Housing

Skagway business owners are more optimistic about the economy than their peers in Southeast Alaska. But they’re less enthusiastic about the benefits of living in their community and housing costs are a more severe obstacle. Those are findings from a recent business climate survey.

Jan Tronrud came to Skagway for a summer job 27 years ago. Then, “much like a lot of folks, I fell in love with the place and never left,” she says.

Tronrud and her husband started The White House Bed and Breakfast together. It’s been open 20 years now.

A new report from Juneau-based Rain Coast Data surveyed nearly 40 people like Tronrud – Skagway-based business owners or top managers. The report was commissioned by the Skagway Development Corporation. It’s a breakdown of the local results from a region-wide business climate survey.

“One thing that you really saw in Skagway was that the business owners and operators there were more optimistic about how the business climate is right now and the direction it’s going,” said Rain Coast Data director Meilani Schijvens.

Eighty-nine percent of the Skagway respondents said the business climate was good or very good. That’s 20 percent higher than the feelings of business leaders in Southeast as a whole. The reason why? Tourism.

“When you look at the Southeast Alaska economy overall, the visitor industry is really the one bright spot right now,” Schijvens said.

B&B owner Tronrud didn’t participate in the survey herself. But she says the optimism makes sense. Her positivity comes from the quality of life, not necessarily the visitor industry.

“There’s something special about Skagway,” Tronrud said. “It’s the National Park Service history, and the Chilkoot Trail, and it’s the railroad, and it’s this amazing place that all these people come here to work seasonally. I mean we’ve really got a diversity of draws to this area. So yeah, I’ve always been optimistic about it.”

But not everyone feels that way. The survey actually found that while a good number of business leaders said the quality of life and recreational opportunities were benefits to having a business in Skagway, they were less enthusiastic about those perks than the rest of the region.

Skagway residents might be able to guess a major challenge that business leaders overwhelmingly agree on.

“You end up with really intense housing shortages and you really see that in the results of the survey,” Schijvens said.

About 75 percent of business leaders say housing costs were a hurdle to business success. Most of them rated it a ‘significant’ barrier. That’s the highest rating of any community in Southeast.

“Which was a surprise to me because I do hear so much about housing costs in Juneau and Sitka,” Schijvens said. “And those communities were next in line, but Skagway business leaders were the most concerned about how the costs of housing affect their businesses.”

Tronrud says if she didn’t provide employee housing, her business would be in ‘dire straits.’ She could also relate to another of the major obstacles the survey found – freight costs. Schijvens says the 86 percent of Skagway respondents who rated freight costs a top barrier was right in line with the rest of the region.

“That’s just an issue that really unites all of Southeast Alaska.”

There’s one more unique thing about the Skagway respondents. They’re younger. The Skagway participants were more likely to be Gen Xers, born between 1965 and ‘80 than the rest of the region, which is dominated by Baby Boomer business leaders, born between 1946 and ‘64.

Schijvens says that fact could contribute to the high optimism in Skagway – Gen Xers tended to feel more positively about the future than Baby Boomers.

As the tourism season gets underway, Tronrud says business has been a little light. But she says the optimism she feels about living and working in Skagway carries her through the slow times.

In 2012, the Juneau Homeless Coalition identified 55 of the most vulnerable homeless people living in the community. Since then, nine have died.

Now, a project designed to give permanent shelter to that population is breaking ground.

Technically, the dirt is already moving on Juneau’s Housing First project. Still more than 100 people crowded into a warehouse in Juneau to celebrate the groundbreaking of a facility that is designed to get the area’s most chronically homeless off the streets.

On a lot donated by the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority in an industrial area of Lemon Creek, the first support pilings have been drilled into the ground and contractors are working to install the foundation of the 32-bed facility.

On Monday, there was food, music and celebration of several years of effort and interagency cooperation to get Juneau’s Housing First project into the ground. But organizers have not yet reached the finish line.

The project is not fully funded. Mariya Lovishchuk, executive director of Juneau’s homeless shelter, The Glory Hole said organizers at Juneau’s Housing First Collaborative are still about $1.7 million short of their goal.

