Opinions

Pulling together, Anchorage can help our homeless off the streets

Anchorage just set a Guinness World Record when hundreds gathered to create the world's longest fist bump relay. The fun event on the Delaney Park Strip got wide press coverage throughout the country but its real impact is right here.

Homelessness in Anchorage is solvable, and we are uniquely poised to do it now. As the recent series of thorough articles by Alaska Dispatch News' Devin Kelly demonstrated, never before have so many partners – community members, social service agencies, government, faith organizations and businesses – taken a stand as a community that homelessness should be as rare and as brief as possible in our city.

[Data-sharing signals a new approach to Anchorage's homeless]

Anchorage residents have long cared for those who don't have a place to call home, who live outside or in constant motion. We recognize that home is the foundation for a meaningful life – a sense of community, success in school, the ability to find and keep a job and overall financial stability all start with permanent housing. The fist bump affirmed not only that compassion but also that we are ready to bump up the community momentum, commitment and engagement.

We can improve the housing stability, economic security and the health of people experiencing homelessness by embracing a "housing first" approach. Rather than extended shelter or transitional housing stays, we can more quickly connect people to housing. Once they are housed, we then connect them with services to tackle the complex interplay of financial hardship, isolation and medical, mental or addiction disabilities they face.

The many partners who have long provided services – providers, funders, landlords, the faith community – are transforming how we work together to reduce homelessness as a unified system instead of an array of fragmented first-come, first-served services.

[Anchorage 'landlord liaison' pitches program to provide housing for the homeless]

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Through coordinated intake and assessment, we are making progress at finding homeless families and individuals, knowing their names and assessing their levels of vulnerability. That leads to rapid rehousing to move as many people as possible from the streets and out of the shelters.

Surrounding the newly housed family or individual with tailored services and supports will help improve self-sufficiency and increase housing stability. And we aim to continue that service coordination until housing has been maintained for at least two years.

To increase housing availability for rapid rehousing, we've made investments in housing-first units at Sitka Place, the John Thomas building and other housing programs. We're bringing in new ideas for helping us finance the solutions needed. We're working to identify more private affordable housing units to accept tenants. And, while we work on all these improvements, community partners and compassionate churches coordinate all winter to ensure no family with children has to sleep outside during the coldest months of the year.

The fist-bump relay symbolically represented our shared commitment to neither shy away from complex social problems nor fear the hard work required to try innovative approaches.  Compassion, commitment and results-driven community collaborations will help us turn the curve on homelessness. Let's do this!

Carmen Wenger is executive director of the  Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, Nancy Burke is homeless services coordinator for the Municipality of Anchorage, and Michele Brown is president of United Way of Anchorage.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.

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