Clarise Larson

The executive director of the Glory Hall homeless shelter in Juneau, Mariya Lovishchuk, is stepping down from her role after more than a decade of leadership.

In an interview on Thursday, she said that although she won’t be in charge anymore, she’s not going anywhere. 

“Well, I think this is why it’s not newsworthy — I think I’m gonna try to do the kind of stuff that I’ve been doing. I just don’t want to be in charge anymore,” she said, laughing. 

Lovishchuk began her role as executive director back in 2009. And, while serving there and with the Juneau Housing First Coalition, she’s been busy. 

She helped move the shelter from downtown to a larger location in the Mendenhall Valley. She also helped turn the old shelter into affordable housing units, and she helped develop the Housing First facility in Lemon Creek. 

That facility, called Forget-Me-Not-Manor, is operated by the Glory Hall and provides permanent supportive housing for people who’ve been homeless for a year or more and have a disability or chronic health condition. Currently, the manor is in the final stages of fundraising to build 28 more units there, which will bring the total to 92.

Lovishchuk said a lot has changed in 15 years, but one thing really sticks out to her. 

“I think the big shift for us just was realizing how critically important permanent supportive housing is,” she said. “Switching from providing sandwiches and cots to really thinking about systemic issues, and really focusing on the development and operating of housing.”

Lovishchuk said she hopes the Glory Hall’s next director will come ready to collaborate with other groups in Juneau that are trying to get people into housing. The Glory Hall is part of the Juneau Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, a partnership of local agencies and organizations working to find solutions to get people out of homelessness and into stable housing. 

“I think Juneau is really unique in terms of how many organizations and partners work on projects together, and just how collaborative our efforts are,” she said. “And, I think it has really had amazing results. So, I really hope that continues.”

Lovishchuk said those partnerships — and working with the people who come into the shelter — have been the highlights of her career.

“I have so many favorite parts of this job,” she said. “I think just like doing something so meaningful for so many years, it just like really adds to your life. It’s just — it’s so enriching, I think, personally and professionally.”

The search for her replacement is already underway. She said she is confident that the right person is out there who can move the organization forward. 

In this newscast:

• Local trail crews are trying to figure out how to keep up with muddier and harder-to-maintain trails in Southeast Alaska caused by climate change.
• New rules for wastewater are on the horizon here in Alaska.
• Seward’s Lydia Jacoby won’t compete in this summer’s Olympics in Paris.
• Two men died after their small plane crashed on Tuesday into Crescent Lake on the Kenia Peninsula.

Housing is tight in Juneau, and that can make it hard for low or middle-income families who want to settle down. To help address that, the Juneau Assembly is increasing the funding in a city loan program for purchasing mobile homes. 

Since 2016, the city has partnered with True North Federal Credit Union to provide low-interest loans for up to 50% of the down payment of mobile homes, also called manufactured homes. Loan recipients are on the hook for the other 50% and have five years to pay it back.

Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs is the chair of the Assembly’s Lands Housing and Economic Development Committee. She said offering programs like this is just another creative way the Assembly is trying to help people afford housing. 

“I think it’s super important that we provide a variety of tools, so it’s just biting at the apple every way we can,” she said. 

The loans were previously available for up to $10,000 at 1% interest. But, at a meeting on Monday, the Assembly bumped that up to $20,000. 

Hughes-Skandijs said for many people and families, purchasing a traditional house in Juneau just isn’t financially possible anymore. But, purchasing manufactured homes can be a solid alternative. 

According to a city assessment report, the median sales price of a mobile home on land in 2023 was just under $172,000. The sales price for a single-family residence was more than double at nearly $530,000.

“It’s a way of people getting into homes that they’re actually owning, so if there’s something we can do to make it easier for someone to get into a home, we’d love to help on that front,” Hughes-Skandijs said.

The program is funded with money from the city’s Affordable Housing Fund. City Manager Katie Koester said since the program’s inception, it’s been underutilized — only 14 loans have been taken out. She said she hoped that changes and more people take advantage of it. 

“A lot of times a manufactured home is a young person or a family’s first entry into home ownership,” she said. “So we’re really interested in being able to make sure that they’re able to achieve that, and nothing has gotten any less expensive.”

The Assembly also changed the name of the program to be called the Manufactured Home Down Payment Assistance Program. It was previously called the Mobile Home Down Payment Assistance Program. Hughes-Skandijs said the term “mobile home” can have a negative stigma attached to it.

Bartlett Regional Hospital isn’t taking over the Juneau Bone & Joint property after all. 

