Governor’s budget returns homelessness funding

MAT-SU — What could have been an enormous detriment to families and individuals experiencing homelessness in the Valley has been narrowly avoided.

Earlier this month, homeless assistance and prevention agencies received word that funding for Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s Homeless Assistance Program (HAP) coordinated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Mental Health Trust Authority would be cut from the governor’s capital budget for fiscal year 2016.

“We’ve made so much progress with homeless prevention funds,” said Laurie Kari, Executive Director of Family Promise Mat-Su and advocate for homelessness prevention collaboration. “It is difficult to imagine our Valley without the help for our families living on the edge.”

Fortunately, she won’t have to, at least for now. Gov. Walker’s budget amendment “to ensure continued funding for programs that help the homeless” was announced in a Wednesday press release.

“Taking the money out was an unintended consequence of submitting a stripped-down capital budget,” said Office of Management and Budget Director Pat Pitney, in the release. “Putting the money back in is a cost-effective way to address issues that could be costly for our communities. It reduces overall costs in corrections and health and social services.”

According to the capital budget amendments project summaries, Gov. Walker has requested $53.8 million for Alaska Housing Finance Corporation programs. The corporation focuses on housing issues for all people, not just those who are homeless, but eliminating the HAP grant in particular would create reverberating problems for residents not (yet) affected by homelessness.

In the past two years, Valley Charities CEO John Rozzi has administered the grant money for implementation by eight different collaborating agencies, known as “Neighbor to Neighbor”: Family Promise Mat-Su, Access Alaska, Valley Charities, MY House, Alaska Family Services, Daybreak Incorporated, Salvation Army and Blood-N-Fire Ministries.

Since 2009, various sources have contributed to the grant, which is typically $8 million, according to an Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness document accessible at alaskahousing-homeless.org.

Since July 2012, 80 percent of that annual $8 million has gone toward case management and 4,700 direct services, such as full or partial rent or utilities coverage. Almost 3,000 households have been served in the same period of time, and 90 percent of those remain sustainably housed, according to a statistic sheet provided by Dave Rose of the Mat-Su Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

That sustainability speaks to what is probably one of the “issues that could be costly for our communities” that the governor’s office mentioned in the press release.

“Savings-wise, it’s less expensive to keep someone in their home than to put them in a new home,” Rozzi said.

To put someone in a new home in the Valley, too, may be even more challenging due to Mat-Su Borough-forecasted population increases and an unmatched housing market.

According to the borough’s 2014 Housing Needs Assessment, 89,319 people reside within the Mat-Su. If population growth patterns continue, an estimated 125,000 people will be living in the borough by 2020, a 40 percent change from 2010.

However, the average household size is deceasing, and though the number of existing housing units is “close to meeting current requirements,” there’s “not enough supply for a healthy and competitive housing market,” the assessment reads.

“Small households are the norm in the MSB and may become more prevalent. In the future, it appears that there may be less people per housing unit, which will require more housing per person than in the past. The reason this is occurring is due to growth in married couple families without children and nonfamily households consisting of an individual living alone,” reads another portion of the document.

“Our demographics are changing,” said borough Planning Chief Lauren Driscoll, who worked on the assessment. “There’s a much stronger demographic leaning toward single seniors or ‘millennials’ who want other kinds of conveniences.”

Some of those conveniences include affordable, temporary housing, she said, as the younger generations seem to prefer not to live in one place for a long period of time.

Transportation, she said, is an issue as well. Since of the few multi-family and starter homes available, even fewer are close enough to individuals’ workplaces or grocery stores, for example, to make living there any more cost-effective.

The affordability aspect in all areas of housing is something many Alaskans and “in-migrants” to Alaska are looking for, according to the assessment.

As determined by HUD, Driscoll said, affordable housing “should be 30 percent or less of a household’s income.”

But the study shows that households making 80 percent of the median income — which designates them “low income” — are paying more than that 30 percent on housing, which means less money for basic needs and small conveniences, and can also easily lead to household tension.

Roughly 52 percent of non-family and 22 percent of family households make less than the median income, according to the assessment.

So keeping the funding for Alaska Housing Finance Corporation and other housing and homeless prevention programs is kind of a big deal.

“The bottom line is, we need to connect with every legislator in the Valley and encourage them to approve this in their budget,” Rose said.

“This is not funding for the 5th Avenue folks who have been down on their luck for 20 years,” he continued. “This is everyday people.”

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.