Providence Alaska House Groundbreaking, Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Providence Alaska House Groundbreaking, Tuesday, May 17, 2022

It was an honor to join other leaders in our community as we broke ground for Providence Alaska House. This permanent supportive housing will supply homes and services for 51 elders with disabilities who are currently experiencing homelessness. Learn more here: https://blog.providence.org/provi…/providence-alaska-house

The Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness hopes that this project will inspire more to come, and that we will continue to unite as a community to follow the Anchored Home Plan to make homelessness in Anchorage rare, brief, and one-time.
Thank you to Providence Alaska, funders, and partners that helped make Providence Alaska House possible.

Pictured in photo: Left to right, Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson; Steve Williams, chief executive officer, Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority; Sasha Zimmerman, director of communications, Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness; Mark Fineman, vice president of development, Cook Inlet Housing Authority; David Rittenberg, senior director, Homeless Services, Catholic Social Services Alaska; Michelle Baker, executive vice president, Behavioral Health Services Division, Southcentral Foundation; Gloria O’Neill, president and chief executive officer, Cook Inlet Tribal Council; Bryan Butcher, chief executive officer and executive director, Alaska Housing Finance Corporation; Preston M. Simmons, DSc., FACHE, chief executive officer, Providence Alaska; Greg Cerbana, vice president, Public Relations and Government Affairs, Weidner Apartment Homes; Diane Kaplan, president and chief executive officer, Rasmuson Foundation; and Chris Constant, vice chair, Anchorage Assembly.

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Calling All Landlords!

With the closure of the mass care sites in Anchorage, we need more housing to make sure every neighbor has a safe, anchored home to go to.

We are matching tenants with landlords to create a positive experience for both. Contact Tera Newton-Conley , ACEH Housing Transition Coordinator if you have available units and would like information on programs available.

Visit AnchoredHome.org for more information on the housing surge.

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Local Housing & Homelessness Highlights

Inspiring stories from the Anchorage community, news and information about housing and homelessness, and tangible ways you can get involved and help people in need.

View ACEH Members

Giving & Volunteer Opportunities

Beans Cafe Donation List
Volunteer with Catholic Social Services

View More Ways to Get Involved

Alaska’s News Source

Food Bank of Alaska triples space at new location

The Food Bank of Alaska moved into a new building at 2192 Viking Drive at the end of last summer but the nonprofit is just now showing the facility off to the public.

CEO Jim Baldwin described the difference in the new space as “night and day” compared to their old building.

“Now we have 78,000 square feet verses 25,000 square feet,” Baldwin said. “We can be more efficient; we can process food through this facility a lot quicker and get it out into people’s hands more efficiently.”

Read the Full Article

Alaska Legal Services Corporation (ALSC)

Alaska Legal Services is hoping to learn from folks with lived experience – you can help

The Alaska Legal Services Corporation is interested to tailoring its services to more closely align with the needs of our houseless folk. They are currently in the information gathering phase and would appreciate your assistance in encouraging our folks and helping them participate by completing ALSC’s questionnaire.
The questionnaire can be completed online here or downloaded as a pdf form here.

Shared from the Anchorage Houseless Resources Advocacy Council’s newsletter. Contact hracanchorage@gmail.com to sign up.

Complete Online Questionnaire

National Housing & Homelessness Highlights

US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)

Updated HOME-ARP Allocation Plan Template and Tip Sheet

An updated version of the HOME Investment Partnerships American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP) Allocation Plan Template is now available, along with a new Tip Sheet to provide clarified guidance for using the template.

The updated template provides additional guidance for HOME-ARP Program Participating Jurisdictions (PJs) and does not impose any new requirements. This optional form may be used by PJs to submit their HOME-ARP allocation plans. PJs may opt to use this template or to submit their allocation plans in a different format, provided that all required elements in Notice CPD-21-10 are addressed. HOME-ARP allocation plans must be submitted as a substantial amendment to the FY 2021 annual action plan in the eCon Planning Suite for review by the local HUD CPD Field Office.

View the Allocation Plan Template and Tip Sheet

National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)

Federal Updates

The Biden-Harris Administration has released its new Housing Supply Action Plan, directing federal agencies to take action to make rent more affordable and home ownership more attainable.

The Treasury Department has released a fact sheet to share how state, local, and tribal governments are using Fiscal Recovery Funds to keep families in their homes and build more affordable housing.

National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC)

Leveraging Federal Resources to Extend ERA

NLIHC released a new brief, “Extending the Reach of Emergency Rental Assistance: Leveraging Federal Resources.” The brief explores how three federal programs – the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF), HOME Investment Partnerships-American Rescue Plan (HOME-ARP), and Community Development Block Grants-Coronavirus (CDBG-CV) programs – can be used to bridge the gap between the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s (Treasury) Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) program and the provision of longer-term rental assistance.

Read the Brief

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH)

Biden Announces New Actions, and Urges Congress, to Make Housing More Affordable

Housing is one of the largest costs for Americans, and the shortage of housing in this country is one of the largest drivers of inflation. Today, the Biden-Harris administration released the Housing Supply Action Plan to help close America’s housing supply gap in 5 years, which will mean more affordable rents and more attainable homeownership for Americans in every community.

Today’s rising housing costs are years in the making. Fewer new homes were built in the decade following the Great Recession than in any decade since the 1960s. President Biden believes the best thing we can do to ease the burden of housing costs is to boost the supply of housing by building new homes and preserving existing ones that are affordable, especially for low- and moderate-income households.

The Action Plan outlines a series of steps federal agencies either are taking or will take in the next year, including:

Reward jurisdictions that have reformed zoning and land-use policies.
Deploy new financing mechanisms to build and preserve more housing where financing gaps currently exist.
Expand and improve existing forms of federal financing.
Ensure that more government-owned supply of homes and other housing goes to owners who will live in them.
Work with the private sector to finish construction in 2022 on the most new homes in any year since 2006.

The Action Plan also reiterates calls for Congress to pass Biden administration proposals, some of which have received bipartisan support, to:

Expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit.
Create a Neighborhood Homes Tax Credit.
Incentivize zoning reform.
Increase Housing Trust Fund and HOME resources.
Create a Housing Supply Fund.
Expand resources for production and preservation of housing in rural and Tribal communities.

These combined actions, along with current momentum in the market and reforms at the state and local levels, will help close the housing supply gap in 5 years.

Read the Full Announcement