant-based rental assistance depending on AHFC's— Yes. Receptiveness to that idea.

And then there is a TBD line in the version in the AM that we are now proposing to actually do a pilot modular housing project. That might be within the, within the proposed redevelopment program, or maybe a standalone project. It's not, not a huge amount of money, about $180,000 left after those other cuts. And so that's what we're proposing for HOME. Next slide, please.

ESG, this is our Emergency Solutions Grants. This is a much smaller program. We typically give all of this, less a very small administrative cut, to the Aging and Disability Resource Center at the Anchorage Health Department for their homelessness prevention program. And I'll show some details and, and stats about their outcomes from that funding recently, and so we are proposing to give that to ADRC for homelessness prevention again this year. Next slide, please.

So here's the ideas that kind of have come up for the TBD project lines in the original draft. The water line to Perseverance Gardens— several public comments recommended that specifically, so we are proposing that in the, in the current version. Public service allocation, we are currently working with our 2025 public service funding on a shelter transportation pilot project. We may want to add 2026 funding to that, or we could also do a request for grant proposals to get ideas for new projects. We are, we are not continuing with our current current grantees from past years in the public service allocation.

We are looking to do some new projects, new ideas, which is kind of the intent behind this public service funding. And then for HOME, the modular housing concept is, is the main thing we've been discussing that might be part of the redevelopment program or could also be a standalone project. And we are still open to other ideas. You know, none of this is set in stone or approved yet, so. We are looking for thoughts if there are particular projects or particular types of projects that Assemblymembers think might be a good fit for this funding.

We're definitely open to those ideas. Next slide, please. So here's Perseverance Garden. So the— this is a lot in Fairview. It's owned by State Department of Transportation, and there's an MOU with the municipality.

For operations of the lot, and then a subsequent MOU with the Fairview Community Council, is my understanding, to actually operate the garden there. There is not water to the lot, and so the left picture there is a truck with a rain barrel in it and then a series of totes, and what they're currently doing is hauling water by rain barrel, putting it in the totes, and you can see the watering cans there that are being filled by the totes. So this is a community garden that the community is very excited about, but this is a very impractical way to operate a community garden. And so they are requesting funding to run an actual water line to the garden so that they don't have to do this system anymore. Yeah, and I do have a question from Chair Brawley.

Yeah, thank you. On this project, so you mentioned it's in Fairview, it's the community council that will operate it? Yes, who is the actual grantee? Because I— my understanding is councils don't really have the ability to accept grants. Well, the way we are thinking of it is there would not be a grantee.

This would be the municipality doing the work itself, and that might be through an MOU with AWU, or it might be like an RFP for a contractor directly to do the digging and extend the line. Okay, and when specifically was this project proposed? It was proposed in to us during the public comment period, which was from the end of April to the end of May. So we got those comments about mid to late May. Okay, thank you.

I do have a question from Member Baldwin-Day as well. Yes, thank you. What are the parameters for CDBG funding? What kinds of things can that do? Great question.

Through the Chair to Member Baldwin-Day. CDBG funding can do many things. It particularly can fund community facilities. So, like, the, the Garden Project would count as a community facility. The True North Project also is considered a community facility.

That's a pretty broad categorization of facilities that provide a benefit to the community. It can— the big thing it cannot do is construction of new housing. It can do acquisition of properties for new housing, it can do site preparation and utilities for new housing, but it can't do vertical construction of new housing. It can do rehabilitation of existing housing, and that 15% of it can be used for public services. The major constraint on CDBG funding is that Any project using CDBG funding has to meet what's called a national objective.

The main national objective is benefit to low and moderate income households. And so that's up to 80 AMI, 80% AMI is how that's defined. And that can be either through direct benefit to individual clients and tracking income, it can be to benefit to what are called limited clientele projects that have a presumed low and moderate income categorization. So, for example, homeless are presumed low income, and so that is automatically considered eligible. It can be an area-wide low and moderate income benefit, and that's a project which is probably how Perseverance Garden would qualify.

