Alaska has some of the coldest and harshest winters which can make surviving without a home even more difficult. However, there are programs aimed at helping the homeless.
The US Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that over 610,000 people experience homelessness on a single night. Of those, over 1,900 are in Alaska. The Alaska Housing Finance Corporation has multiple programs directed at helping the homeless with either permanent or temporary housing. CEO and executive director of Alaska Housing Finance Corporation Bryan Butcher says these programs are vital to the state because of a specific groups of homeless individuals.
“They’re important because we have, for the size of our state, we have a fairly substantial number of people that are homeless. And what people don’t realize sometimes when they think about people that are homeless they think about someone that has a substance abuse problem, chooses not to work, is living off of the public doll as it may and in reality, certainly the homeless population consists of a lot of different folks but approximately a third of the homeless people are children. And these are children whose parents that or single family homes that can’t afford a place to live don’t have a place to live, that are going to 6, 7,8 schools a year. And with that kind of lack of continuity those kids really hardly have a chance.”
Butcher says when children grow up homeless they are less likely to graduate high school and go to college. According to the American Institutes for Research children who are homeless are sick four times more often than other children, have high rates of obesity due to nutritional deficiencies and have three times the rate of emotional and behavioral problems compared to non-homeless children.
Another group Butcher believes need special consideration is the mentally ill. There are 250,000 mentally ill people who are homeless in the United States. Butcher says mental illness is a hugely important issue that AHFC looks at when creating programs.
“These are people that can be very proud functioning members of society with a little bit of help. and if there’s not organizations or agencies able to step in and give that help it puts them at high risk.”
Butcher says AHFC offers several programs intended to help people all across the state.
“Probably our most direct homeless program is the Homeless Assistance Fund and it’s something we work on with the Mental Health trust Authority and a few other state agencies. That goes out through a competitive process to nonprofits across the state focusing on temporary assistance, prevention and intervention. It’s approximately a little under $6 million a year. It’s a competitive process where organizations across the state apply for it and it goes out making sure that we are taking care of all the geographically diverse ways to make sure that all areas of the state that have need and have contacted us have some funds coming their way.”
The Basic Homeless Assistance Program splits the funding between several programs including Emergency Solutions Grant, Sponsor-Based Rental Assistance program and state funded Special Needs Housing Grant. All of those are available through the AHFC.
Butcher says the biggest difference between Alaska and the lower 48 when it comes to the homeless is in the winter. Alaska winters can be very harsh-- the average high temperature in Anchorage during the winter is 22 degrees. The average snowfall in Anchorage is 134.5 inches. Because of that, Butcher says Alaska’s homeless programs are designed around weather more so than programs outside the state.
“If somebody’s homeless and they are left outside in a tent, that kind of exposure generally takes a couple of Alaskans from us every year as a result of the homeless situation that they find themselves in. You know a civilized society does what they can for their most vulnerable people who need the most help.”
In 2004, Governor Frank Murkowski established the Alaska Council on the Homeless, Butcher is currently Chair of the council. Butcher says with groups like the council and AHFC working together he’s hopeful to end and prevent homeless.