Housing

John Garner stood at the corner of Franklin and Front Streets in downtown Juneau on Wednesday. He had a shopping cart filled with clothing and camping gear.

Garner had a rough night. A security guard asked him and his friend to leave an outdoor location where they were sleeping. So he didn’t know where he would sleep that night. 

Garner has lived in Juneau for 12 years and has been unhoused for about a year. He said he’s been trying hard to find a place to live before winter. 

“It’s been pretty difficult,” he said. “I’m on the list for Housing First, trying to get there, and it’s like a big waitlist.” 

Soon he won’t have to worry about where he’s going to sleep during the cold nights ahead. On Tuesday, the City and Borough of Juneau will open its cold weather emergency shelter for the winter season. It’s the second year it will be located in a warehouse in Thane, about a mile from downtown. It will operate through mid-April. 

Garner said he relied on the shelter most nights it was open last year. And, he said he’s grateful to have somewhere dry to sleep soon. 

“It’s somewhere warm, and it works pretty well,” he said. “I mean, they’re all respectful,  everyone gets along.”

Hanging out nearby was Jeremy Williams. He’s also been unhoused for a few years now, but he said he’s trying to get back on his feet after struggling with addiction after the death of his daughter. 

Most nights this summer and fall, Williams said he’s slept outside. But, he plans to head to the shelter as soon as it opens. Last year he said he heavily relied on it to survive the cold.

“Every night possible, they help out a lot,” he said. “But I don’t like being around people who use drugs and whatnot.”

The shelter accepts nearly anyone who comes to its doors as long as they’re not disruptive. It is meant to be a last resort for unhoused people to go to when the weather gets cold. 

Last winter, nearby businesses complained about an increase in thefts and break-ins in the area since the opening of the shelter. 

Dave Ringle, the executive director of Juneau’s St. Vincent de Paul chapter, said people are relying on the shelter more and more as Juneau continues to grapple with a housing shortage.

“I am concerned. Housing has not gotten cheaper in Juneau,” he said. “Every day at our office, we get people who are in danger of being evicted, and we get people who are struggling.”

Last year on an average night, about 50 people stayed at the shelter. Ringle said the warehouse probably has enough space to likely accommodate more and he’s worried that might be needed.

“This is a Band-Aid — we have to keep people alive. And I think in the winter months, a shelter is providing the bare minimum to keep people alive,” he said. “The real solution is to get more housing and more affordable housing.”

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the shelter costs the city roughly $250,000 per season to operate. Last budget cycle, the Assembly approved ongoing funding for it.

The warehouse has heating, insulation and electricity and this year the city installed interior plumbing and indoor restrooms for staff and patrons to use. Barr said he feels confident that patrons are in good hands with St. Vincent de Paul’s staff, but getting the shelter up and running is no easy task.

“I would say that the cold weather emergency shelter is always a little bit tenuous in terms of operations. It’s a hard operation to run and manage,” he said. 

The shelter will be open every day starting October 15 from 9 p.m. until the early morning. St. Vincent de Paul will provide meals. There will also be free shuttle transportation from the Mendenhall Valley and downtown to the shelter.

A Washington state judge approved a deal on Thursday giving the assets of Peter Pan Seafoods to the company’s former co-owner Rodger May, a decision that follows months of controversy over the seafood processing company, which ceased operations this year.

May placed the winning bid for the company’s assets at auction last month, but the sale wasn’t approved until Thursday’s hearing, when King County Judge Steven Olsen signed the motion to approve the $37.3 million sale, which includes processing plants in Dillingham, King Cove and Port Moller.

“I really haven’t heard anybody say that the receiver failed to comply with that order approving the sale,” Olsen said.

Peter Pan Seafood Company was placed into a court-ordered receivership back in April at the request of Wells Fargo, which pointed to more than $60 million in debt owed by the Alaskan processing company. A receivership is a process similar to bankruptcy, but intended to protect a company’s lender. Both Wells Fargo and the court-appointed receiver, the Los Angeles-based Stapleton Group, supported the deal proposed by May.

However, more than 90 Alaska fishermen in August signed a letter that opposed selling Peter Pan’s assets back to May, saying that May had broken the fishing community’s trust by not paying fishermen.