“So we’re kind of going on faith here,” she said.

Lovishchuk said the coalition is waiting to hear back on three grant applications. Meanwhile, they are still taking donations through the Juneau Community Foundation.

Proponents of the project say the new shelter has the potential to save lives.

In 2012,  the Juneau Homeless Coalition surveyed 55 of the most vulnerable homeless people living on the streets, in cars, under bridges or in the forest. More than half identified as mentally ill, while 96 percent of them had substance abuse issues, according to the coalition.

Since then, Lovishchuk said, nine of the people who were surveyed have died.

Supporters of the Housing First model say that if a homeless person is given a permanent, stable place to live, it’s easier to address issues like a lack of income, substance abuse or mental health issues.

But as the two other Housing First facilities in the state have learned, it isn’t always easy to get someone into a home.

“For many of them, it was a huge adjustment,” says Colleen Ackerman, program manager at the Karluk Manor Housing First facility in Anchorage. “Many of our folks were used to shelters, camping or Homeward Bound, which is transitional. Many had not had an apartment or had many apartments over the years but had been in the streets. So it was kind of like the Wild West in the beginning.”

Everything you would imagine would happen when you would have, we have 46 people, many of them drinking. People passing out in the hallways and inappropriate behaviors and all of that.  So, in the beginning was probably the toughest because it was very new to the staff, new to even our division even though we had been working with the homeless folks for a while. But we’ve learned a lot of lessons.”

Among those lessons, Ackerman said, is that Anchorage’s Housing First program is a bit more restrictive than others in the country.

“We learned early on that when we brought in too many visitors, many of them were intoxicated along with the tenants, it got pretty crazy. Visitors became even more of a problem and it just is too much safety risk. So immediately, we did not allow more than 10 visitors in the building at a time. We had visiting hours.”

The staff at the Karluk Manor also don’t allow residents to bring in more than a fifth of hard liquor at a time.

“They can bring beer until the cows come home. They can’t really carry that much anyway,”

Ackerman said staff at Karluk Manor will also try to confiscate alcohol if residents are extremely intoxicated or aggressive.

Other challenges include tracking down homeless people on the waiting list to get into the facility. Once found, Ackerman said getting paperwork, like Social Security cards or drivers’ licenses, can be a problem.

Still, she believes the Anchorage Housing First program is working.

“Once they can get into permanent housing and places like Karluk and the Juneau program, then they can begin to have a better quality of life. It looks different for all of them. Some of them, it may just be that they’re off the streets and they’re surviving, but they’re getting meals and we take them to appointments and others it may mean that they do some employment.”

Back in Juneau, project contractor Jim Triplette said the building should be finished in about a year.

Once open, the facility is expected to cost more than $800,000 a year to operate. But, more than half of the projected operating costs would come from Alaska Housing Finance Corporation vouchers, rental income and the Juneau Community Foundation.

Imagine if 100 names stood between you and a place to live. Affordable housing is in short supply in Juneau. And for those looking for subsidized units, the wait can feel extremely long — especially when your family is on the brink of homelessness.

Kourtney Melton tries to check on her housing application at Gruening Park, an affordable housing complex, at least once a week.

She’s been on the waitlist for about eight months. She has three kids, ages 3, 7 and 11. And in her words, it’s starting to get scary. Her family lives in an RV parked in Switzer Village.

“I’m parked in my mom’s driveway, and so we can’t do that. We’d have to have our own lot and pay for our own lot space. They just don’t have one available for us, so we have to move,” Melton said.

As that day creeps closer, Kourtney is running through her options. She could stay at AWARE, a domestic violence shelter. But her boyfriend — not the person she has issues with — watches her kids when she’s at work, and the shelter doesn’t allow men.

She’s advised to call around to different places. Maybe something will open up.

“So, I’m at the top of their waiting list, and it looks like I could be in soon. But it just depends,” Melton said.

Her family used to have dual income, and money wasn’t as tight. She was married. She moved back to her hometown of Juneau with her husband last year after living in Oregon — hoping for a fresh start. She said she didn’t always feel safe in the relationship. The fighting escalated.

