Homeless Prevention & Response System

Weekly Digest

Outreach will be at Davis Park tomorrow!

Thursday, November 16th, 1-3:30 PM.

Outreach teams have been doing their best to help our unsheltered neighbors, but plowing through the snow and rough roads has been a challenge. We will do our best to inform the community of any necessary schedule changes.

As a reminder, please watch out for pedestrians. Show care and empathy towards our unhoused neighbors who may have transportation challenges until the sidewalks and bus stops are all cleared.

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

View the upcoming outreach schedule

Please note: Anchorage Police Department sent an alert that there are intermittent issues with the 311 and 786-8900 (non-emergency numbers).

Please ensure 911 is only used for emergencies, and if the situation is non-emergent continue to try 311.

ACEH Highlights

Updated Resource Flyer

Thank you to all who have been spreading the word in the community!

If you haven't already, please consider sharing these life-saving resources and information by printing out this resource flyer and posting it on local bulletin boards or wherever our vulnerable neighbors will be able to see it.

It takes a community to end homelessness. Thank you for sharing and caring!

Click the image to download and share!

Download flyer

Download image to share on socials

November Advisory Council Meeting Canceled.

This month's Homelessness Prevention & Response System Advisory Council meeting scheduled for November 23, 2023, has been canceled due to Thanksgiving.

Learn more about the Advisory Council

Anchorage Highlights

Alaska Public Media

Anchorage Assembly expands winter shelter with hundreds on waitlist and snow pummeling city

In an emailed statement to media on Friday, the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness called on the city to open warming centers and to do a better job vetting those on the shelter waitlist, to prioritize bed space for the most vulnerable.

The coalition also suggested that those steps, plus better communication with unhoused communities before their campsites were cleared by the city, might have prevented some recent outdoor deaths.

“If these steps had been taken, it is very likely that these neighbors would have been better cared for by our community,” the coalition said. “The winter has just started. It is not too late to make some course corrections.”

New York Times

Meg Zaletel, the executive director of the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, said the city needed to better understand all the factors that might be contributing to deaths, including not only shelter space and health care but also transportation to reach those services. Two of the people who recently died in the city used wheelchairs.

Ms. Zaletel said the city’s shelters had at times not prioritized the most vulnerable people, meaning that those who were older or had medical conditions were not always able to gain access to the limited shelter beds.

“It’s the beginning of winter,” said Ms. Zaletel, who also serves on the Anchorage Assembly but spoke in her capacity as leader of the homelessness nonprofit. “It is just the beginning of winter. We have the ability to course-correct and get on the right path.”

Kedar Mate, President and CEO, Institute for Healthcare Improvement Beth Sandor, Co-Director, Built for Zero Rosanne Haggerty, President and CEO, Community Solutions

Community Solutions

Redesigning systems to get the results we need

Quality improvement principles are paving the way to solving homelessness
Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets. This idea is at the heart of quality improvement (QI), the applied science of using systems change to improve outcomes.

For the past several years, Community Solutions has partnered with the Institute of Healthcare Improvement to understand whether the concept that was transforming other sectors could be applied to the problem of homelessness.

The outcome was the Built for Zero movement to solve homelessness.

Learn more

2023 US Department of Housing and Urban Development

New Resource - Unsheltered Data Collection Strategies: Case Studies

The number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in the United States increased by more than 3% during the COVID-19 pandemic1 and continues to grow in many communities due to a lack of affordable housing, increasing rents, stagnated wage growth, and limited availability of sheltered homelessness services. In response, several communities around the country have developed comprehensive approaches to addressing unsheltered homelessness through a combination of targeted street outreach services and collaboration among local partners, including housing providers, local political and business leaders, and healthcare services. These efforts have paired data from Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) and other sources with client-informed data collection practices to improve engagement with people experiencing homelessness and connect them to housing and other appropriate supports.

View the resource

National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH)

New Alliance Resources on Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) Vouchers

Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) vouchers provide dedicated rental assistance to support youth in two situations: youth exiting foster care who are at risk of homelessness, and youth who have become homeless (or are at risk of homelessness) after having been in foster care.

View FYI Resources

ACEH Weekly Digest
Please reach out to [email protected] if you have questions, suggestions, or resources you would like to share in the weekly digest.

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