It’s a common theme that comes frequently when Alaska experts discuss the need to end homelessness.
“Housing is the only solution to homelessness. It’s a hard stopping,” said Alaska Coalition on Housing and Homelessness Executive Director Brian Wilson on Talk of Alaska in December.
“We are aware that the key to ending homelessness is shelter,” Anchorage Health Department coordinator for homelessness Alexis Johnson said on Alaska Insight in May.
“You can hear me repeat it each time I have the opportunity to speak: the solution to homelessness is housing” stated Anchorage Assembly member and Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness Executive Director Meg Zaletel during the press conference held on April 20, 2022..
In recent times, Anchorage taxpayers, charities and business have poured millions of dollars into in converting hotels into housing for low-income people. These units have assisted hundreds of people who were sleeping in tents, cars, and emergency shelters to move into permanent housing.
Anchorage has also spent lots of time spending money and energy helping homeless people in the city with their most basic needs, which include food, shelter, and medical treatment.
“There’s this tension between the safety net for emergencies and the investment plan for the longer-term,” Zaletel said on Talk of Alaska in December. “The answer to homelessness lies in housing. If we want to end the problem of homelessness, it is essential to invest in housing and also ensure a safety net to keep people safe and healthy in the mean time.”
The opportunities to directly invest in housing aren’t that large, and there are only a limited number of properties that could be transformed. In a perfect free market, this would not even be a public-sector issue private developers would create the housing supply to meet demand.
However however, when experts examine the larger view they find an unbalanced housing market which is characterized by a shortage of housing, the cost of housing and rent — as well as the risk of insecure housing that contributes to the problem of homelessness.
The construction of housing in Anchorage has been on the process of declining for a number of years. Census Bureau data indicate that the majority of Anchorage’s housing was constructed in the 1970s, when construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System was being constructed, and later in the 1980s when the oil began flowing. In the present, Anchorage has more homes built during the 50s, than the decade 2010.
Thus, home prices as well as rents have gone up as has the number of homeless.
“Most the real estate we own is forty years of age in Anchorage This means that we’re still not creating enough new homes to replace the older houses that are becoming old and shabby,” said Anchorage Assembly member Kevin Cross.
Cross and Zaletel are proposing an enormous reduction in the zoning rules for residential properties that govern the construction of homes on areas like the Anchorage bowl Eagle River, Chugiak and Girdwood. At present, zoning rules prohibit the construction of anything other than duplexes and single family homes across vast swaths of the municipal.
Cross who is a Commercial real estate agent says the current rules push the cost of building up too high and also create unfair incentive for builders to construct massive, single-family houses and duplexes on the same area, while the market and demand call for smaller, more affordable houses.
Cross said that zoning is a first obstacle that could prevent the development of multiple tiny homes that have the same size and the same number of bedrooms as the megahome.
“We simply have to be out of ourselves,” Cross said. “Let’s simplify the zoning process, let’s bring private development back to with us at.”
Cross and Zaletel collaborate to reform the residential zoning ordinance. Within the Anchorage bowl, it will take the existing 15 residential zoning categories and break them down into two. In the same way, in Chugiak as well as Eagle River it would change from 13 to two in Chugiak and Eagle River, and in Girdwood, between six and two. Infrastructure for utilities like sewer and water will be the main difference between the two zones.
The specifics of the proposed simple zoning types aren’t included in the proposed ordinance. Instead, it establishes the goal of writing the rules after the ordinance is passed and then have the new rules take force in 2025. However, the goal is clear: less complicated rules for building and more homes per an acre.
Cross stated that it could lead to affordable housing.
There are some critics who are against Cross and Zaletel’s plan. A couple of ex- Anchorage Assembly members who worked on the current zoning laws said to that the Anchorage Daily News it will “decimate single-family home communities” and be similar to “throwing the bomb” on those communities.
Cross stated that the first reaction of homeowners to the zoning reforms concerns fear or anxiety, then he asked homeowners “If you were forced to purchase your home today and you had to pay for it, would you be able? And the answer is shockingly”No.'”
He added that this is a major factor in today’s shortages of labor and outmigration, as well as declining the number of students attending school.
“Affordable housing will solve all our issues,” Cross said. “It provides us with the workforce we require It attracts talent and attracts skilled labor. It does that and will stop the soaring inflation of home prices that force people from their home. This is the reason I’m so passionate about the zone reform.”
The ordinance will be subject to public hearings during the Assembly’s meeting on July 25. Cross stated that he anticipates that the hearing to be postponed to allow additional Assembly discussions during meetings.
The Anchorage elected representatives have eased other regulations to promote more homes in the last few months. In January they loosening rules to permit additional accessory living homes to be built on existing properties. In November, they they eliminated the burdensome restrictions on parking spaces off-street for new developments.
