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Terria Ware, with the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, said big families are having to wait a long time for a home — sometimes up to a year. The problem isn’t funding, she said, it’s available housing.
“We need more units,” she said. “And if you’re talking about families, some of our families are quite large. So where are those three-bedrooms?”
Ware said city officials, nonprofits and a team from federal Department of Housing and Urban Development are racing to find more permanent housing in Anchorage as the city hands off its control of the pandemic shelter response to social service organizations and tries to move out of its largest shelter at the Sullivan Arena.
It’s an uphill battle to find more units. Some landlords or hotel owners have had a bad experience renting to agencies that serve homeless people and have stopped contracting with them, said Denice Delgado, social services director for the Salvation Army in Anchorage.
“Some of them were completely frustrated after the pandemic of not getting payment or having to go through the eviction process, and some have got out of the rental game altogether, or refuse to take vouchers,” she said.
Despite the challenges, there are some families moving into more permanent housing. Nearly 300 families with children have been housed since September, according to the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness. Delgado said the Salvation Army helped find permanent stable housing for 450 families last year.
Excerpt from the article "For this Anchorage family, the road out of homelessness is a test of patience" By Lex Treinen, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage -April 14, 2022
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