HHAND Commission Monthly Meeting May 2026

We've been muted. Oh, my bad. Start over. Uh, we have, uh, Kyle online doing introductions. Sorry, we were muted for that whole thing, but yeah, it's all good.

I'm Kyle Milkey with Community Safety and Development. And Michelle. Hi, I'm Michelle Baker, Commissioner. And Kimberly. Hi, Kimberly White, Program Manager for Housing and Homelessness with the Health Department.

All right, great. Um, welcome everybody. With that, we're going to go on to the approval of the order of business. Make a motion to approve the agenda.

Moved and second. Wait, second from Dr. Johnson. Um, discussion. One point I would like to put forward is under new business, we do not have a draft of the hand for values, so I would amend that we punt that to next month. Um, and we have a very packed agenda as well, and we're already a month or so behind on our discussion about elections, so I would just submit that we move that to next month as well.

Anyone expecting on those two points? Everyone cool? Commissioners cool with that?

Anything else? Cool with the order of business?

Going once. So what am I going to say here? Uh, just wanted to clarify who made that motion. I did. You did?

No, the original one to approve the agenda. Oh, oh, the original was Dee Schnee. Thank you. Yeah, and then Dr. Johnson second. Yeah, just procedurally, if there's no objection, consider unanimous.

Yeah, great. Seeing and hearing none, um, back to what the main Any opposition to approving the order of business as amended?

Great. Okay, so we'll punt elections and values. That being said, I'll just say one thing on elections. We are going to elect new officers, so if anybody else is interested running meetings, being the chair, I would welcome for that. Um, with that, we'll move on to the approval of minutes.

Once again, Frankie, acceptable job.

Everyone take— can I get a motion to approve the minutes?

So moved by Julie. I'll take that as a second.

Tshanae, uh, take a moment to read them.

Oh yeah, super quick.

Any opposition to the approval of the minute? As written.

And for the record, Mr. Peterson has joined us by penny, and I believe it's on the tail there. Health Department. Hello, Jessica Parks has joined us online.

And Elizabeth Matthews as well online.

Uh, any opposition to approval of the minutes of briefing?

Seeing and hearing none, minutes are approved. Do we have any disclosure? I think so.

Going once, going twice, ready. Moving on to, uh, before we get into action items, I know there's a lot of these here to try to have a discussion about through Norm on the agenda. We have a, as a commission, we have a little bit of business we want to get to, uh, first. It's been on the agenda for a while. We're going to, um, do that, but there will be plenty of time, um, for discussion, um, and just happy to see so many members of the public joining us, usually for our meetings.

So, um, okay, uh, review and approve the 2026 annual report. Thank you to those, especially Jessica, I believe, who put pen to paper and wrote it. Jessica, I guess I believe you were the primary author here, so I'd invite you to just kind of quickly bring us through it if that suits your fancy.

Absolutely. Thank you. So we did, we started with a draft that was the first, I will say, four-fifths of this document at the work session, which was mostly the accomplishments from last year. So we talked over that. We had a few minor adjustments to add, some things that we had forgot that we did that we were excited to add to the document.

And then the rest of the work session, we really focused on what, what are our priorities going forward. So what do we want to highlight as focus areas for the remainder of this year, and what are some specific activities that we want to do, particularly around some of the neighborhood development work and how we might be able to pull in some conversations with, say, community councils, make some site visits and visit some programs and some projects that are operating around the city. Providing innovative housing solutions as well as addressing homelessness and transitional housing. So incorporated those things into the last section of the report, which is titled, I believe, Looking Forward. I don't have it in front of me, but, and hopefully I captured everything that we talked about in the work session.

Some things I put together, they were things that were kind of along the same topic areas, and so I put them together and just had some bullets underneath it that highlighted some specific actions, but would invite anyone else if there is anything I missed from the work session or anything you would add or delete, let me know.

Other commissioners?

Um, we need a, a motion and then a second, and then we can— can I get a motion to approve the annual report?

Dr. Johnson? Second? Second. Bara? And now we can have discussion.

Um, yeah, uh, I Jessica and the team, um, whoever else worked on it, great job. Um, I'm happy to see, you know, compared to the report that we had last year, a lot more activity. We actually passed 2 resolutions last year, which is 2 more resolutions than this commission has passed probably in the last 6 or 7 years. Um, so really happy to, to see that. Um, anything else?

I, I think I missed the work session, but I really, really like the recommendations. —2026. Good job. Good job, Jessica and team.

Anything else from commissioners?

Any of you want to speak to this? Commission Burgess, purpose and mandate. Go for it.

Asked to fund in with the community care to address homelessness. The actual purpose that's listed is to coordinate with Anchorage Continuum of Care in the development and implementation of Anchorage's plan to address homelessness. I think that it should probably be a move to the actual mandate. Coordinate with it, so—. And what the distinction of that would be is that it recognizes your role as a body to be in charge of Anchorage human and fit for Thank you.

Okay, so if we wanted to make that change, I would invite a commissioner to propose that change. I propose that. I think that— yeah, yeah. So you move to change— make a change to that. What did he say?

Um, yeah, and, and so to put a, put a finer point on it We would move to change bullet point 4 under commission and purpose mandate to match point 8 of the hand commission purpose, coordinate with the Anchorage continuum of care and development and implementation of the Anchorage plan to address homelessness.

Uh, we need a second to that motion. Arvin, any opposition to that change?

Being here, none. That brings us back to the main motion of approval of the plan. Anything else? Any opposition to the approval of the plan as amended?

Going once, going twice. Congratulations, Commissioners, we have approved our plan on time for 2 years in a row. That's exciting. Thank you to everyone who put their time and effort into drafting and creating that plan. Now we move on to informational items.

At 1, ongoing business. As we do have what I imagine it will be a robust discussion come up, I would ask um, that we keep our updates, um, well, relatively brief. Um, so housing and homelessness update. Um, well, I only have a few, so we're good. Great.

Uh, the first one is that we have closed down all of the surf beds for the two government shelters, so we now have just the 100 beds at all three locations. So we still have the 300 year-round shelter beds There's 156 at Old Post and there's another 100 at the non-farm center. I'm sure everybody's seen the whole comments is up and running and it's all within the circle, and so far they have not had any major issues. It's all been building very well.

Um, I think that's all I have. So does the, um, Health Department anticipate a need to return to surge capacity next winter? And are there discussion plans for that? There's always going to be discussion plans for that because as we saw, our winters do whatever they want. Um, yeah, I grew up here and I don't ever remember there being this thing with a cold stretch like we just had.

