Sunday brought another death in an Alaskan mobile home fire. That is two in a couple weeks, one in Anchorage and one in Fairbanks. Killer fires know no regional boundaries.
How many more will perish before Alaska Housing Finance Corp., that billion-dollar housing agency with a responsibility to provide access to safe, sanitary and affordable housing, does its job?
With a staff of 305, a planning staff of 15 and a public relations staff of seven, it appears that AHFC is more interested in publishing slick brochures touting its profits and return of cash to the state than in doing its job.
Now is the time to examine an executive order or act of the Legislature that will reorganize AHFC and refocus its efforts back to its primary responsibility, housing. This organization has lost its way.
The fire that took the life of the man in his late 60s or early 70s named Mike this Sunday at 5 a.m. tore through his mobile home in less than five minutes. Not even enough time for the first fire truck to get there. The firefighters found him dead in the front bedroom.
It may not be politically correct to connect this needlessly lost life to the mission failure of Alaska Housing. But AHFC was notified six months ago of the hole in their programs, which fail to address existing firetraps or do anything about them.
AHFC might want to blame its failure to deal with unsafe housing on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) or the Legislature or maybe even the governor. All I know is that AHFC is charged with the mission of housing safety, has excess capital on its balance sheet of $724 million, a $35 million profit from housing in fiscal year 2009, and did not demolish one unsafe house in the last year. AHFC did not stop one fire in all its programs. It is so caught up in its energy programs and other causes that it has lost focus on the most important and basic job of helping Alaskans achieve safe homes.
Does someone have to tell AHFC that people are living and dying in unsafe housing? They have been told but they do not do anything about it.
Cook Inlet Housing has provided a sterling example of how to clean up housing in Mountain View using federal Indian Housing money and HUD's federal Neighborhood Revitalization Program funds. AHFC has estimated the housing deficiency statewide but refuses to even look at the cost of correcting it. That is according to its own 2009 Alaska Housing Assessment.
AHFC could take a couple of their dozen or so planners and come up with a solution. It wouldn't take long. They don't have to review the other 50 states' programs or HUD's analysis to come up with a program for identifying and removing blighted properties. It's pretty basic.
But it seems that AHFC is not willing to act upon its own initiative and use its funds to meet its mission, but instead waits for HUD or the Legislature to fund something. I have not been able to find a comprehensive strategic plan that outlines how AHFC is addressing its overall responsibilities to provide access to safe, sanitary and affordable housing.
I found a bunch of disjointed programs thrown together and reams of plans for complying with federal guidelines on this or that program. But there is no coordinated plan that provides a simple and effective means of addressing the current crisis in housing safety. No cogent document exists that explains how AHFC plans on meeting its mission or acknowledges its shortcomings and failure to meet that mission.
How many more will perish before Alaska Housing Finance Corp., that billion-dollar housing agency with a responsibility to provide access to safe, sanitary and affordable housing, does its job?
Jim Crawford is a real estate agent, developer and businessman who lives in Anchorage. Read his blog at adn.com/opinion/akvoices-jimcrawford.
By JIM CRAWFORD