That is a, is a project benefiting a specific part —of the community in which census data shows that the majority of the population is low or moderate income. There are also other types of national objectives. There's a national objective for clearing of blight and slums, and so there are certain types of demolition activities can be done under that national objective. There is a cap of 30% of the grant that can be used that way. And then there is also a way to do it for for urgent needs that has some other restrictions on it.

But generally, the low and moderate income benefit is the main constraint on what types of projects can be done, as well as the prohibition on construction of new housing. Okay, thank you. That's really helpful. So the Perseverance Garden water line is sort of a— it's a new thing that just popped onto our radar. We're moving in that direction.

Is that a policy choice that's been made?

It's a— at our program level, it's a proposed policy decision that we're making in response to the specific input that we got during the public comment period from public comment that we are bringing to the Assembly for review and decision about whether that's the direction the Assembly would want to go. Gotcha. And so theoretically, the Assembly could adjust that to be something else if it wanted to? Yes. As long as it met the conditions that you've laid out and the parameters that you've set?

Yes, it can. And so we just have to have a finalized version before August 15th in order to send HUD I will say that this, just a little to Jed's horn here, this is one of the first times that we've been able to get this plan in front of the body well before the date that it's due. In the past, it was always laid on the table and/or on the addendum. So yes, we can always adjust the items that are within this to meet the whatever, again, what the community as a whole needs and what's going to be the most impactful moving forward. Thank you.

That's really helpful. Expect to see something from me. Member Skow. Thank you. Yeah, I am excited about this particular proposal, and I know that it could meet a bit of the need around food security in this particular neighborhood.

I'm curious in the vein of kind of other ideas, whether things like food storage or even municipally owned grocery stores, those kinds of things have been explored as potential uses for this funding. Through the Chair to Member Scout, not specifically in the discussions we've had so far, but potentially some of those ideas could be eligible projects. You know, food storage, I'm not sure about a municipally owned grocery store. I think you do We'd have to explore some of the eligibility questions around that, but certainly something like a, you know, community food pantry or food storage facility would be potentially an eligible project. And yes, in a lot of the comments that we got in support of this project, they specifically referenced the closing of the Carr's and the food desert status of Fairview as reasons to support this.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Do you have another question? I'll hold that. Thank you. Okay, thank you. So, uh, next slide, please.

So, uh, just a quick update on the housing redevelopment program. We originally were calling this the residential rehab program, so my previous presentation, that's what it was called. Um, in our discussions about kind of the structure we have in mind, we decided to rename this Housing Redevelopment Program because that it is a broader program that we're proposing rather than the types of kind of minor repairs that are typically associated with the term rehab, um, in this context. Um, so next slide, please. So just a quick, like, update on where we're at with this.

So the goal of this is to preserve and improve existing housing stock, potentially include including adding new units. Um, the funding is about $700,000 of past years' unspent HUD funding, and this is both CDBG and HOME, um, that we at, at the time my previous presentation were proposing to the body. Um, that was approved. So that substantial amendment was approved in AR 2026-74. Um, we're working on the program framework and what the different, uh, tiers of projects and how we're of dividing up the money, incorporating feedback from the community during that process.

Expected outcomes from this, you know, we'll be tracking housing units repaired, extended lifespan, lifespan of existing housing. A lot of the rehab and repair component of this will be aimed at ensuring that current housing remains livable. Mm-hmm. And improving housing quality and safety. We know that there are a lot of properties in Anchorage that are, you know, very marginal at best for habitation, and we wanna make sure that we have, um, quality, safe housing for, uh, as many people as possible.

So next steps, and we're expecting this to be in quarter 3 of 2026, is to finalize the program design, launch the program, and begin accepting applications. Um, and so we are working on that process of, um, putting in place a software platform and, um, a, a procedure for how we're gonna be doing that. Member Bolden, did you have a question?