Then last summer, her husband took a job commercial fishing. He was gone for weeks at a time. When the season ended, he didn’t come back.

“So I was relieved at first. Now, I’m kind of torn,” Melton said. “I need him here. I need him to help with the kids. And I need help with everything.”

In October, she put her name on the list at Gruening Park. The housing complex has 96 units and about half of those are eligible for a Section 8 voucher. Some apartments are rented out at market value. Others are subsidized based on income.

Kourtney works at a sports bar and grill — picking up extra shifts at another restaurant when the cruise ships are in town. In the off-season, she makes about $1,000 a month. And if she gets into Gruening, she would pay no more than 30 percent of that for rent.

“A lot of times people want to know to exactly when we’re going to have a unit, and that’s really impossible to know,” said Tamara Rowcroft, the general manager.

She said typically, a space opens up every month. But they don’t force anyone to move out. If someone’s income improves, the rent gets adjusted.

“The most you would pay for rent? Well, right now our market rent for a four bedroom is $1,160 a month,” Rowcroft said.

The least someone would pay is $0.

The apartments are first come, first served, and Tamara said the one and two bedrooms are the most in demand. Three and four bedrooms, like the one Kourtney is trying to get into, have the shortest wait. Still, some have been waitlisted for up to a year, Tamara said.

In the meantime, Gruening Park tries to encourage people to apply around, she said. There are other subsidized housing units, and some private landlords take Section 8 vouchers.

Tamara thinks, overall, Juneau is doing pretty good, compared to other cities. But is it enough? 

“Well, no. We need to keep working,” Rowcroft said.

With no other options, Kourtney moved her RV from Switzer Village and into a friend’s garage. There are no hookups for water or sewer.

“When we can, if the door’s not locked, we can use our friend’s bathroom or we have to pee outside, like we’re camping,” Melton said.

And her oldest daughter is living with a friend.

“I can’t live without her like this because she’s 11, and that’s such an important time. And me not being there is, like, killing me,” Kourtney said.

Even though she is near the top of the list at Gruening Park, she’s trying to apply to other places. It’s been a challenge without having her own car. Without a phone, she’s worried she won’t get the message if a place does open up.

Kourtney isn’t sure what her future will look like. She just hopes it has four safe walls.

“Don’t even care if I have furniture. I just want to be with all my kids again, all together. Make dinner together. And have, you know, game night. And start healing from their dad leaving, all together,” Melton said. “Because we can’t do it separately like this.”

She’s considering packing up the RV and moving back to Oregon. She said her family can’t wait.

Funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by the JPB Foundation and the Ford Foundation. It’s part of an ongoing series about poverty and opportunity in America.

Tiny homes, which can be as little as 50 to 300 square feet, are growing in popularity as a solution for the homeless. In Chicago, advocates want to build tiny houses to serve a specific marginalized group — homeless youth, especially those who identify as LGBTQ.

“Most of the cities in the country that have already implemented housing tiny homes for the homeless are doing it for the chronically homeless or veterans, so no one yet is doing it specifically for the youth target population,” says activist Tracy Baim, who spearheaded a Chicago Tiny Home Summit April 18-19 at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Baim says tiny homes could provide freestanding independent housing instead of what is typically available for young adults seeking shelter.

“They’re living in group homes, where shared showers, where violence and sexual assaults can happen,” she says. “Your stuff is stolen constantly.”

The summit, which aimed to discuss the practicalities and experiences of building tiny houses, displayed the tiny home design that won the American Institute of Architects’ competition to build a tiny house community for Chicago.

“You actually enter through a breezeway, kind of a covered porch area that’s 8 feet deep,” says Lon Stousland, part of the three-member team that won the competition. Their prototype is fairly big by tiny home standards.

A brick facade surrounds the bright yellow front door. Inside, there’s a twin bed, a bathroom and a combined kitchen and living room area.

“This is closer to 300 square feet,” says architect Terry Howell, another team member. The third team member, Marty Sandberg, says there is another way the structure is different from other tiny houses

“We designed this to actually be one of a series of row homes,” Sandberg says.