So, um, there's always going to be that discussion. We just won't know until the time comes as to what we do with it. I will say though, just based on that, we did—. We are running—. We just did a kind of an in-depth AAR, after-action review, of the winter in our sheltering capacity.

So Health Department, please require city staff to ensure that we capture lessons learned, things that we can do better, things that we can improve on going into the winter of 2026. And those conversations will be ongoing throughout, throughout the summer. Thank you. Excellent. Any questions for the Health Department or for Lieutenant Keith in there as well?

Great, we're booking here. Uh, yeah, CSD. Yeah, um, I'll keep this pretty brief because both of our remaining items involve us, so there'll be much more discussion of the action plan and the treatment recovery project, which are two of the main things that we've been doing. Um, we— I, I also just want to note that Thea had a family emergency, she was not able to be here. So, um, if there are questions or like the, the UD as a whole, you can direct them to me.

I can't answer them. I can pass them along to her when she's back. Um, so, um, we are, in addition to the 2026 Action Plan and the Truman Recovery Project, we have several other projects in motion. We, um, are in the process of, um, awarding funding for the supportive housing, um, RFP, or GP that we put out a couple months ago for supportive housing operations. This is a mix of municipal funds and HUD HOME-ARP funds for operations of supportive housing.

That's still in the confidential phase, so I can't reveal details about that, but we are very excited to announce those awards when we make them, which I anticipate to be pretty soon. So, got that going on. That's $1.35 million total that is being awarded through that. RFP process, and so that will be a pretty substantial amount of funding available for supported housing services. It is unfortunately one-time funding, so this is not something we'll be able to do continually.

So part of the emphasis in doing these projects is going to be on sustainability and what their funding plans are moving forward once the funding is exhausted. Um, another, uh, project that we are working on that is not quite at that stage yet is the transportation Project that we're using our CDBG public service funding from 2025 on. This is for shelter transportation during periods when most— during periods when the buses are not running. So, overnight, weekends, holidays, plans to have a fixed route service connecting most of the major shelters, possibly also an on-demand component, depending on what the bidders can offer. And so we're in the process of drafting that, anticipating to have that go out the next couple of weeks or so and see if we can get some good proposals for shelter transportation.

Another thing that we have going on is our rehab program that we are putting together. We are still working out some of the details of that, but I think we will be in a position in the next couple of weeks, probably maybe by the end of the month, to put out an RFP for an operator of the small grant component of this that would go to homeowners. This would have income restrictions, um, and it would be for, um, what we sometimes call minor repairs, but, you know, could be pretty substantial repairs that a homeowner can't afford on their own to ensure they can keep living in their home. This would be similar to our mobile home repair program that we currently have with ROHCAP, but it would be for both, um, state-built single-family homes, townhomes, duplexes maybe, and also mobile homes would be eligible as well. So we will put that out pretty soon.

You'll start to see RFPs coming out. We'll also put out an RFP for that program for a contractor to do the assessment of properties and determine which branch of the program they're most suited for, whether that is small grant program, the kind of larger grant or maybe loan program, or the demolition program that the Development Services Department has if a property is determined to not be worth repairing. And so that, that's going to be a very important component of the program, is getting a really high-qualified assessment contractor with experience in estimating and construction to determine what the best fit is when we get applications into the program. That's another RFP that will be going out in the next few weeks. And then we also have our voucher program with HFC that we are developing.

The Homelessness to Housing Voucher Program is kind of the name we've been tossing around for it. This is for— this is like a carve-out from HFC's HUD vouchers, as well as a matching carve-out from our HOME tenant-based rental assistance. Funding, and it would provide about 40 vouchers per year. We're launching this with 1-year funding, but our intent at least is to make it an ongoing program for people that are judged by case managers at the shelters or the outreach providers to be ready for housing and just need the money to get into a unit. And so that's a very exciting program.

We would be working directly with the case managers— case management would be a requirement for application to the program, and we would actually expect it to be the case managers actually filling out the application and submitting it to us. We would do our review, and then we approve it, send it on to AHFC to be slotted into their voucher workflow. And the advantage of this is that it means that there— people would not have to be on AHFC's regular voucher waitlist, which can last years. This is a carve-out for people in that, in that specific situation with case management support.

Or that they can have their own set aside of vouchers to get them into housing. Continued case management would also be a requirement that would not be provided obviously by the shelter providers, but there are several programs around town that we're kind of— could be talking to about what— how that might look. And some housing providers, for example, do have case management on site, and that's one example of how a continuum case management program might work, but some sort of case management is required for that. So that could provide up to 2 years of funding, up to 2 years of, you know, rental support to an individual or family. The families would also be eligible who is almost about ready for housing.

So those are the main other things we've got going on, and I'll just end there and take take any questions. So what you just explained is back in here? No, that's over and above. That's over and above what we have here. Yeah, this, this presentation which Chase will give is about our 2026 funding, which is an entirely new increment of funding for everything we do, and we're in the process of deciding how we want to spend that.

Seeking feedback from. So what you just described, is that in writing anywhere? Well, I couldn't quite hear everything. Yeah, it's not consolidated in writing, but that's a good idea. And in fact, I should write up sort of a summary of the things we've got going on that we can distribute because, yeah, like, we've been working on it sort of— each individual project has its own sort of process and point that we're at in that process, but I don't think we have a consolidated, like, snapshot of here's where we are with all of these projects.

And that would be a great idea. We've discussed them in meetings like this, but having a snapshot of the agency would be great. Thank you.

The Board of Housing, that $1.35 million, is that anticipated to go— yeah, you're negotiations, but just out of curiosity, you may not be able to say, is that to a single entity or is that broken up into multiple entities, or can you not say? I, I think I can say that the intent is to make multiple awards. We are in the negotiations phase, so any details are confidential, but that is the intent.

Oh, just curious. Anything else? Uh, and no update from the mayor. Nora has—. Hi.

Hi. Um, sorry, I'm— my name is Nora Morris. I'm the deputy chief of staff for Mayor LaFrance. She couldn't be here to the last second, so I don't know if she's planning for anything or happy to answer any questions, but I'm filling in. But it's the last minute, so Any questions for the mayor's office?

You would just pass on, we hope everything's okay with you. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Yeah.

