Help ICT make strides in 2024. Our goal is to raise $150,000 by the end of the year with generous contributions from funding partners and collaborators like you. We’re thankful for your support, and we’re thriving because of it. DONATE TODAY!
Joaqlin Estus
ICT
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — So far this year 49 homeless people have died on city streets, more than twice as many as all of 2022. That’s according to the Anchorage Daily News, which is tracking outdoor deaths of individuals with no fixed address.
The 49 included two people who used wheelchairs who died after heavy snowstorms hit the area in what is already expected to be a tough cold season.
The federal count of homeless people reached 580,000 last year, according to the Associated Press. In the Lower 48, cities are cracking down on homeless encampments. At the same time, some homeless Native people in the West have been targets of widespread Medicaid scams. At least two tribes have declared public health emergencies, the Blackfeet Nation of Montana and Navajo Nation in the Southwest.
In Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, about 43 percent of its homeless people are Alaska Native, despite them being only 12 percent of the population.
Melanie Skin, Inupiaq and Cherokee, gets a monthly Social Security disability check but it isn’t enough to cover rent and living expenses. She stays in a tent most nights or sleeps on the streets.
That’s bad enough but the hardest thing about being unhoused, she said, is, “I have a two-year-old son and I cannot see him at all. I gave him to his dad when he was six months, and ever since I gave my son to his dad, I never see him. So it’s been really tough for me.”
Experts say homelessness does not discriminate; it impacts people in all age brackets, all backgrounds, all walks of life. Skin’s advice for anyone who finds themself in her situation?
“Master yourselves and keep positive. Keep your head up. Don’t let anybody take advantage of you, or bully you … If you’re addicted to a drug or alcohol or anything, I advise people to stop and go to treatment, get better and continue going towards your future,” Skin said.
Her friend Tony Kahutak, Alutiiq, is sometimes able to pay rent despite not having a steady job. He does day labor when he can get to the job site; he doesn’t have a car.
“It’s been pretty much an up-and-down roller coaster for me having a place to stay, because the food industry got hit the hardest when the pandemic came. And so I pretty much lost my job and everything else ever since then. But I’ve been bouncing back and forth … it’s just a hit or miss pretty much.”
Skin and Kahutak are among an estimated 3,856 unhoused people in Anchorage as of the end of October. Hundreds were put out on the streets when the city last spring closed a 500-person shelter. That brought the city’s supply of beds for emergency shelter to 524.
“We’re just really in a situation right now where we would just really need more shelter beds, more emergency shelter beds,” said Robin Dempsey, chief executive officer of Catholic Social Services, an agency that runs a number of programs for the unhoused. Those include low barrier shelters, where sobriety is not a requirement, a shelter for women who have children or are pregnant, as well as a center that connects people with resources.
“One of the things that’s happened is that over the years, especially since Covid, we’ve seen the number of people experiencing homelessness grow,” Dempsey said. “We’ve had much fewer vacancies. The rental rates are much higher, so getting into housing has been particularly difficult for people as well.”
Gabe Layman, CEO of Cook Inlet Housing Authority, said things are even “worse than they seem.”
“We have seen an increasing amount of visible homelessness in recent years, but Anchorage’s unhoused population is not fully represented by those who are chronically unhoused. We also have overcrowding; we have people who are couch surfing. We have plenty of invisible homelessness as well,” Layman said.
(Related: Anchorage adds to record homeless death total as major winter storms hit)
That scenario is part of a changing demographic, said Layman. Cook Inlet Housing historically mostly served people who can’t comfortably pay all their bills, “but who are not struggling to remain stably housed for behavioral and other reasons.
“However, what we have seen is a dramatic increase in the demand for affordable housing among the population of individuals who are coming to us from homelessness. So as of today, in a given month, between 50 and 75 percent of the individuals we house come to us from an unhoused situation,” he said.
“Anchorage and the state of Alaska have systematically failed to address the root causes of homelessness,” Layman said. “What we are seeing is a root failure in our state’s behavioral health treatment systems, in our substance abuse prevention and treatment systems and how we address childhood trauma and how we provide authentic economic opportunities for all of Alaska’s residents.”
Dempsey said substantial work has been done over the past couple of years—hotel conversions, a public private partnership that led to a resource center, and creation of a complex care shelter for the elderly or people with medical issues. “What we’re seeing is that homelessness really needs an entire continuum of care, and we have to address it at all stages,” she said.
Dempsey and Layman both said they see the best results when housing and financial assistance programs are paired with case management.
Anchorage officials recently invited experts from Houston, Texas to see what Anchorage is experiencing and share their experience. Michael Nichols, CEO and president of the Houston Coalition for the Homeless, agrees with Dempsey and Layman’s conclusions.
Nichols said one of the most important realizations the Houston community had is that permanent supportive housing is not only the most effective means of moving people off the streets, but also the most cost effective solution.
“It’s very important for the community to know that if they don’t support this idea of housing people with support services, they’re going to spend much, much more money.” High numbers of homelessness means more money for temporary camps, shelters, police enforcement, and emergency health care, he said. “If you’re fiscally conservative, fiscally responsible, you want to (permanently) house people,” Nichols said.
He said it’s also important to overcome misconceptions that homelessness is caused by addiction; rather, he said, it triggers addiction. “Almost all people experiencing homelessness began because of economic issues. And when they get housed, they then begin overcoming the trauma of homelessness, which has sometimes ended up in drug and alcohol issues. So housing people first is the proof. The data shows that is the solution that gets people out of homelessness.”
Catherine Villarreal, director of communications for the Houston coalition, shared their success story. “Since the formation of our homeless response system, which is called “The Way Home,” in 2012, we’ve reduced homelessness by more than 60 percent according to our annual point in time count.”
Working with “more than a hundred different partners,” including service providers, local government, and housing, veterans affairs and mental health authorities, “we’ve been able to help more than 30,000 people overcome homelessness and get back into housing,” she said.
During the visit from Houston officials, the Anchorage Assembly announced “Next Step,” a $4.6 million pilot project to move 150 homeless individuals into permanent housing by the end of April.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan (R) last week introduced legislation to increase the supply of affordable housing for families by broadening the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. A companion bill was introduced in the House as well.
Brian McCutchen, a Chippewa descendent, is vice president of Behavioral Services at Southcentral Foundation. He said the foundation launched a supportive housing program in 2020, to great effect.
“The idea is that we offer housing and then we bring value to your life by offering you these other things that you might choose to participate in. And the vast majority of folks have elected to participate in mental health and substance use programming,” McCutcheon said.
In an evaluation of 88 participants conducted in July 2023, “we’ve seen a 76 percent reduction in Safety Center intakes, a 69 percent reduction in arrests, a 74 percent reduction in shelter stays, and a 41 percent reduction in calls for EMS transport.” For example, the number of Safety Center calls for people in the “Home for Good” program went from 1,191 to 287, he said.
“It’s just really exciting and when you hear the testimonials, when you hear people talk about how this has positively impacted their lives, it’s very moving,” McCutcheon said.
ICT is a nonprofit news organization. Will you support our work? All of our content is free. There are no subscriptions or costs. And we have hired more Native journalists in the past year than any news organization ─ and with your help we will continue to grow and create career paths for our people. Support ICT for as little as $10. Sign up for ICT’s free newsletter.