On Monday, the Juneau Assembly authorized the hospital to put $8.1 million back into its savings. That money was originally supposed to buy the property that houses the business.

The decision comes as the board for Juneau’s city-owned hospital contemplates cutting or reducing some services to address a major budget crisis. But Bartlett CFO Joe Wanner said the money won’t solve the hospital’s looming problems.

“It doesn’t do nothing for our operating struggles right now,” he said. “Each of these programs are continuing to lose money on a day-to-day basis. So we still have work to do on those. This doesn’t affect that.”

Last July, the hospital put aside that $8.1 million from its operating funds to purchase the property, which includes two commercial buildings near the hospital campus. 

The idea was that the Bone & Joint Center and other private businesses that lease there would pay rent to the hospital. At the time, hospital leaders said it would give the hospital “immediate access to positive cash flow.” They anticipated making upwards of $700,000 per year in rent. 

But Wanner said the property owners pulled back from the sale in January. He said they did not give a reason. 

Wanner said because the hospital knew the deal fell through back in January, they had already included that money in its three-year timeline for how much the hospital has left before it runs in the red. 

“As we go through the struggles, the ability to have this cash back in the operating fund, it does buy us basically the three years if we don’t change anything today. This doesn’t go very far,” he said. 

As for the hospital’s current budget crisis, the board is still collecting feedback from the public on which services should be cut or reduced. The board is expected to give a final recommendation on June 25 on how to move forward.

Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon has announced that she plans to run for a third term in October’s local election. 

In an interview on Tuesday, she said the decision to run didn’t come easy. 

“It’s been an extremely tough decision to make, especially with my husband, Greg’s, passing,” she said. “But I just come back to the same thoughts that I’m committed to Juneau, and I think I still have some things to offer.”

Her husband died in a motorcycle crash in Arizona in late April. 

Weldon is a retired division chief with Capital City Fire/Rescue and owns Glacier Auto Parts. She has two adult sons and is a lifelong resident of Juneau. 

She’s been mayor since 2018. Before that, she served two years on the Assembly before resigning to run for mayor. She was reelected in 2021 and will finish her second three-year mayoral term in October. 

Weldon said some of her priorities if reelected are supporting child care development, more housing and keeping the city’s spending budget in check. 

She said she thought about not running after her husband died, but ultimately decided to press forward.

“Before Greg passed away, I was going to run anyway. And then that kind of gave me a little bit of pause,” she said. “Then I decided that he would want me to continue to do it because he was a quiet supporter, but he was the type of guy that if I got home late one evening, there’d be leftovers from dinner for me.”

October’s election will also feature five other open seats: two on the Juneau Assembly and three on the school board. There are a few citizen initiatives that could also land on the ballot.

The two Assembly seats up for grabs are held by Michelle Hale and Wáahlaal Gídaag Barbara Blake. Both of them say they don’t plan to run again.

No one else has publicly announced their intention to run for mayor so far, but Weldon said she’d be surprised if she ran unopposed. 

“I’ve always said your voice, your vote, so get out and vote. And I think we’ll see some candidates,” she said. 

The filing period to run for local office opens July 12. 

A Juneau man died in a Seattle hospital after a City and Borough of Juneau employee driving a city-owned truck struck him as he was lying in the drive-through lane of a bank in the Mendenhall Valley, police and city officials said.

Police identified the man who died as 38-year-old Armando Sanchez. The incident happened early in the morning of June 1 at True North Federal Credit Union on Postal Way.

Juneau Police Department spokesperson Erann Kalwara said the driver told police he did not realize Sanchez was there on the ground when the front bumper and tire struck him. 

“The man who was operating the Chevy truck, we found that he was not impaired, he was not injured,” she said. “There was no relationship between the person who was struck by the truck and the person who was operating the truck.”

Immediately after the incident, Sanchez could sit up and talk and had some abrasions on his back, according to police. He was brought to Bartlett Regional Hospital that day and was later medevaced to Seattle for further treatment. 

JPD was notified on Tuesday that Sanchez had died the day before. Kalwara said she did not immediately know if his death was due to injuries from the collision. 

“We’re going to be waiting for autopsy results. So there’s a variety of information that we’re still collecting to help with the investigation to determine with some finality what occurred,” she said. 

The city employee driving the truck has not been identified by police and has not been charged. City Manager Katie Koester told KTOO that the city is conducting an internal investigation of the incident. 

Kalwara said the police are also continuing to investigate what happened.

This story has been updated with additional information from the Juneau Police Department.