Okey dokey. Um, and just as a, a, a time thing for me, um, if you are— I know there's a lot of people here for the True North conversation, but if you are here to give public comments at the end of the meeting. I want to make sure that we, um, we leave enough time. Hi, Ron, how are you? Good to see you.

3 Minutes for Ron here. Anybody else? Fine, make it 5. We'll see how the first 3 go. Uh, Kenny, anyone else for public comment?

Yeah, I like to put all the— okay, so 9 minutes. Anyone else?

Great. Okay, so we'll, we'll, we'll serve at least 9 minutes of the end of the meeting. Uh, that, um, new business, item 2A, Community Safety and Development 2026 WRAP Annual Action Plan public hearing. Let's do it. Got some Yeah, I prefer those following along.

It's all right here.

Get out of this view. And thank you. All right, so I know we're pressed for time, so, uh, we'll get through this. Um, I'm Chase Purgrove. I'm the lead neighborhood planner with the CSB.

Um, you all know Jed, who's my supervisor as the community systems program manager. Um, brief overview of what the action plan is and how it fits in with every other component. Uh, the municipality is an entitlement community, which means that it qualifies for direct grants on an annual basis. From the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As part of that, as part of our requirements, there are 3 kinds of plans that we need to draft.

There's a 5-year consolidated plan, the last of which was done in '23. There's an annual action plan, which is what this plan is today, and there is a consolidated annual performance and evaluation report, which is a sort of end-of-year report, which is done in March. Which reviews sort of the numbers and, and, uh, what contributions our programs have made in the community.

Um, so, uh, there are 3 kinds of grants that we typically apply for. There's Community Development Block Grants, CDBG. There's HOME, or the HOME Investment Partnership Program, and there's ESG Emergency Solutions Grants. Uh, occasionally, uh, we, uh, received the HUD-F National Housing Trust Fund, but it's been a number of years since we have.

This is a table showing the last 5 years of allocations of those grants. They've remained pretty static over the last 5 years, though there has been a slight dip in CDBG and HOME this last year. But otherwise, they sort of hover in that $1.7-1.8 million. Range for CDBG, usually half a million or $600,000 for HOME.

Going forward, goals. So, we have different priority needs. Obviously, in our community, we have homeless populations, we have low-income and housed populations, public facilities, public services, and all of those fit in to different goals that are outlined in our Consolidated Plan. Things like rental housing development, homeowner rehabilitation, which we're going to be pursuing more of this upcoming year, mobile home repair, homeowner development programs, public facilities, public services. I think there's another goals page too.

Tenant-based rental assistance, community housing development organization operating expense assistance, Things like economic development and homeless prevention and rapid rehousing. Those are all goals that are outlined in our consolidated plan. Each of our projects and activities are tied into one of the, or more of those goals. So, this is a bar graph. Unfortunately, the last bar is covered up a bit, but it shows— It shows spending, it shows categories over the last 5 years for CDBG on this graph.

You can see the last year we spent quite a bit more than in previous years, partly to meet our spend-down requirements, with the largest expense being around affordable housing.

And then the next slide shows a similar graph, but for HOME. Spent less HOME this last year than in previous years. And same with ESG, although I should say ESG numbers are offset because we received COVID funding that year of 2022.

So, request for grant proposals. Since 2025, we've been instituting a more formal and transparent process for selecting projects, which is to utilize request for grant proposals, RFP. It's been the main way that we've been doing things, and starting in this summer or fall, we're going to be moving forward with our RFGPs for this action plan.

The hope, or the idea with these, is that we'll be selecting fewer but larger projects. We'll be able to leverage other kinds of funds, target the biggest community needs, things like housing supply and supportive services.

So currently, this is our table for CDBG expenditures, which shows the administrative cut and activity delivery costs. But like I Like I said, most of our actual services or capital projects, things like that, will be determined through the RFP process.

Process. That's why it's TBD on public services and other.

And then same with our home expenditures. We have cutouts for operating expenses and housing development for our CHODOs and for tenant-based rental assistance, but I believe we're still in the process of nailing down the providers for those things.

And ESG, we normally, we normally disperse to our ADRC program, and they take point on homelessness prevention here at the health department. It's Aging Disability Resource Center.

So timeline, so we are in the public comment period for the initial draft of the action plan. We are hoping that we'll be able to move forward with Assembly approval in June, and then our target submission July 15th, though our deadline is August 16th.

We try to draft these and solicit comment in consultation with different organizations like the Hand Commission, like ACEH. Like the Federation of Community Councils, AHFC.

This really should be a collaborative process, and especially in the drafting stages like this when we're still really trying to solicit feedback from the community.

So our formal comment period is running from the 29th to the 29th of this month. We have a minimum 30-day comment period, but I really encourage people to send in comments or questions even after that comment period has ended. Now is a great opportunity to give any feedback you might have, or if anything crosses your mind later, you can always reach out to us, call us, email us. We have an AHD CSD plans email that you can reach out to. I think we have one more slide that gives it.

And we also have my number and Jen's number here as well that you can reach out to if you have any comments, questions, thoughts about the action plan, Jen.

Thank you. Very interesting comments. I saw your hand up. I'll start with commissioners and then open it up to the rest of the room. Commissioners, questions or comments?

Jessica had one too. She raised her hand. Oh, in the room and then move to Jessica. I did not— thank you. Good, good eye there.

So, on the proposed project sections, CDGB. So is that a building under other? Yes. What, what does that mean? Um, basically what that means is that we haven't yet finalized what we intend to do with that chunk of funding.

And so that's one of the pieces where we're really looking for input and feedback. Sometimes when we get to this point in that action plan period, we've already done an RFP and we have a specific project identified. We We do not at this point. In fact, we are interested in ideas about even what types of projects we might put an RFGP out for. So, and this is a little different from how it's been in the past, what I think the main takeaway from these charts this time is these are the amounts of funding we have for different categories of project.

And We will put out RFPs to get specific projects, but we are very interested in ideas about what types of projects we should be focusing on for those. We can do very general ones, but it is always helpful to get direction from stakeholders in the community about what they see as the biggest needs, and that's one thing that we're trying to get better aligned on by reaching out to Hank Bishop and other organizations, if that's the case. So is that every other— is that every other under—. Yes, every other is that sort of category where we have this bucket of funding that we need to spend. It falls within a very broad categorization.

Capital projects versus services projects is the main thing. And we have X amount for each. And we can— we will select other project— specific projects to go in those categories. But we're looking for ideas on what— how we should focus now. And what's the mechanism to make those suggestions?