Lala Thomas, William Okamura and Maria Cwiklik are three 20-year-olds who were formerly homeless. Now, they live in a transitional housing shelter, and all go to school. They were part of a group chosen to offer design suggestions about what a Chicago tiny home should look like. Thomas was a little surprised by the size.

“Well, I really didn’t like it, I’m going to be honest, because … you really can’t put that much stuff in that little house,” Thomas says. “I mean, I just think it was just … it would be bigger than that.”

Okamura likes the idea.

“By having those walls up, I’d feel 100 times safer than being outside with nothing,” Okamura says.

Cwiklik says even though planning may be in an early stage, she’s optimistic about a tiny home village for youth in Chicago.

“As long as we get more support and as long as we get more youth involved in this program,” Cwiklik says, “it’s going to happen.”

Tiny Homes Might Need To Be A Guerrilla Building Movement

But there are obstacles. Zoning Attorney Danielle Meltzer Cassel says in addition to building codes and zoning ordinances, there is the “not in my backyard” or so-called NIMBY opposition from residents. She says advocates in Chicago must face a dose of reality.

“If this is pitched as something that is for the folks who are the most needy in our society, the door’s going to slam shut,” she says.

In Seattle, activists involved in the tiny home movement have been doing more building and less planning. Melinda Nichols, with the Low Income Housing Institute in the city, says so far volunteers have built 50 to 60 temporary tiny homes under 120 square feet.

“Because people are standing out in the rain waiting for a place to live,” Nichols says. “It’s a crisis, and the way to respond to those things is to do something right now.”

In Nashville, the Rev. Jeff Obafemi Carr with Infinity Fellowship says advocates have to be inventive as they try to provide needed housing. His group raised money to build six tiny homes on wheels without seeking permission.

“Cities and municipalities don’t know what to do with it. The code and zoning laws are antiquated. So there’s going to take a mix of guerrilla tiny home building and planned development,” Carr says.

In Chicago, Baim says the next step for advocates is to create a privately funded tiny home village pilot.

She says that will show developers, city government and Chicago residents how tiny houses could play a huge role in making it safer for young people with no place to call home.

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Alaska’s capital is one of the most expensive places to live in the nation. With no roads in or out, the city has been dealing with a “stuck” housing market. A report commissioned by the City and Borough of Juneau says 1,000 affordable rental units are needed to keep up with the demand. Juneau’s housing market is especially tough for people living on low incomes.

But one Juneau family is taking matters into their own hands and challenging the convention of what makes a house a home.

Carrie Joy doesn’t have a typical street address. But she has really helpful neighbors. When we can’t find her boat, a stranger springs into action — knocking on doors.

Yachts, sailboats and fishing vessels bob on the water at Aurora Harbor. And nearby, there’s a row of small houseboats. What they lack in space, some make up for in character. They’re fiberglass or made of wood, painted the colors of the rainbow.

Walking down the dock, we see it: the little gray boat with yellow trim. Carrie’s 9-year-old son William invites us through the small door.

We step down into the living room. It’s actually more of a multipurpose space.

“This is my bed, my desk, my dining table. This is where William and I do school. This is where I write when I write,” Joy said.

Carrie home schools both children, so it’s also a floating classroom. And it’s the space where William sleeps. His bed touches the foot of Carrie’s. Her 14-year-old son sleeps in the back — with a little more separation — but there’s no bedroom door.

The entire home is just 200 square feet.

“Privacy is a huge sacrifice. We have to be very intentional about giving each other privacy. I mean, you can look around and see there’s nowhere to hide here,” Joy said.

Without walls, personal boundaries replace physical ones. She says everything from getting dressed in the morning to taking a shower can be an obstacle — especially with her youngest, who loves to give running commentary.

“Our life is a musical and typically he sings it,” she says with a laugh, as her son sings a tune.

As a single mom, she decided to buy the houseboat three years ago.

“When I came to look at it, I knew it would be hard,” Joy said. “But it has a shower, it has a flush toilet, and there’s room to put bunks in. And I just loved it. It was so sweet.”

The cost: around $28,000. Carrie used to be a teacher. She was also a state employee. But now she makes money freelance writing and cleaning houses.