“Mr. Rodger May and co-owners have done irreparable harm to the many people and their families that make their living from the commercial fisheries on the Alaska Peninsula,” they wrote. “There are still many fishermen that have not been paid for fish they delivered as well as vendors and tenders not being paid for goods and services provided.”

It’s unclear how the sale will affect King Cove, which relied on the processing facility as its main economic driver until it closed in January.

May acquired Peter Pan back in 2020 with the backing of California-based RRG Capital Management and McKinley Capital Management, which used funds from the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation’s in-state investment program.

May attended the meeting on Zoom but did not speak during the hearing. May also did not respond to a request for comment from KUCB.

Anchorage city leaders are hopeful that a new team in the Anchorage Police Department will help keep homeless residents safe while connecting them with the resources they need.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance touted the new pilot program, which is called the Homeless Outreach Prevention and Engagement team, at a press conference Wednesday.

“People experiencing homelessness are far more likely to become victims of crime,” LaFrance said. “The HOPE team consists of a sworn crisis intervention-trained officer and a social work navigator who work together to connect people experiencing homelessness to services and housing while improving community safety for all.”

Typically, the Anchorage Health Department has conducted homeless services and outreach. However, Police Chief Sean Case said his department operates around the clock, outside of usual health department hours. That puts the HOPE team in a good position to help support the work in addressing homelessness, he said.

“If we can deal with victimization and crime that’s happening within this population, while also connecting to resources, because we are the agency that frequently comes into contact with this population, we’re now just adding to the overall plan the Municipality has,” Case said.

The HOPE team has been running since the start of July and is headed by Lt. Brian Fuchs, who said a major goal is to have the team engaging with residents living in the city’s homeless camps.

“We want positive police contacts,” Fuchs said. “We want people to understand that the police are there to assist, the police are there to help. And in some cases, that’s connecting people to resources. In other cases, it may be taking a victim in and getting a better understanding of what they’re a victim of.”

The team is similar in concept to the Mobile Intervention Team, a program where officers are partnered with mental health clinicians to respond to mental health crises, Fuchs said. While that team responds to a variety of calls, Fuchs said the HOPE team is specifically aimed at helping residents in homeless camps.

“It’s a new concept as far as a mission, but the construct of the co-response model has been something that we’ve been doing for quite some time,” Fuchs said.

Farina Brown, special assistant to the mayor on homelessness and health, said having an officer with the social work navigator helps keep both providers and the people they’re servicing safe and helps build relationships.

“Sometimes it takes multiple contacts with someone before they even tell you their name,” Brown said. “And the HOPE team allows for that bandwidth to go in and create relationships and start to link people to services when they’re ready.”

If the pilot program goes well, city leaders said a second HOPE team could be out working on the streets next year.

Sam and Amanda Hatch can’t reach the knob on their front door. It’s suspended in mid-air, along with the rest of their home, which towers above the others on Meander Way.

During last year’s glacial outburst flood, water filled the Hatch’s crawl space and saturated the silty land beneath their house until it was wiggly, like quick sand. The whole building sank back towards the river. The four corners drooped and the foundation folded down the middle.

“Our house is really screwed up,” Sam Hatch said. “We made this decision like ‘Okay, either we intervene now or we wait for the house to break and walk away.’”

Their frankensteined house is that intervention. The original building, with its light green siding, now sits four feet off the ground, vaulted on sheets of plywood. Beneath that, there’s a brand new foundation. The garage has not been rebuilt yet, and in the front yard, there’s some unused construction material, leftover from when they ran out of money to finish the job.

The Hatches sent their contractors away in June. Then — in August — the work they managed to finish was put to the test with the arrival of another record-breaking glacial outburst flood.

The high water threatened to breach Hatch’s house, even after it had been lifted, but they managed to stay dry while hundreds of others in the Mendenhall Valley took on water.

With the promise of more glacial outburst floods to come, Sam Hatch says he’s heard lots of people wondering about how they should fix up their homes, grappling with the same uncertainty he faced last year.

“It’s like what do I do? Do I just put it back the way that it was?” he said. “If we know the flood hazards, then people want to prepare for them. They can either harden structures, or mitigate or get away from the problem.”