Any of those options that are on the email, the email or call, or email is good. We have an online form too. We do. Yeah, we have an online form. It's linked on our website.

Yeah. And so, yeah, any of those would be good. It'd be best that if it's email or on the form, so it's in writing, make sure we get it exactly. But those ideas, like comments that come on the action plan, will go into the final action plan that goes to HUD. And we will also use them to shape our decision-making about what types of projects we select.

Okay. And Jessica, I see you have your hand raised online.

Yeah, thank you. So the Hand Commission a couple meetings ago had some pretty intense discussion around sanctioned camping and had passed a resolution recommending that research be done into identifying funding for a pilot project. Would that be a project that would be suitable or eligible for inclusion in this plan with these funds? Potentially. I don't know that resolution actually passed.

It did. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, that's— that this is potentially a funding source for something like that. It would have to fit into one of those categories and meet one of those goals.

I think You know, probably homeless populations would be the priority, be that within, um, and public facilities probably would be the goal that it would fall into. Um, and yeah, I mean, if that's something that the Commission wants to recommend, um, we can certainly consider that as an option for putting out the review. Thank you. Um, any other commissioners' questions and comments before we move on to others in the room? I got one question.

For this 2026 action plan, what is the timeframe for these types of activities to actually—. Yeah, great question. So I think, um, the art— so the action plan itself will be, um, submitted by August 16th. That's a very hard deadline with whatever detailed information we have at that point. Um, but that probably would be in the range of like broad project categories rather than specific projects because it's not a lot of time to do the RFP process before then.

So most likely the RFPs will go out around like late summer, early fall, and then the projects will be selected by about late fall, early winter, which actually is good because that's about when the money is available because it does have to go to the Assembly for approval, then to HUD for approval, and the HUD approval can take a while. So we're expecting probably that the, The plan won't be finally approved until about November, but if we have the RFP process done at that point and projects selected, then we could roll them out right away at that point. But it is a little uncertain depending on some of those review timelines and things.

But that's about the soon— basically late fall is about the soonest that we could realistically have this funding available.

Thank you, Alan. You had your hand raised. I, I did. Regarding the 2026 action plan, I would like to suggest, um, that, you know, staff incorporate— I, I believe, you know, 3 items. Um, first regarding First, the last reauthorization of the Surface Transportation Fund included the language inserted by Congress, and that new language allowed for MPOs to spend their monies on housing and housing assessments, housing studies, that type of thing.

So I would encourage your 2026 action plan to include language that, that, um, enhance coordination with AMATS regarding, you know, housing, you know, and neighborhood development. So that's, you know, I think it's really an opportunity to have something put into the Unified Work Program, you know, that would benefit the mission as, you know, laid out for this particular commission. Second thing is I do think that the action plan should include, you know, you know, some type of, uh,.

Examination of, uh, you know, new approaches to housing. Because what we're— certainly what I'm hearing from people, particularly the younger generation, is that the approach that we're taking, it's too limited, and that there needs to be more discussion about, you know, how do we— how about cooperatives? How about mutual support for your housing, right? How about mixed-age mixed income, you know, housing. We're not seeing those, those choices being presented before the public, right?

And so the way the system is built up is channeling, you know, you know, individuals, you know, into particular shoots when the shoots don't necessarily work these days, and particularly for the younger generation. So, and the third item, and I really request You know, that in the action plan, it does mention outreach to community councils, but I could strongly suggest that the Fairview Community Council be specifically identified as being— that outreach is going to occur with them in the 2026 period. Thank you very much. Thank you. Those are all great comments, great suggestions.

Appreciate it. Any other comments, questions, suggestions on this action plan?

Seeing and hearing none, thank you very much. Wonderful job, very important discussions. Thank you everybody for the feedback. If you have any more feedback, again, information is posted. Please get that information, um, to CSDE.

Okay.

Now on to discussion with Trenor. Thank you for coming. I guess I will very broadly set the scene, and I think we will hold about 30 minutes for this conversation, check in around then, see how it's going, if we need a motion to extend. We can, but also want to make sure that we have time for, um, public comment, um, and just make it procedurally. I think I'll go ahead and kind of say what I know, um, and then I would invite someone from, um, True North to sort of talk about what this program that is being proposed is going to look like, and then, um, invite a representative of the Fairview community to, um, short speech to their side, and then we can enter into some more back and forth discussion.

You know, as a— just a reminder of our hand issue values, you know, whenever we're having an open discussion, you know, we want to make sure that we are allowing each other to speak and not talking over each other. You know, if you want to speak, let me know and I'll recognize you as the chair. And just, you know, we are trying to have a productive conversation here and treat everybody with respect to do that. But, and I apologize if I'm telling lies here, I've only kind of gotten sort of cursory what has happened that sort of led to this conversation today. But there was a resolution that was put in front of the assembly last week to help True North purchase a facility or a portion of a facility or utilize a facility in the Fairview neighborhood.

One, I would just like to say with True North, you know, we've worked with y'all in the past. You do amazing work at the Day One Center in Valley and you know, really appreciate, you know, our organization looking at the root causes of some of the greatest issues that we have in this community. And so, you know, treatment is a very important pillar of helping people get, you know, towards the next phase of their life. So, you know, really appreciate that we're as a community focusing on some of the root causes. However, The Fairview community had seen that and was a little alarmed by the lack of a public process or public notice for that.

And, you know, I'm sure— yes, with Alan, we'll talk a little bit about the history of Fairview and why this is such a sensitive and important topic in that neighborhood. But that brings us to today where you know, we can all meet together in the same room and put names to faces and have a discussion person to person, um, you know, about, um, what True North's intentions and program design is going to look like, um, and what the concerns of the neighborhood are. You know, I'll just speak from my experience as also an operator. In the Fairview neighborhood. Um, um, you know, Fairview has had a long history of having services concentrated in the area.

And, you know, I've worked with the Fairview Community Council for many, many years. Um, and, um, you know, they're all good to work with, uh, and, um, are reasonable as well, because I'm also the track reason. I don't know, I'm just— um, but, uh, yeah, I'll just sort of leave it there and turn it over to Richard to sort of talk about, um, what you're— what's going on. Yeah, thanks, David. Uh, my name is Nick.

I'm the operating officer at Richard North. Uh, just first of all, just thank you for squeezing this in on such short notice. Um, I think to be transparent, like this, this whole situation, um, we were pretty blindsided by as well. The, the public comment process and the confusion around that, I'll let Jen share about, um, at some point today if you guys would like. Um, but, you know, I just want to give a little history.

