The municipality already has a higher rate of homelessness than much larger Lower 48 cities, yet receives far fewer federal dollars to address the problem. Now, with better data putting the number of unhoused people around 3,000, that shortcoming looks even starker.
Snow falls on a homeless encampment on the outskirts of Cuddy Family Midtown Park on May 3, 2023. Tent encampments have grown here and elsewhere in Anchorage since the city closed Sullivan Arena mass homeless shelter to all but 90 people on Monday.
“It is a blessing in disguise,” said Owen Hutchinson, director of external relations for the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, of the new estimates. It’s been used for so long, in so many different communities, that it has utility as way of making apples-to-apples comparisons. It’s also“It’s really meant for long-term trends in shelter usage and unsheltered homelessness,” Hutchinson said.
Campers who choose to stay outdoors all winter long are not necessarily easy to find, particularly at a time of year with lots of snow in the woods and little daylight. “Because it is easier to count people in shelter than on the street,” she said, “conducting the count on a night when the shelters are most full will lead to the most accurate count.”So in recent years, many local governments across the country have started relying instead on Homeless Management Information Systems.Alaska Homeless Management Information System
While federal officials say HMIS data can be more precise than other tools, it is insufficiently standardized across different communities, according to Krueger.As the city has gotten more clear-eyed on the scale of homelessness in Anchorage and across Alaska, it has started to look for money to pursue solutions, including the Assembly“The administration fully supports the resolution because we do need more state and federal funding,” said Alexis Johnson, the city’s homeless coordinator.
Even though point-in-time data is not as accurate as what the newer system picks up, it is still helpful for showing how disproportionately little Anchorage receives in federal assistance relative to big cities.
Anchorage Homelessness Count City Population Time Housing Funding Shelter Municipality State Hud Number Anchorage Hutchinson Week Rate Department Data Estimate Alaska Winter Resolution Krueger
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