I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't curse myself. Okay, all right, I thought I saw you waving me down. Okay, sorry, I wasn't just assuming. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, so supportive housing services, this is the other major thing that I have very substantial updates on.

Next slide, please. This was a request for grant proposals that we put out earlier this year with a goal of expanding supportive services to residents who may need a higher level of care. The total amount of funding for this was $1,350,000. This is composed of Home ARP, which is one of our HUD grants. This was a special allocation of home funds associated with the American Rescue Plan Act during the COVID— response era, and so that's the ARP, American Rescue Plan.

We allocated $550,000 in our allocation plan of HOME-ARP funding and then also added $800,000 of funds that were reappropriated from what had been a previous appropriation to Anchorage Affordable Housing and Land Trust. Um, the— a portion of that was reappropriated in AR 2026-27. To this purpose. And so both of those funds were included in the RFGP. Next slide, please.

So here are the proposed awardees. So this was— this has been posted publicly on Purchasing's website, Purchasing Department's website, and it is also in the AM that is before the body at the June 23rd meeting. We are proposing that these 5 awardees out of the 12 total that applied be funded in these grant amounts that were determined by the review committee. So that's RuralCAP, Awake!, Covenant House Alaska, the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, and New Life Development. And most of these are grantees that we have worked with before and have been providing these services for a long time and are expanding using this funding the scope of what they can do.

I do want to note Note that Aleut Community of St. Paul Island is a new grantee we have not worked with before. They are a tribal government for St. Paul Island out in the Pribilofs, and they are expanding their well-established tribal court that they— tribal wellness court that they have in St. Paul to a location in Anchorage, and in conjunction with that are proposing to offer housing stability services to their tribal members in Anchorage. Including and focused on people who are involved in their Wellness Court program, but not limited to that. It would not be limited to people involved in the justice side of things. It would also be open to their other tribal members.

And so that is a new grantee, new kind of concept, new type of project that we're proposing to fund in this series of grant agreements. Next slide, please. Oops, sorry. Member Johnson. I just want to make sure I follow with that proposal for the Aleut community of St. Paul Island.

You said their services would only be available for tribal members? Yeah, it would be focused on their own tribal members resident in Anchorage. We've done that before? We have not.

I mean, I think that's something I— this feels like a precedent of sorts to say that this is a grant that is only going to benefit a very specific subset of the population. That is a fair point. Do we have any sense how many community members are residing in Anchorage that would potentially fit this definition? They estimate they have about 1,000 tribal members in Anchorage, as compared to about 300 in St. Paul. Okay, thank you.

Chair Brawley. Thank you. I guess I would— I think that is an interesting question. I guess I would also note that I don't know if it's through this project or elsewhere, but Covenant House only serves people of a certain age. Folks who serve domestic violence survivors, that's a specific qualifying population.

Doesn't mean you're born that way, but you have a specific characteristic. So I think it is also fair to say that there's a number of projects over the years that have received muni money that not every person in the city can walk in and utilize, but I think it's still a valid question, I guess. And then my other question is just broadly, where are we on kind of utilizing prior years' money? I know, I know this was a while ago now, but we were behind on utilizing prior year HUD allocations. HUD had brought that up as an issue when we went asking for more money for homelessness, but I know that was a while ago.

So can you just kind of broadly say where we're at in addition to the 2021 money? Yes. 2026 Funding. Yeah, so I can add a little bit first and then Jed can follow up. I'm happy to say that we have spent all of the back funds that we had been sitting on for many years, to the point where we met our spend down last year, and then we are on track to meet our spend down this year.

Prior years, we did not have as many projects. We did smaller projects, which made harder to get reimbursed and then draw down those funds. So I would happily say that Jed's team has really been moving and grooving for the past probably 2, last 2 years, we're going on to 3 years now, and spending all of those funds. Thank you. Yes, as Director Ash said, we did meet our spend-down ratio last year after having missed it for a couple years before that, and that did spend down our past year's unspent funding.