So, um, we are a company that started in 2018 out in Wasilla. We're a peer-led organization, and what that means is that, um, the majority of the people that work for True North are people that are in long-term recovery. So the three of us included, we all have a story of struggling in substance use disorder across the state of Alaska, and the levels in which it took for us to get clean and shelter vary. But, you know, had services that are being proposed and are currently— have been stood up recently been available, our dates would be different, our dates would be sooner.

And so, you know, We've been doing service in the valley for a long time, um, and back in November of 2024, we were asked by actually you guys to come to, to, well, the mayor's office to come to, um, to Anchorage and help with some camp abatements. 2 Days a week, they wanted our support to show up and do some abatements and to try to connect people who are in those camps with long-term behavioral health services, um, yeah, to see them get better, to see them not back on the street.

We're a little hesitant to say yes to that, right? Like, we're, you know, things are going really well in Wasilla. We weren't sure if we wanted to engage in the Anchorage community quite yet. You know, Wasilla has its own issues and things that we're working through out there too. And, but we said yes, right?

We, the Anchorage City Health Department, the AP, like, begged us to come, right? And so So Josh and I and James and I loaded up and we came into town and we started working alongside the Hope team for 18 months and we had a lot of success and it was really, really valuable time spent and built some really good relationships. And in that work, we started building partnerships with other agencies and other people that are trying to do good things. Um, there's some really cool community members just Anchorage doing, doing the, doing the good work, and they don't even work for anybody. They just do it because they want to do it.

And, and that's like the kind of approach that we were trying to take, is we're, we're trying to do the next right thing for the next right reason. And, um, so, um, so we were asked to— we were actually asked by you guys to apply for the RFP for the $750,000 to become the Anchorage and stand up services in some capacity. Um, you say you— sorry, but the community is made up of citizens here. We don't—. Anchorage Health Department, right?

Um, so the Health Department inquired about us, um, filling out an RFP and coming to, um, to Anchorage. And so we put a proposal together. Originally, um, our proposal was to stand up residential treatment services. Um, started looking for a building. We thought maybe we had found something that we were interested in.

And then we took a step back and we're like, maybe we should make sure that residential is what the Anchorage community actually needs. So we conducted a feasibility study alongside Akinbek Consulting. Uh, we met with 15 different behavioral health organizations. We invited, um, like 50 to be a part of that conversation, and only 15 engaged in that conversation. Of those 15, what we learned is that Anchorage doesn't need more beds.

Anchorage has an abundance of beds. They have an—. What they have is an.

Abundance of empty beds. And so what those 15 providers basically asked us for was, was for a place for people to feel like they are able to connect and work through and understand the very complex behavioral health system that exists currently. And so we changed our, we changed our direction and our approach to SRMP. We met with the Anchorage Health Department and the mayor's office to get their blessing on if, like, instead of doing residential, we, we shift to this what we call launch pad, which I gave all of you guys a copy of in your packets, um, to this launch pad model. And we, and we were given the, the green light to do that.

And so we started looking for a building, and that was, that was in March, um, and we had been looking for a building on our phone and board to potentially do some work in the Anchorage area for quite some time, really running into an availability issue, right? And, um, in April 8th, I think, we looked at the Access Alaska building in Fairview. Um, and mind you, Fairview isn't what we thought we were— where we thought we were going to land, right? Like, we didn't know where we were going to land. The feasibility study speaks to a couple other areas that we potentially could have, but anywhere in Anchorage is where we would have landed.

If it would have been a building in Southside, we would have bought a building in Southside. It's in Fairview. We would like to We would pursue that if it's in Midtown, you know what I mean? We would have pursued that. And so, wasn't a location thing, but we found this a space that was turnkey ready.

It was ADA compliant. The zoning was appropriate for what we're trying to do. And there's other partnering agencies in, in the perimeter that makes sense to partner, right? To work alongside. And so, Um, we, we entered into— at this point it's a verbal agreement, and I'll let Eric share about that if he has the floor at some point.

But, um, we have a verbal agreement to proceed with a sale. We notified the Anchorage Health Department, um, or Anchorage Department of Health, and, um, that kind of set the ball in motion, which is how then it ended up on the assembly agenda for approval or whatnot.

Um, and so that's kind of the backstory of how we got to here today. Um, we were not originally informed of all of the processes that needed to happen. Had we been, we would have been more prepared for meetings like this, like the 3 meetings we've already had this week around this situation, and 3 more we have next week. And, um, so yeah, we want to be good neighbors. That's really important.

We want to partner with the Department of Health, with the City of Anchorage, with And also, I think it's really important that we share exactly what the project is that we're proposing to all of these people, including yourselves. And so, James and Josh, they both are part— they were both part of standing up our initial launchpad that we have in the Valley. And so I'm going to let them really dive into, like, what specifically that looks like on a day-to-day basis for a consumer. Yeah, I appreciate you guys' time. And I'm sure I'll have more to say.

Thank you. Been very interested to hear about specifically what the program is going to look like. Spend a couple of minutes on that, and then the panel will turn over. Absolutely. Again, my name is James Savage.

I'm the Community Engagement Director for Children's Recovery, formerly the Director of Operations for our K-1 campus that currently houses Lost PADS in its original format. The Launchpad is an opportunity for this community to say yes for individuals that are seeking services on an immediate basis. We've been embedded with APD's HOPE team initially for less than 350 hours. In that time embedded with the team, we landed successfully 66 individuals with behavioral health services. And that's 2 days a week, right?

2 Days a week, 5 hours a day. That's a, that's a really limited work week. Um, with a brick-and-mortar location, we are proposing to be open 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday through Sunday with as many as 15 staff. So you can— I mean, it doesn't take very much explanation to understand that the impacts would be incredibly powerful. Um, in the current form, though, our Wasilla location is a campus location.

You'll hear it referred to as the Day One Campus. On that campus, there's a 20-bed co— or, uh, wow, men and women resident coed. There we go. I don't get tongue-tied often. I apologize.

It is a 20-bed residential coed facility, um, as well as our Launchpad program, in addition to all of our integrated behavioral health assessment capacity, is housed in that location. It also houses the MassSUS-only mobile crisis response team. We don't have a municipality partnership that is so beautifully laid out as well as Anchorage does for MIT and MCT. Um, that program has been wildly successful. Um, Alaska Behavioral Health Association, uh, awarded us in 2024 as the most innovative program of the year.