“I make ends meet because first of all, I don’t have any debt. And second of all, I keep my expenses extremely low.”

That means making the most of about $1,600 a month. To put that in perspective, that’s less than a third of Juneau’s average yearly income.

She receives food stamps. She’s also eligible for federal cash assistance, but she hasn’t taken it yet. That would mean having to first cash out her retirement with the state, which she wasn’t ready to do until recently. So at the end of the month, is this enough?

“Well, I’m still breathing and my children are still breathing and their bellies aren’t hungry. I guess it depends on what you consider a need?” Joy said. “Could we use some different things? Absolutely. Would it be nice to have a door that shuts that doesn’t go to the outside? Yes, that would super rock. But is it necessary? Not at this point.”

Carrie says what is necessary for her family is time. Teaching in the public school system left her feeling burned out. As a parent, she didn’t think one-size-fits-all learning was beneficial for her children, which was why she decided to homeschool.

“Honestly, for me, it was probably a pretty selfish decision because I like reading cool books, I like doing art projects, I liked doing music. … And I couldn’t keep up in school, and teaching my own kids, we can discover those things together,” she said.

Carrie’s family has lived on the water longer than she thought they would. The plan was to save up for a regular house. And she thinks that could still happen, but probably not until after her sons are grown.

Right now, they’re in the process of renovating the boat. And Carrie will eventually have her own room again. She says from the outside, she might look poor.

“But I’m so time-rich and most of the folks who are struggling to make their ends meet are time poor and money poor,” Joy said. “Had I not chosen to live on a boat here in Juneau … There’s no way I could do it and be sane and happy, and anybody who knows me might wonder about the sane part, but nobody will tell you we’re not happy.”

And she’s dating somebody who she says can relate. He lives on a boat, too.

Funding for Chasing the Dream is provided by the JPB Foundation and the Ford Foundation. It’s part of an ongoing series about poverty and opportunity in America.

Capital City Fire/Rescue responded to a fire at the Channel View Apartments on Gastineau Avenue Sunday afternoon. Assistant Fire Chief Ed Quinto said only one unit was burned. Quinto said he didn’t know if there was any damage to the building’s roof, but the unit’s front-facing windows were broken.

A woman and two children who are presumed to have been in the unit when the fire happened went to the emergency room at Bartlett Regional Hospital because of smoke inhalation. As of 8:30 p.m., the woman was in stable condition and the two children were being evaluated.

The cause of the fire is still unknown.

While residents suffered few physical injuries, most of the low-income apartments have severe water damage.

Will Noel does maintenance for the apartments. He said 17 of the building’s 22 units have water damage from the sprinkler system that went off during the fire.

Noel said he saw the woman who lives in the burned apartment as she was leaving for the hospital and that she said her outlet had caught on fire. The fire marshal hasn’t identified a cause yet.

Dennis Wharton lives on the fourth floor immediately beneath the apartment that caught fire. He and his friend Teresa Michaelson returned from the grocery store to find his apartment soaked. Wharton isn’t sure if his electronics are damaged and he won’t find out until he can get back into his apartment.

His carpet, clothes and furniture are all soggy. Water has soaked through the floors, the walls and the light fixtures.

“I’m lucky. I really feel lucky,” Wharton said. “There’s some stuff — pictures that I left out that could have (been ruined).”

Workers were on-site Sunday evening vacuuming and poking holes in water pockets forming behind the paint on the walls. David Phillips owns J&J Cleaning, the contractor hired to dry the building out. Despite the extensive damage, Phillips said Channel View can be made dry again.

“It just takes time and air,” Phillips said. “There’s no way to give an estimate right now. The Glory Hole took months. This is not one of those that’s going to be dried out in a week’s time.”
The Channel View Apartments are going to take quite a bit of work, Phillips said.

The apartment building clings to the hillside above downtown Juneau. The fifth floor, where the fire happened, is also the main floor. Some residents gathered in the lobby, waiting outside the office of the building manager who was working with each tenant to find them somewhere to stay for the night. The Red Cross was also at the scene.