It is a continual effort because we get a new grant each year, and so then we have to keep on spending, but we are on track to meet that again. Just a real quick housekeeping item. Do we have anyone here who's wanting to do public comment? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Okay. Probably 7, okay.

Would there be any objection to extending meeting 10 minutes? Okay. We're going to extend the meeting 10 minutes, give ourselves a little bit more time, and then if you could—. Yeah, thank you. One last thing, too, about the awardees.

So we went through the competitive process, and so all of the grantees that are listed here and the ones that were not awarded made it through the competitive process. So to say that each one of those entities, they do serve a population, but they all met the requirements. Requirements of the RFP. Okay, next slide, and I, I will go quickly through the remainder so we have time for public comment. So next steps on supportive housing services, assembly action on June 23rd.

As I mentioned, this is on the agenda. Based on that, we're expecting we'll be able to get agreements in place by July 1st. We do have all the documents that we need for each of these, our certificate of insurance and business license and those things. And then begin the work in early July. Next slide.

And then, yeah, just some reporting that they'll be reporting our, our regular monthly reporting for these types of projects. This includes client demographics, services provided, and we'll be tracking increased housing stability, connection to other services, and reduced barriers to maintaining housing through the programs being funded here. Next slide. Okay, so homelessness response programs. I'm gonna talk mainly about the voucher program here, but a little bit about the homelessness prevention program as well.

Next slide, please. So homeless is the housing voucher program. Just an update on the status of this. This is a partnership between us and Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. We are reserving $250,000 of our HOME funds for tenant-based rental assistance.

For instance, they have set aside $250,000 of their voucher funding, which is also from HUD, but from a different part of HUD, toward a voucher program for people in shelter or unsheltered homelessness with case management that has determined that they are ready for housing and just need some funding to get into a place. So we expect to have about 40 vouchers total. This amount of funding. Next slide, please. So this is gonna be a dedicated homelessness set-aside, so they would not have to go through the main AHFC waiting list for a voucher, is the, is the big advantage of this.

If they qualify for this program and, and they get referred through their case management, they would just be assessed within this program. Current status: we've— there are a couple of waiver requests that we need to to make to HUD to align the program operations with how AHFC manages its voucher programs. They have some waivers on their side through their Moving to Work plan, and there are some provisions of the HOME regulations that require waivers to match that. We have submitted that. We have gotten positive indications from our HUD field office program rep that they are likely to approve those, but we do need to get those approved.

Um, We are developing the other aspects of the partnership and the MOU. Next step, finalize the agreement, stand up the application portal, expecting to have that done by September. Except next slide. And just a little bit about Emergency Solutions Grant. This is a program that we've had for many years with the Aging Disability Resource Center within the Health Department.

It's targeted a population that is at risk of losing current housing, so they've gotten an eviction notice or other notification that they can't stay where they currently are. There are income restrictions on their own income, and they also have to meet rent requirements of the HUD fair market rents. And, and then they also have to have a plan for how they're going to get back on track. It's not an ongoing program, it's a one-time thing. In 2025, this program served 95 individuals in 30 households, so you can see a lot of families with kids there.

And it's a prevention-focused intervention. Next slide, please.

That just the reason that this, this is an important component of the homelessness response system is that preventing homelessness is typically less costly and less disruptive than rehousing after a household loses housing. It's easy to look at the research on this. It's the benefits to prevention of homelessness really have a like an advantage over response programs that is really huge, and even just in terms of dollars and cents. Next slide, please. And now we're back to Trinos, so I am done.

Do it again. No, I'm kidding. All right, thank you guys so very much for your time and that presentation. Chair Brawley, did you have a question? Yeah.