Um, in 2025, we were awarded the best mental health provider in the Mat-Su by the Frontierman newspaper. Um, In addition to that, Nick mentioned we're an organization of 195 employees. North of 90% of us are in recovery from something, and we have been awarded Best Workplace in Alaska 24 and 25. We desire nothing more than to be really, really good neighbors wherever it is that we land. I think it's really, really key that we all remember this is a real estate transaction between two organizations and And like real estate transaction and public comment and process absolutely don't align.

Um, and, and with the proposal that is in front of the assembly, that has been in front of the assembly, that we're here now, um, that keeps an amazing service provider in the Fairview community that's been a wonderful neighbor for the last 13 years. Um, we intend to co-locate with Access Alaska in that space. Um, I have no doubt that Eric has very, very high standards for that beautiful building that he's been working on for a lot of years. And we would maintain those same standards. Um, as of today, um, the Day One campus has been open since July of 2022.

We have successfully engaged with 633 individuals in a withdrawal management detox capacity. Those very unique individuals that have been served on that campus— Launchpad Anchorage version would have access to that campus. We also have very, very fruitful partnerships with Chris Kyle Patriots Hospital, South Central Foundation, and Arctic Recovery. Um, the team that is in Anchorage refers to those folks nearly daily. We're on a first-name basis with all of them.

It's another group of wonderful organizations that do this very important work. Um, we have been, uh, since 2022, we have delivered 6,527 service hours. To individuals in need of behavioral health services. And again, I would encourage you guys to remember that Mat-Su is not nearly as dense or heavily populated as Municipality of Anchorage. The impact here would be greater than that, and again, what I believe to be a shorter amount of time.

Um, key components of this program: we do not provide involuntary care of any kind. There, there will be nobody in our care that doesn't want to be there. South Central Foundation and Providence are both standing up crisis services that will provide that kind of care. They will speak to the law enforcement drop-offs and the involuntary commitments that are sometimes needed in behavioral health crises. That is not what we do.

That's not our heart. What we also— we're not shelter. We're not a sobering center. We're not a soup kitchen. This will not be a place or an opportunity for individuals in the community to come and just spend time.

This is a case management hub based on the hub and spoke model. It is our intention to engage in the community, connect them to services, and then ensure that they go to those services. Additionally, what we found in our feasibility study is the, the connection between levels of care. So, like a super— layman's terms, there's up to 7 different levels of care in the behavioral health sphere. Every one of those levels of care has a step between it that requires some sort of intensive case management, or peer navigation is the language that is used in the feasibility study.

That peer navigation is somebody that's been through the steps that that individual is going through, walking shoulder to shoulder with them and ensuring that they get appropriately connected.

That's a lot of words to say that we really, really want to help sick people, and that's why we're here today.

Happy to answer any questions that the—. A minute or two for some questions. Um, I, I wanted to say, uh, is it walk-up services or referrals? I'll, I'll answer that. Just so amazing outline of what the program does.

And it's so like, and just, I really, what I want to do is kind of walk some— walk you guys through what it looks like Yes, we're open walk-up services. We also have the ability to be mobile as well. So if somebody gives us a phone call, we're able to go pick them up where they're at. And what like somebody's day could look like is they're able to enter through.

Our doors, they would be met with a peer navigator, somebody with lived experience, understands the process, the behavioral health world, which is very intricate and difficult at times. Uh, and they would be able to work with that employee of ours to navigate and ultimately triage what their next step is. Everybody's is different, you know. And, uh, what I have is I have a team of individuals that are very knowledgeable and educated of what the process looks like and all the little key components that go into it. You know, having an ID card can be a barrier, you know, and so we, we know all of these things.

And so if somebody is able to walk in, meet with somebody immediately, and start navigating where their next step is, um, yeah.

Well, thank you very much, um, for the opportunity to provide comments and from the neighborhood perspective, the, uh, to say that we, Council, were one-sided, um, regarding the proposal to award this understand So, um, but, um, in, in terms of doing our best to come up to speed and to learn, we have reached out, um, and, um, you know, with the mayor's office, and we were able to, you know, coordinate and get together on, you know, Monday.

And, um, for folks, True North and other interested parties were able to share and educate your members of the council about what they were proposing to do. And we also attended the assembly public safety committee meeting a little bit today to hear about the presentation, um, and listen to, you know, comments and statements, you know, from interested parties. And then we're here today at the CANN Commission to, um, you know, give our initial impressions of the, of the budget. First, um, I want to make sure that folks understand that the Caribbean community comes with perfect solidarity, supports the, you know, the need behavioral— enhanced behavioral health services within our city. There's— that's been well documented, you know, and, you know, the other very community council with all the records supporting, you know, those type of resources being allocated for those enhanced services.

So that— so that's— hopefully we'll be able to put that aside because we're not, you know, anti-advanced anti-program, anti-Indian services to those individuals who are servicing, who are tolerating burdens that they have. So what we are concerned about is the location.

So the location is very problematic, and, and access Alaska and, and structure and directly across the street from the Fairview Community Recreation Center. It's the hub for youth, you know, and in our neighborhood, the— on a regular basis, you know, children, you know, from Fairview Elementary over at, you know, in, in, you know, 13th and Nocina, 12th and Nocina, you know, or walk for— they walk over to the Fairview Community Recreation Center for after-school service. And these are— so they walk directly past the access in the building. So, um, as was mentioned, you know, the, you know, by the representatives from True North, it's a walk-in service, right? So people who are, you know, experiencing— and, and the type of services they offer to the you know, navigation services and referral services, you know, but their clients could be those individuals who are in crisis.

And so, um, this causes— this raises concerns about, you know, is there going to be a, um, a possibility, you know, where individuals who are in crisis, they don't, um, as they were attempting to access, they don't facility, they interact with our child, with our children, right? And so this is— that puts our children at risk, and from the perspective of the neighborhood, at significant risk. So, uh, they have not heard, you know, anything, um, to— by any of the parties that say, well, how do we mitigate that risk? How do we reduce that risk?

So, in terms of what we have heard is that through North, in terms of neighborhood coordination and neighborhood outreach, that, you know, in terms of being a good neighbor, they will be, you know, they will provide a point of contact, right? And, and, and be available, you know, for, you know, communication. With the neighborhood regarding concerns.

