Single police officers in Unalaska sometimes need to live on living room sofas in the absence of quality affordable housing, according to a report presented last week at a crowded special city council meeting on housing for everybody in general and city employees in particular.
A housing shortage makes it hard to fill vacant city jobs, according to assistant city manager Patrick Jordan.
"Oftentimes officers without families must share living space with roommates, sometimes couch surfing, and potential candidates with families are unable to accept offers of employment due to the lack of available and affordable quality housing," Jordan wrote in the Dec. 2 memo.
About 50 people packed the city council chambers.
"Now I know how to get people to come to the city council meetings. Just put housing on the agenda," said city manager Chris Hladick.
If housing is tight now, city officials worry it could get a lot worse in the future, if offshore oil development begins in the Arctic Ocean, with Unalaska as a staging area.
According to city planning director Erin Reinders, the oil boom in Williston, North Dakota caused rents to double and then some, as the population grew about 50 percent in only three years, from 14,700 in 2010 to 21,000 in 2013.
Much of the meeting's discussion centered on finding land to develop for new housing, and measures the city might take such as extending utility lines.
The prospect of Uncle Sam riding to the rescue was suggested in Reinder's presentation, calling for hosting a housing forum with various federal funding agencies including the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Aleutian Housing Authority, plus the state Alaska Housing Finance Corp., and Key Bank from the private sector.
Local developers opposed the city building more housing for employees, complaining of unfair competition. "You're very lousy at it," said major local real estate owner Coe Whittern, complaining of the cost of the eight-unit apartment complex for city and school district employees in the valley where the city trailer park once stood.
Former city engineer Tyler Zimmerman defended the cost, saying it represented quality housing, although more units could have been for the same amount of money. City natural resources analyst Frank Kelty said the city was once forced to create a trailer park for city workers after waiting for private development that never happened.
Kelty said he'd have preferred to see the mobile homes taken to the landfill. The "city trailers" however, continue as employee housing at Offshore Systems Inc.
"The city does not want to be in the housing business at all," said mayor Shirley Marquardt.
The city currently owns 16 housing units, according to the planning department, with four apartments reserved for teachers and two units reserved for police officers.
Local real estate owner Rufina Shaishnikoff said city housing should only be short-term, and that the workers should eventually purchase their own homes. "I don't think they should live in city housing forever, certainly not for five years," she said.
City councilor Zoya Johnson questioned if a housing shortage really existed, but councilor Yudelka Leclere had no doubts, citing multiple families sharing a single house. Councilor Dave Gregory quipped that perhaps the barge the city's hiring to remove scrap metal could arrive loaded with new houses.
This story first appeared in The Bristol Bay Times/Dutch Harbor Fisherman and is republished here with permission.