You got Trinos? Okay. Are we intending to submit an application for the HUD program in 2026 for that NOFO? Through the Chair, Member Valmonde, yes. We need to discuss with the various departments that are going to be involved in that, but the day that that NOFO came out, my inbox was blowing up with people asking about what we're going to do about it.

So yes, I expect we will. I have read through the requirements in the NOFO, in particular the changes from past years, and I think some of the stuff that we have been working on is actually a pretty good fit for it, particularly that there is a more explicit focus on actually building new units in the new NOFO, whereas that was not as explicit in past years, but the way they awarded grants suggested that that was a priority. So yes, we— one of the things on my to-do list is to schedule a meeting with the people that will be involved in writing that grant application. It's due August 3rd, so we have a little bit of time, but we do need to get on it. Thank you.

Great, thank you. Glad to hear that there's movement happening. Awesome. Yeah, thanks. I'll second interest in, in us pursuing that again.

And if, if it hasn't been shared already, I would ask if you could request to HUD feedback on our last proposal, which I think was maybe 2 years ago. Not because we would do the same thing, but I think the The comments we got in the first round that we also didn't get super helpful informed the second round. So I think we should do that feedback loop again. Thanks. Great, thanks.

Great idea. Thank you guys very much, appreciate it. Travis, if you could set up for public comment. If you are here to comment, please, we'll have a microphone set up for you. Come up, state your name, what part of town you're from, you'll have 3 minutes.

Come on up.

Roger Branson. I'm a long-term mental health advocate out of Eagle River. I want to speak to the True North Recovery prospect and the significance of the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority having chosen to them for funding that has built their base to where they're at now, to where they're able to offer these services. The Mental Health Trust Authority was formed in, in 1994 as a result of a settlement, and it has 5 statutory advisory boards that have been in continuous operation since that formation. They have had the time, the ability to really do the deep dive into these subjects and to look at the long-term effects.

Beneficiary-initiated projects was a funding stream they chose in 1990— in 2004 in the reorganization. There was a change in political administration in Juneau, and one of the funding streams was beneficiary-initiated projects. But The goal that we've been headed for is an organization that is truly peer-led, that is truly focused at empowering the frontline workers to make a difference in the lives of the individuals we serve. And they are each and every one of them unique human individuals. And so the Trust Authority— [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] has the ability to do the really deep dives to vet projects, to vet individuals, to vet— and the significance of them choosing a company to work with to get started is that they— A, they can't sustain long-term, so they're looking for projects that will work in the community, that will get community support.

Support, and that other nonprofits and municipalities can come alongside and partner with. So in this, I'm joining with True North Recovery. It isn't just True North Recovery, it's the Mental Health Trust Authority, and as a mental health advocate, this is huge. And this is a model that I can represent to the peers I interact with. Thank you.

And ask them, why are you not stepping into this? Why are you not? And I so hope that we're able to make it all work out. And thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony.

Anybody else?

My name is Kenny Peterson. I'm from Midtown. And sorry, Zach, I do see the difference now between you and Jared.

So it's— I thank you for what you do for us to be here. I've been coming to this meeting, this committee, since I think it was Bill Evans created this in this room a long time ago. And so you guys are still coming, so it's great. The reason I'm coming is one, to invite you at 5 o'clock today, we're having a little celebration of the Good Neighbor Fund. It's been 6 months since we launched it, and thank you for those who froze that day when we launched it down at Town Square.

I— when I was talking there, I was shivering, so hopefully that's not going to happen today, so it'll be good. The other thing that I wanted to share about the Good Neighbor Fund is that someone just recently asked me what the future plan of it was, and I had to go back in time to find out what the future of it was. I found a document that I wrote at the same time the concept came up for it, and it was a document that talked about how to bring the Good Neighbor Fund to every neighborhood. And as I see you going around to meeting with your community councils, most of them are asking you to solve some pretty heavy lifts and to make sure that downtown's not being affected by homeless, vagrants, or criminals, or whoever's down causing trouble there, and scouts going to all sorts of— and Scout's going to all sorts of meetings to solve things, and each of you are hearing things. The Good Neighbor Fund was originally meant to be a resource for the mayor at large, or for the community leader, if you will.