Okay, so that's pretty limited, you know, neighborhood relationship, and particularly for something that's caused significant increase risk. And it's also important to realize too that this facility, as was mentioned, they have been working 18 months with the whole Hope Team, where he goes out, you know, this valley, you know, and working, you know, with, with homeless, you know, individuals and helping guide them to, you know, supportive, you know, services, helping get off the streets. So now, the, um, it's been stated in the meetings that the, these individuals that are contacted via, you know, the Hope Team, they will be referred to the launch site, right, for, you know, navigation. So what it means is this proposed facility is an aggregation— that's going to be an aggregator, right? So it's going to be an aggregator of individuals within our community who are, you know, burdened with these behavioral health challenges.

They're going to be refer to right in the middle of the fair community. So, and of course, you know, with contact information and hours of operation and the like. So, uh, you know, one of the things that we have, issue that hasn't been successfully, you know, addressed is, well, what happens if somebody has a, a significant episode, crisis, they're in crisis? And it's not— it's outside the— maybe it's 7 o'clock in the morning, right? And they say, well, I'm gonna go over.

I know it opens up at 9 o'clock. I'm gonna run— I'm gonna go over and, you know, wait until they open up, right? But they're still in crisis. So, uh, so they're all over the streets and, um, uh, and by people's homes and, um 8 questions. So now that could be extremely problematic, and we have experienced, um, unfortunately, too many experiences of individuals, you know, in crisis within our neighborhood, and the numbers have been so great that they were contributing cause to the closure of our neighborhood grocery store, Carr's, at 13th and Main.

And so, um, for the neighborhood to have concerns, you know, about what's being proposed, I believe they're legitimate concerns. And this, it accelerated, continues pattern, an institutional bias and organizational bias against the fair community and neighborhood. Locate these type of services, you know, within, you know, East Downtown, you know, and typically it's been in the North Area, but now you're moving into, you know, the back of the heart, the heart of the fair community, to these services. This means, you know, a continued further degradation of our property values, degradation of our quality of life, increase risk for our children. And, um, it— this is— these, these risks are too great.

And I, and I hope that, you know, the members of the Han Commission, you know, consider these.

And then weigh them against, you know, the proposal of, you know, by True North and the municipality very, very carefully, because they are real and they will have significant negative impacts into the Fairview area. Thank you for the opportunity. Questions from commissioners? I had a question for Mr. Buxton. What exactly is the proposal in your words?

Are you one of the building, or are you all in the building? And so what, what do you do? Thank you for having me. That has been something that's bothered me, um, in particular just who's even been in my building to know what we do in that community. We've been there since, uh, March 25th, 2013, so 13 years.

We came in after the movement of Anchorage Neighborhood Health Clinic when they moved over to C Street. And we were supported by a large effort through Rasmussen and the Murdock Foundation to help fund our move. We were in a tiny little space over off of there, our fire meet, some of you might remember. What we're really known for right now is the durable medical equipment loan process. So in that area, we've been pretty good neighbors and helped with our part with some of the elements that's been there.

If you look up call records, we used to have calls daily. Um, prior to COVID. And I was talking to the policeman about this just on Monday, but that's been pretty well cleaned up because we changed our structure. There's an element in the back across the alley that had a house, I call it a jewelry cube, and that was actually condemned and bulldozed and now two places there. And, um, we kept our building and property maintained.

We serve seniors and people who experience disabilities with independent living skills. Our goal is to help people stay at home, not be institutionalized, go into an assisted living or go into a skilled nursing care, because frankly, it's responsible. It's the least costly, uh, opportunity, and nobody's ever come up to me saying, I want to go to skilled nursing care. People want to stay at home, and sometimes it's a matter of whether we get a shower bar. It could be the simple difference, a shower seat, right?

I'd have my hips replaced, I needed that weird toilet thing to sit on after, you know, those things are costly. So people are driving up looking to seek loans for that in BMWs and Mercedes nowadays, where before people thought it was just only for folks without any medical, but people are hurting. So be counseling. We used to be a behavioral health provider. I stopped that certification, uh, 3 years ago.

Didn't have the right personnel to continue doing it, so we weren't doing a good job. Um, but that was a population that we were helping that were homeless that experienced behavioral health challenges. And, um, there's been a lot of recent developments with naming and nomenclature related to the type of neighbors We're going to be talking about 1915 people, substance use disorders, and part of all that. When we were doing it, it wasn't quite that, that ground, right? But, but I— last time, people with disabilities also have substance use disorder.

So I believe we'll be able to work together, um, with the same personnel. I can't call it quite a full one-stop shopping, but our role with independent living is information referral and helping people find resources that they need.

So I think our desire to lease back was one of the primary things we look for in a buyer. We want to stay there. We want to keep our durable medical equipment on closet there. I mean, people know we're there. We probably have had over 20 different groups look to buy the building in a way it's currently permitted.

Requires basically a service provider to be there. I, um, if I was looking to make money, because we are broke, that's my primary reason for selling the building, I would be trying to find something to make money, right?

I would love to put— to make upstairs a grocery store, for example. I'd have to get different permitting for all of that, so I didn't go that route because I was trying to keep with the service provider as a partner to keep working and helping what I believe is improving the neighborhood. Um, I'm very aware of the kiddos that walk by. I see them, I talk to them. We've had homeless sleep on our porch because it's heated.

Kick them out, post the signs all up, one more effort trying to keep the neighborhood safe. Um, we had a storage unit that was a small fourplex that was a piece of the property. We've already sold that separately. That's going to be renovated and turned into some newer housing that will match the other new housing around this. So it's another improvement to the neighborhood.

I, I just really appreciate you actually asked that question because nobody has. I'm going to several meetings as a person trying to sell a building who heard 20 minutes before the assembly meeting that, oh, you should know, which was a threat to our person of interest trying to buy the building, that assemblies in the building. So I got involved running down there just to hear, in time to hear the mayor pull it off of the docket. So I can appreciate everybody here saying they got caught unawares in that regard, because I could have sold it to churches, to other people who would rent. That's just kind of our story.

I want to be a good neighbor. I hired Spire Commercial Realty, who's 3 blocks from us, to consult. First thing I asked them was, tell me about what you know about this neighborhood, because we don't want to disturb it. So, so our belief in being intentional, deliberate, and purposeful— actually, we realized that, um, if, if for some reason this didn't work, which, which I'm not too worried about, that there would be another provider coming in, and, and if it didn't— it wasn't attached to grant monies, I, I wouldn't even be meeting with anybody. I would just be selling the building.

