OPINION: Yes, there is a plan to address Anchorage homelessness — and it’s working

What’s this Clean Slate Strategy? Is the Assembly considering sanctioned camps? What’s going on at Tudor and Elmore? Why are there so many tents everywhere? I don’t blame anyone for wondering what the heck is going on and being frustrated by the apparent lack of progress. Homelessness can’t be solved with simple soundbites and there aren’t any easy, cheap, or quick fixes. We aren’t flying by the seat of our pants. There’s a plan centered around Housing First, and it’s working. Let me try and break things down.

Remember what happened in 2019? We saw an increase in camps to the point where then-Mayor Ethan Berkowitz declared a civil emergency.

We are facing a similar situation today, with the closure of COVID-19 mass care in 2022 and now with emergency cold weather shelter closing last month and the large unsanctioned encampments we’ve seen pop up in Midtown, Fairview and Mountain View.

Collaborative community partnerships have made careful spending decisions to address this crisis, from increased outreach to help meet basic needs of those unsheltered, strengthened safety net services, to historic investments in hotel conversions to bring the Guest House, former Barratt Inn, former Lakeshore Inn and former Golden Lion online as housing, bringing the former Sockeye Inn online as a complex care shelter for those with medical needs, and the new 3rd Avenue Resource and Navigation Center.

That’s a lot of progress, but we know there are still gaps in our Homelessness Prevention Response System. One of the most glaring and difficult to accomplish is the need for more permanent year-round low-barrier shelter. That’s where the Clean Slate Strategy comes in, a process to lead us to a community decision on shelter by Nov. 1.

Getting shelter up by November 1 won’t address what we are seeing right now in our parks and green spaces, which is why the Assembly created two task forces: one to review the feasibility of sanctioned camps and one to come up with solutions to the behavioral health crisis we’ve faced for years.

On June 1, the Complex Behavioral Health Needs Community Task Force came out with its immediate needs solutions. This is a key component to helping people attain housing stability.

On May 22, the Sanctioned Camp Community Task Force released immediate needs recommendations. This conversation is a difficult one, but whatever policy decision the Assembly makes, sanctioned camping is a stopgap measure as shelter and housing become available.

No matter what we do, there are going to be unsheltered individuals this winter. The Assembly will begin planning for the 2023-2024 winter this month. By my estimates, we will need an emergency cold weather shelter plan that accounts for 150 to 300 people.

That’s why we shouldn’t put the cart before the horse by jumping back to the proposed Tudor and Elmore Navigation Center, which will cost tens of millions of dollars to build and operate. There aren’t unlimited resources to spend on everyone’s idea of the “best” solution. This project is already under consideration in the Clean Slate Strategy, which postponed looking at specific locations so we don’t lose focus on the larger issues. The process should play out so we can make this decision as a community.

Housing is the solution to homelessness, but housing isn’t the end of the work. It’s going to take years of investments and community will to implement solutions. All this work isn’t just more talk, but an opportunity to engage in the process of making difficult choices. If we can come together like Anchorage has historically done in times of crisis, I’m positive we will succeed.

Felix Rivera is an Anchorage Assembly member representing District 4 (Midtown), and chair of the Assembly’s Housing and Homelessness Committee.

The views expressed here are the writer’s and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)adn.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Read our full guidelines for letters and commentaries here.