That's what it says in the original document. But then it was meant to go to the neighborhoods and to the assembly leaders. And so it was meant that each of you would have your own influence on money for solving needs within your own assembly district. Mm-hmm. I would love to explore that with you so that when you see folks that you're able to actually— and I don't know what that looks like, but that's the future that I've always thought for it, is that it would go to a neighborhood level, then after your assembly level, it'd go to the community council level, and that you'd be making decisions at that level.

You've already seen Kathleen and Thea and all them doing the best they can with it, but you can see that they're pretty overwhelmed, and for them to have to come here and justify things to you It's pretty tough. And so I wish for your help that if you would like to do this, that you go to your community councils because you all attend them much more than I do. You go all the time. And that you promote the Good Neighbor Fund on behalf of your assembly district, on behalf of your communities, and we can bring— start bringing this to your neighborhood levels. So that's one proposal, and I have 24 seconds to make the other one.

I would like to discuss this with you guys somehow, but you have some kind of rules. I don't know what that looks like. 10 Seconds. What it looks like. So I see that you representing the assembly and the community councils have some kind of way, but I'd love to sit down with you, with the coalition, with Thea, with whoever.

There's an original document I have that I need you to represent the communities and assemblies in that discussion. So find out some way to bring me to some meeting that I could talk to you about this idea, please. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Anybody else?

Come on down. State your name and what part of town you're from. You have 3 minutes. Hi, Timothy Berner. I'm currently living here in Anchorage.

I'm a homeless individual. I wanted to point out the ladies that do the outreach, they testified both that the shelters are at capacity and at the same time they're unable to get more people to go into shelters because of drugs. And I think that these, the kind of the excuse of drugs in both form of gaslighting, 'cause they don't really want you to look at the real reason that people are not seeking shelter. To use as shelters, the way people are treated inside the shelter system. I think they kind of gave us some clues, things like an 8:00 PM curfew for, you know, for adults in the middle of summer.

You could be entertained at the shelter system by, I think they mentioned a game called cornhole. I don't know what that means, but don't drop the soap if you're staying in a shelter. Also the search going in the shelter. I was in a federal halfway house after getting out of federal prison for 6 months. I'm still a federal prisoner, and not once did I ever get searched going into the, the halfway house.

Um, and they cert— they search everybody going into the shelters. Um, at the same time, as she testified, the small amount of drugs they're searching for can easily be concealed on the body, so you can't find them anyway. So I guess it keeps people occupied having to get there at 8 o'clock, standing in line till 9 or 10 o'clock to be searched to get in. Um, And so we know that the shelter system is completely at capacity, and we still have our police officers out here on the streets enforcing the no camping ban, threatening to put people in jail, giving people as little as 15 minutes to get all of their property and to leave the site, or— and have the Park Department come in and take everything they own to the dump. I think that needs to be suspended until we can increase the capacity.

Thank you. For the shelters. All right, thanks. Thank you for your testimony. Anybody else?

Come on down.

Sir, please state your name and what part of town you're from. My name is Adrian Tilden. I'm also a homeless guy from here. I really don't know how to say it or put anything into words correctly right now, but I like the way he said it about how you guys pretty much make the shelters worse than jail. And everything.

And then apparently that the best homeless place you got really right now for all of us is jail. You guys really do not know what's going on. You guys seem like you guys all make each other friends of each other, and it's bullshit. Sorry for my language. And I don't know how to put this.

I wish you guys would do a better job and maybe do some research and maybe sleep outside, do something like that. I don't know. Could that be great? Because I'm tired of being scared of police officers, and if I want to commit suicide, I pretty much know how to do it now, since you guys made the law to make the cops easier shoot us. And thank you for that.