It’s hard for homeowners to figure out what will make these annual floods tolerable. Staying completely dry might be difficult, if not impossible, but it’s also hard to make peace with letting the water in again and again. Both options are expensive.

“And you have to decide, is it worth selling? Is it worth walking away? Or is it worth paying to repair,” Amanda Hatch said.

The Hatches decided to lift their house, after consulting with a neighbor on View Drive who had done it after his house was damaged by a glacial outburst flood in 2015. Few contractors in the state do that kind of work. The Hatches had to fly someone in from out of town.

At first, they say, there was a small group of neighbors who were interested in lifting their houses too. That would have brought down the cost of the labor and materials, but in the end most people backed out. So the Hatches decided to go it alone.

They were able to get a small grant from state disaster assistance to fill in the land that the flood scoured from beneath their house. But they had to take out loans and open up their retirement account to scrape together the rest of the money they needed — $100,000 to fix the foundation, then another $150,000 for the lift.

Compromising a dream home

Lisa Wallace, who lives a few blocks over on Emily Way, said she doesn’t have that kind of money. The bottom floor of her two-story house filled with two feet of water this year, even though it had never flooded before.

“To have this place that has been my safety and my security for all these years and now be told you’re going to get a 500-year-flood every year. It sucks,” Wallace said.

She says this place was her dream home, with a freshly remodeled kitchen that’s now completely gutted and a cozy living room that’s empty now, except for the dining room table and a couple foldable camping chairs. The place is drying out with box fans, and the exposed subfloor is still dusted in glacial silt.

Wallace knows it could flood again, so she’s making plans to live with the water. She’s been researching construction materials that are used in the Southeast U.S., where things like hurricanes and sea level rise driven by human-caused climate change cause frequent floods.

She said she’ll outfit her first floor with special waterproof drywall and vinyl flooring to replace the hardwood, so it will be easier to dry out next year. A lot of the things she loved about this place will not be replaced.

“Why the heck would I buy new furniture? Why would I put beautiful flooring down? Why would I do that,” she said. “I had my perfect home, and it isn’t perfect anymore. But I’m certainly not doing any of that until we find out how the next flood goes.”

Wallace had plans to move somewhere smaller in her retirement, which is fast approaching. But she says the investment she’s making to repair this house will make affording a new place challenging.

“I wouldn’t buy here again”

Most people who flooded this year, including Wallace, never paid much attention to the glacial outburst floods before. But Nico Bus did, because the Mendenhall River runs right through his backyard on Meander Way. His efforts for flood mitigation have been both a success story and a cautionary tale.

Even before the annual floods began, the river had been eroding his property — and that of his neighbors — for years. Back in 1996, Bus made an investment of $25,000 to protect his home by armoring the riverbank with rock.

When the glacial outburst floods started, they accelerated the erosion, and back in 2018 Bus even campaigned to get the entire neighborhood to split the cost of a retention wall to stop it. At the time, many of his neighbors felt the costs were too high, and the risks were too low.

That is, until last year’s catastrophic flood, which ate away at the riverbank so quickly that it undermined foundations and caused two houses to collapse into the river. Bus made it out unscathed that time.

“Clearly, it was a smart move to reinforce the bank,” Bus said. “But I don’t think the riprap, as you call it, was designed to help with this high of water.”

The nature of the flooding continues to evolve. This year, the reinforced banks held again, but it didn’t matter. The water spilled over them and surged into Bus’ home from multiple directions, as it never had before.

Bus said he and his wife love their home, but he feels it isn’t worth the money it will take to protect it.

“I wouldn’t buy here again. We have been lucky to live here for 39 years,” he said. “We’re going to give it another year, but if it floods again I’d be silly to stay here.”

As much as they’re grateful for their homes, some also feel stuck with them after the flood. In the end, the Hatches did get some financial help via a loan from the U.S. Small Business Association, which they applied for last year.  Ironically, that money finally came in on the day of this year’s flood. They say it will help them to pay back the higher interest loans they took out, but they won’t recover any of the personal savings they spent.

“That’s just gone.,” Sam Hatch said. “It’s in the house now. Yay! That’s one form of investment.”

