The Municipality of Anchorage opened a new, 100-bed homeless shelter called Linda’s Place on Tuesday. Another shelter on East 56th Avenue will decrease its capacity by the same number of beds.
Thea Agnew Bemben, special assistant to the mayor’s office, said it’s necessary to make that reduction because it’s over capacity and needs repairs. Smaller shelters make it easier to connect people to services, she said.
“Every person's circumstances are unique,” she said. “And in order to really help people be able to get into shelter and take advantage of the services that are there and then make a safe exit, that means we have to really be able to engage with each person.”
Linda’s Place is located in Mountain View, just north of Merrill Field, in a building that has housed both a strip club and a church. It’s one of three shelters that the municipality fully funds. The others, 56th Street and the Alex Hotel will also have 100 beds each.
While those shelters did stay open through the summer this year, generally the municipality closes its shelters during the warmer months. The plan is to keep all three of its shelters open year-round, Agnew Bemben said. She said that will make outreach easier and reduce illegal camping.
“When shelter gets turned on and off, it just means that people get used to going inside for the winter and then coming out and camping in the summer,” she said. “And I think we've been pretty clear that the mayor's goal is to have way fewer people sleeping outside.”
While the new shelter will increase the number of year-round beds available, it won’t increase capacity during the colder months. The city also won’t be opening a nighttime warming station like it did last year. Instead, Agnew Bemben said the plan is for both 56th Avenue and Linda’s Place to have surge capacity during the colder months. As need increases, the shelter would open up an additional 50 beds each. The municipality also hopes to work with faith communities on plans for emergency shelters.
And Agnew Bemben said that while the city has been working closely with other shelter providers to make sure that every bed in Anchorage is being used, increased shelter capacity isn't the end goal.
“Our goal is really to help people connect to housing, treatment, connect back home if they have family or other ways of connecting them to a safe place,” she said. “Shelter really shouldn't be a long term option for people.”
Data from the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness shows more than 100 people got housing in July. Agnew Bemben said when people exit the system, those free beds can go to others in need.
Funding for the shelters will be determined during the municipal budget process this fall, Agnew Bemben said, and will be subject to Assembly approval. She said in years past, municipal shelters were paid for through a mix of city general fund dollars, alcohol tax money, and some state funding.
She said she’s hopeful that the cost will be similar, or even lower than last year. That’s partly because the municipality negotiated lower per-person and per-bed costs with shelter operators.