But other than that, I really don't know what to say other than go outside once in a while and probably pretend to be homeless or something in order to fix the homeless, because the real shelter you're bringing us is jail. Thank you. Thank you for testimony. I know we're at time, so we are going to go ahead and hear the remaining people who wanted to testify. So come on down, state your name and part of town you're from, and you have 3 minutes.

Yeah, we're going to hear the people who wanted to testify.

My name is Keith Jackson. I'm also homeless. I'd ask you to I would like to reach out to the corporations that represent all of the Alaska Natives, because I noticed that the— there's one community with Aleut people, but all of the indigenous people are experiencing homelessness right now. And shelters are at capacity. It took me 12 weeks to get into a shelter.

And, you know, the cops were chasing me around telling me to, you know, I can't be here and I can't be there. And they gave me absolutely no solution other than to go to the shelter that were at capacity. So there's gotta be something, you know, just petition the corporations. And also there's two empty buildings that I— I mean, two big empty buildings on 13th and Cordova and— or no, 3rd and Cordova and 13th and Gamble. And there's all kinds of other empty buildings that, you know, that can be filled with people.

There's no excuse for people to be sleeping out on the streets. None. None that are— what is the word— excusable. There is no excuse for it. If you have to reach out to the owners and tell them the potential tax breaks for donating these buildings, do it.

There's absolutely no reason for people to sleep on the street in Alaska. This is still Alaska. People die of exposure in the summertime. Okay, just think about that for a while. And a lot of people, all they have, like all I have is my coat.

It's still freezing at night. And especially when it rains, you know, I mean, you guys have power. Yes. Utilize it. You have the power of the pen.

Thank you for your time. Thank you for your testimony. Come on down. Who's going to testify next?

Please state your name, what part of town you're from. You'll have 3 minutes. Uh, here we are. Uh, I'm Elias Robinson, and, uh, this is Michaela Robinson, and we'll [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] I'm homelessness, my homelessness doesn't come from being chronic homeless, my homelessness comes from being wrongfully evicted out of our unit. We had our rent paid by the Homeless Coalition to a landlord who embezzled the money.

He had a lease with an option to buy, which we didn't opt into, and we have all the documentation, we went to court with this matter. We received an unfair judgment over water bill. But during the hearing of eviction, we had a lot of concerns about the judge hearing the violations during— about the landlord's lease and him not maintaining the habitable unit. It wasn't habitable when we first moved in. It was agreed that he would do it.

He didn't do it. He hired a lawyer to defend his rights to embezzle the money. So I'm here to ask to see if you guys can enforce a rule to stop landlords from wrongfully evicting families out of their units and to protect us when our rent is fully paid, which our rent was overpaid and still shows the reflection of this matter being on record, but the judge refused to listen to that and he postponed our damage case until June 11th. We went in on June 11th, and he turned around and postponed it till 2027 now. We— November of 2027, or—.

This November. This November, I'm sorry. So we have to wait for our damages in this matter, but yet we were forced to leave without the right to actually find a habitable place to live. So we rented a park space at Bicentenario, We were there and we contacted Kathleen, who runs the Homeless Coalition. My wife was involved with text and conversation with this team.

She had asked for the landlord's information. We gave it to her. She contacted this landlord, who then told her that we were drug addicts and our lifestyle was the way it was that got us kicked out of the unit. We then were there at the park for another extended amount of time without help or receiving any confirmation of what was going to go on with the 4 of my family members. I have 2 adult children, one full-time works at a bank, and the other helps my wife with her respite care as long as, as well as I do her PCA care, and I'm her legal guardian.