For the Hatches, the investment to protect their house makes sense. Juneau has an enduring shortage of housing, and the homes that are available are extremely expensive. Amanda Hatch said they worried they’d have nowhere else to go, and they don’t want to leave this community.

“Is it worth it? Are we glad we did it? Absolutely, cause I think the house would have been a loss,” she said. “Juneau can’t absorb a family of five, let alone 300 houses worth of families.”

But she says there was no joy in being spared this year, while they watched their neighbors flood.

For Hermon Hutchens Elementary School Principal Jason Weber, a lack of housing is a big part of his struggle attracting new teachers to Valdez.

“If I’m trying to hire teachers outside of the community, I’m normally going to end up hiring two teachers, because one of them is going to back out a contract because they can’t find housing,” Weber said in an interview.

It’s a problem you hear a lot about in this community of about 4,000 year-round residents. And it’s rippled across the local economy, said Valdez’s assistant city manager for capital projects and facilities, Nate Duval.

“You see that in all the businesses, whether it’s retail or the schools,” he said. “I know there’ve been a number of folks who have been offered employment, but they couldn’t find a place to live, and so they had to turn down the employment to go work somewhere else.”

Communities across the state and around the country are struggling with a shortage of affordable housing. The Prince William Sound community of Valdez is no exception. Expanding housing has been at the top of the city’s priority list for years.

Valdez is dealing with many of the same economic factors limiting development in other places, like high construction costs and interest rates. But city officials are pursuing an all-of-the-above solution — and they’re hoping it pays dividends.

Anemic development and deteriorating housing stock

Valdez had its first major boom in housing development in the aftermath of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake, which required the town to relocate, Duval said. Since then, it’s grown in fits and starts. The opening of the trans-Alaska pipeline and the Exxon-Valdez oil spill each created their own mini-boom.

“After that, nothing, no major construction or adding to the inventory happened,” Duval said.

While the population has been roughly flat, a report commissioned by the city shows that the number of units fell 1.6% between 2010 and 2018. Some homes have succumbed to fires or collapsed under snow loads, and others moved to short-term rental platforms like Airbnb or VRBO, Duval said.

At the same time, lots of Valdez’s existing housing stock has deteriorated.

Around a quarter of Valdez’s housing is mobile or manufactured homes, more than any Alaska community except Craig. But many haven’t stood the test of time, said the city’s community development director, Kate Huber.

“The majority of them are from 1980 or earlier, so they’ve greatly outlived their lifespans in our community,” Huber said. “We live in a pretty harsh environment that these manufactured home units are not designed for.”

Valdez is the one of the snowiest cities in the United States. It averages about more than 300 inches of snow each year. And when you visit a mobile home park, you can see the toll the environment takes on homes that aren’t designed for this climate.

Despite diligent shoveling every winter, in Jeremy Casillas’ home, the ceiling sags.

“You don’t know if it’s going to ever cave in or not,” he said.

Casillas purchased the trailer for about $12,000, as is, and banks won’t lend out the money needed for most repairs, he said.

A multi-pronged effort to expand supply

But there’s reason to believe that the tide may be turning. The city has taken a wide range of steps aimed at making it easier for people to build new homes and upgrade existing stock.

One big part of that was a rewrite of the city’s zoning codes.

“Essentially what we did was just make sure that more types of housing were allowed in more places,” said Huber, the community development director.

The city expanded single-family zones to allow manufactured homes and duplexes without special permits and expanded mixed-use zoning for housing in commercial areas.

The city is also requiring owners to get permits for short-term rental properties, though Huber said it’s yet to cap or limit them. At this point, Huber said, the city is relying more on incentives.

For example, there’s a $10,000 rebate program for anyone who adds a housing unit — on the condition that it can’t be used as a short-term rental for five years.

“We have seen just a couple instances where somebody created a new apartment, came to discuss with us the short-term rental process, and then opted to participate in the incentive program,” she said. “Those units are now long-term rentals.”

The city’s also taking an active role in expanding supply. The city donated land to a developer to build a 28-unit senior housing facility. A grant program helping developers pay for infrastructure helped pave the way for a 50-unit subdivision, Duval said.

