Next Step outdoors: ‘We’re all moving up’
Jeramy is seen at his camp after working with ACEH’s street outreach team on a housing needs assessment.
“I have a place where I can be clean and get back to wearing clean clothes all the time and maybe keeping a job and not being dirty and feeling worthless. Home.”
Jeramy is a disabled veteran who had been living outdoors in Anchorage off and on for nearly a decade. Through Next Step, the new housing collaboration of the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, he finally is housed and making use of an expanded veteran’s benefit.
When the Anchorage Police Department posted camp abatement notices at Jacobson Park, the environment was decidedly different than other abatements. Street Outreach staff accompanied APD’s Community Action Policing (CAP) teams. Everyone camping in the park was offered housing, not shelter beds, and all accepted. As notices were posted, the conversations were not about having to move once again, but about what kind of apartment they were headed to and which personal items they were taking. Over the next week the Healthy Spaces team will clear the trash and dead trees from the encampment, close it to camping and reclaim the space for the community.
Planned step by planned step, this closure was the first using the Next Step model of coordination with the Municipality of Anchorage Parks and Recreation department, the APD CAP team, and ACEH. Next Step, which housed 150 Anchorage individuals this winter and spring and is aiming for 45 more this summer and fall, connects individuals to available apartments and includes case management of up to 200 hours a year, a landlord liaison to mediate issues and other assistance. For Jeramy, an expansion of the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing benefit that took effect in 2021 paved the way for him to receive a voucher for housing.
Everyone Jeramy has made his community with is being housed at the same time. There is no guilt and less likelihood of losing his home because of unauthorized guests. That’s what will make Next Step succeed, Jeramy said. “We're all moving up, getting an opportunity at the same time. Because it's hard to leave people behind,.”
By using a scattered site housing model with tailored supports, our teams help newly housed clients establish boundaries, while engaging in healthy community activities with their formerly unhoused friends.