So at this point in time, I'm asking that if none of these housing development centers can house families who are not on drugs, who We don't have criminal records and we're being subjected to criminals and their lifestyles of activities. We don't wanna be reflected in that manner, but we've been already classified by this landlord to her. Sorry that it took so long for me to explain this to you all. I wish I had more time, but there is a lot going on with—. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you for your testimony. Ma'am, would you like to testify? I do. And please state your name and party type. My name is Michaela Robinson.

As my husband said, we became homeless on the 1st after making many phone calls to try to find shelter for my family. We were put in contact with Kathleen and someone else is on the text, but I'm not sure. I can't remember her name right offhand.

Upon telling our story and what was going on with us and making— trying to make absolute clear that we were not asking for a handout, we have income, we just needed help in our situation.

After being put off because I had stated that there was a hearing on— that I thought was supposed to be the damages hearing on the 11th. No contact until after that date. Then the contact is, well, we're going to split you and your family up. Okay, medically that's not okay because I have conditions. Where I'm supposed to have supervision.

One person cannot do that. We went over to the place, the Alex Hotel, and while I appreciate the effort, I did not appreciate the treatment or—. Or—.

The wanding. I got— I have a pacemaker and another device, and I was wanded without notice. Just, there you go. That's medically, again, not acceptable. We offered to do drug tests, just so that's clear, to prove that We do not do drugs, we don't drink, we just needed help.

And instead of there being help for families, there are no help for families or for people who are legitimately going through issues that are just beyond. And then the treatment that you receive, because everybody is generalized, because you become homeless, you are then generalized as a lower form of a person. So not only are you dealing with this, you are now lower than what everybody else is.

Thank you for your comment. And I will just— quick note for you too. We don't typically do comments back and forth where we don't answer questions. Oh, are you leaving? Okay.

Well, I was gonna say, if you wanted to stick around, if individual members or members of the administration wanted to connect, they might be able to help you out connecting to some resources. Okay. Jamie Lopez, Eastern Christian Homeless Coalition, formerly homeless. I'm guessing I can't get 5 minutes. So I'd like to thank Mikayla for coming out today.

I received a text from somebody about her and she came down here. And there are any number of people that I am fixing problems for. And for 3 years I've been doing this unpaid. The experts in this room are mostly people that are getting paid $144 grand, $150 grand, so on and so forth. And literally I'm about to check out.

Yeah, this is tough to watch. So anyways, the officer involved shooting, this is regrettable. Yeah. This is sort of escalating away in this town where you decided to make everybody a criminal for everything, and people are not getting help. They are not getting support.

They're being left to the wind and they're constantly being failed. The only way this improves is if you stop decentralizing the problem and running people into the ground and creating places for people to go so they can get help and care if there's not enough housing. It doesn't seem like anybody's listening. I just had to listen last week at the Rules Committee meeting where somebody essentially decided or proposed making the homeless committee meetings quarterly. So instead of getting 12 opportunities to go and speak, you're trying to reduce it to 4.

And people don't know what day it is, let alone what time of day it is. So how are they even supposed to show up if they don't even know? Most don't have internet, most don't have phones. And I'm glad that, you know, 4 people were able to come today. So the hospital discharges, I know 2 just off the top of my head where Guy in basically serial amputation got kicked out basically on the street from 30 Days in Providence and was left on the street, no shelter whatsoever.

Providence is usually good about this. Humana's worse. Alaska Regional, another one that I know of. So let's see, what else? True North, you basically have claimed defeat from the jaws of victory again.

You basically have, you know, a crisis treatment facility in the middle of an area where there's a bunch of people who have issues, It's a moment in time where somebody is willing to receive treatment, and if it's not there, they've just lost their shot for who knows, maybe years. You know, question was posed to Alan, and this actually came from Kenny behind me. Is the issue that the treatment facility is right across from Fairview Rec Center, or is it just that it's in Fairview at all? I proposed putting it in Carrs. He got really upset, sort of.

But anyways, the point is he didn't have an answer. And so you're basically placating a few individuals to— Thank you. Oh, many. Just in a way. So, let's see what else.