“A number of them have been sold, and they’re building some triplexes and duplexes on those properties right now,” he said. “Without the city’s investment in that, I don’t know that those projects … would get off the ground to even be developed.”

Valdez has also applied for a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to bring 140 new manufactured homes to Valdez with low- or no-interest loans. Some would replace existing homes for low- and moderate-income families, and others would go in as new stock.

“Those would be units that are designed for our conditions, for our snow loads, seismic conditions and wind to make sure that we weren’t just repeating the issue and perpetuating the problem, but to provide a high quality, sustainable source of housing,” Huber said.

It’s too soon to say whether the city’s efforts will be enough to turn the tide, Huber said, but Valdez is pulling out all the stops, and she’s optimistic that the city’s multi-pronged approach to solving this intractable problem can help other communities do the same.

“I think for those outside of Valdez, we’re a really great test case to be watching, because these issues, we see them in communities all over the state of Alaska and all over the country,” Huber said.

Kaia Quinto is the new executive director of Juneau Housing First Collaborative, also known as the Glory Hall. The Glory Hall provides shelter space for unhoused people in Juneau, and also owns 64 permanent supportive housing units — long term housing with financial assistance and health care access. 

Quinto’s only 23, but she’s been working at the shelter for a couple of years, under the guidance of the former director, Mariya Lovishchuk. Lovishchuk is now the organization’s director of development. KTOO spoke with her about what she’s learned in her time working at the shelter so far and what’s to come for the organization. 

Listen:

Yvonne Krumrey: As the executive director, what roles and responsibilities do you take on here? 

Kaia Quinto: So my main responsibility is working with the board of directors and just making sure that the entire organization stays afloat, and running the shelter day-to-day.

Yvonne Krumrey: How did you first get involved in this organization?

Kaia Quinto: I applied three years ago at the suggestion of my dad, who was a downtown walking JPD officer, and he really got to know all the individuals at the Glory Hall when it was downtown, and had really good rapport with them. And so I got to know a lot of the patrons, just from through him, and also from working downtown during the summer. And yeah, I just, I just really knew that I wanted to be in some kind of social work field, and so I applied here in 2021 and now here I am.

Yvonne Krumrey: What have you learned in your three years working with the Glory Hall? 

Kaia Quinto: So much, so much. Well, Mariya has just taught me, like, everything. I’ve learned so much from Mariya, and I’ve also learned, like, I’ve learned a lot of patience and compassion. I’ve also — well, to listen. I’ve become a very good listener.

Yvonne Krumrey: What are some of the challenges that the Glory Hall and housing first face?

Kaia Quinto: I think that one of the biggest challenges is just the general lack of affordable housing. I think it impacts us as an organization, and also our clients and our patrons. A person can have funding to get a home, but there’s just nothing available. So it’s really, it’s not like a “people can’t afford it” type of situation, there’s just nothing available.

Yvonne Krumrey: Yeah, and I know the recent apartments on Franklin Ave. have been a way to address that. Can I ask what helping with that project was like?

Kaia Quinto: It was, it was really exciting. I didn’t join it until the construction started, but I did help everybody move in, and it was — it’s really exciting to just see those seven apartments filled and people being at home.

Yvonne Krumrey: Is the Glory Hall working on any other projects, like the apartments on Franklin, now?

Kaia Quinto: We are building Phase Three of Forget-Me-Not Manor, which is going to add 20 more units, or 28 more units to Housing First. So that’s 28 more homes, which is really exciting. 

Yvonne Krumrey: What have you learned from working with Mariya Lovishchuk in the time that she’s been here and you guys have worked together?

Kaia Quinto: I have learned so much. I didn’t know anything about permanent supportive housing. When I first started working here, I thought it was just like the Glory Hall, like a shelter for people experiencing homelessness. And I’ve learned how much collaboration is needed, like, between the Glory Hall and all the other organizations. And I’ve learned, yeah, I’ve learned a lot of how to be a professional from Mariya. Yeah, she’s just taught me everything.

Yvonne Krumrey: What are some things that the Glory Hall needs from the city or the community to move forward with the work that you do?

Kaia Quinto: I just would ask that you are compassionate towards our clients. And I would ask also that you just think about how much we do impact every single person’s lives.