I didn't even know this was the type of process. I don't sell my office buildings off. And so the realtor was like, oh, that's the thing. I was like, yeah, I guess so. So I'm here as a good neighbor.

I, I, I know Alan. I've sat over there. I've helped advocate when the mayor wanted to make Fairview rec or Shelton rec? It's Spadari rec. So, so it's not about that, but I just want to be supportive.

Truly, thank you for asking the question. Um, we are getting close to the time. We'll probably be ending the meeting, but wanted to bring us back to see if any of the other commissioners had questions for Alan or for the Fairview neighbors as a part of this conversation. I, I do have a question. If you, you mentioned that you haven't heard anybody propose a, a safety plan that actually feels like a safety plan.

You mentioned that you had like contacts that could be shared to reach out for outreach. I'm just, I'm curious as to what plan might be envisioned that would make you feel more inclined to believe in this? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And what does that consist of? Well, it has to be conversations.

So, um, I guess first thing I would say, I can, I can definitely— I, I hear the concern and I am in agreement with all the concerns they say. I guess what's catching me off guard is that I don't think— I think truly all that I'm pointing with the services, I don't think this is a conversation about whether services going to be delivered in the community. What's really surprising me is that the public process wasn't known and communicated, because the little time that I've been involved, I understand that's a public process. It's not about this fellow, the building, anything. It's the fine detail that's being invited to the community.

And I think if that public process had been followed, it would have given the council and the community that this organizations time to discuss and get comfortable with what is being proposed to be brought to. So it's not a question of do you provide good service, but it would have given everybody a chance to discuss that, and then everybody could have changed whatever needed to be changed to make— meet the needs of the community. So I hear the concern, and that would be my concern in my community. That's not my community, but I hear the concerns and I am on par with you. And I don't understand that how the city was such involved in the sale all the way down to the RFP that somebody didn't suggest that this public process was needed.

I don't understand that. That, that catches me off guard that nobody said that's a public process for you to do this.

And they were involved on the RP based on what you speak. So now we're behind the scenes trying to play catch up. So I think you have to understand, it's a— when you come after the fact, I got different attitude. That's the reality. You already at my house and asking, can you come in?

You already in the door. So that's what we operate. You're inside my house asking So I think, I think, I don't know what it's going to look like to make it safe, you know, but I can hear the concerns. And if those concerns had started a little earlier in the game, you wouldn't have to redo something or whatever. So I, I can feel the pain, feel the pain of what's happening.

And it's not about not having the service that the service is not needed, because I know it is, and I think you guys do an excellent job with those services. It's about how do we make this work. I feel, and I'm in line with what was stated about this. Um, speak to the public, I can, I can speak that, but make sure first we, we should extend. Yeah.

Is that— end the meeting. Daniel. Daniel, how long we got? You say how long? 6.

Yeah, 6 o'clock. Any second? Any opposition?

Okay, seeing and hearing, nodding. That is about a question. What's— I mean, what is the objective? We're going to have Jed speak to the public process, right? And what needs to happen now?

I understand what the public process is. What needs to happen now? What's next? And I'm, and I'm just going to say, where we are, wherever we are in the conversation, I'm going to cut it off at 5:40, no later than 5:40, so we can get to, um, the rest of the agenda. Jed, take it away.

Okay, so I'm speaking here, so I, I can explain a little bit about the background of this and what the process is. Um, part of the issue here, and this we kind of touched on this when we were talking about the action, is that we have two sets of requirements of two sets of processes that we have to go through. That's the HUD action plan requirement and the municipal purchasing required to do all of our procurements through Chicago's IT department and RFP process here. You know, it's not required by my law, but it is the policy of the department. I couldn't hear you.

Sorry. So we're bound by two sets of processes. The HUD Action Plan process and the Municipal Purchasing Code. Those processes have very different approaches to public information and disclosure and, like, communication.

The HUD Action Plan process is very much about transparency and making sure people are aware what's going to happen. The purchasing process is very concerned about confidentiality and privacy of proposers in the RFP process. And so that keeps a lot of things confidential for a long part of the process. We're— we've been trying to coordinate these two processes in a way that meets the legal requirements, but also provides enough information at appropriate times that the community is aware of what's going on and that we don't run into situations like this. Clearly, we missed the mark in this case, and I will take responsibility for that.

We did follow all the legal requirements of the process, but really should have done more, basically. And this will inform kind of how we do these processes in the future. Um, part of the issue here is that, um, this is 2025 funding. Um, in 2025, we put out a request for grant proposals in the spring, well before we drafted our action plan. This was an attempt to get that— those projects selected in time to put them into the action plan so we would have specific projects and, like, be very transparent about where we were funding at that time and not have to come back and amend the plan later.

Um, didn't really work out that way for a couple of reasons, but, um, the, um, the RP process ended up taking long enough that we didn't actually get the selected grantee entered into the action. Um, and also there were delays in approval of the action plan due to the government shutdown. Which stretched out that timeline. So what happened was we put out an RFP in the spring. We selected a grantee, um, True North Recovery, based on their application at that time, which was for an acquisition of a hotel to provide residential treatment services.

Um, that was their assessment at that time of what they thought the need in Anchorage was. Um, we selected them. We got all the way up to that. Being made public post the intent to award, which is part of the purchasing process. That's the first time that the name of a successful bidder is made public.

That was in May of last year. Then we got— then we had to do the action plan process. We got that all submitted.

But the— ordinarily, once we've announced the the bid, the successful bidder, that would start the process of engagement with the community. But what happened in this case is over the course of their assessment of the need in the community, they changed the approach that they were taking from a residential treatment center to a non-residential outpatient facility, this Launchpad model. They came back to us and said, you know, can we change this? It is within the type of project that HUD classifies this as a community facility. So, you know, we said, yes, you could do that.

Then that meant they had to restart their search for a building. And so in addition to the delay due to the government shutdown, we had an additional delay of several months while True North, having been selected and publicly announced in the procedural fashion, appropriate to it, did not have a specific building identified. And so they were kind of on hold with a lot of our requirements, community engagement, but also things like environmental review that we have to do before we enter into an agreement.

And so that was as of, like, September. And then fast forward to April, True North finds a building apparently very shortly before I reached out to them, actually. I talked to them on April 9th. Sounds like they've identified the building on April 8th. And I talked to them and they were like, hey, we got a building, we're cruising along, we're going to buy this, you know, and now about to get under contract.

And I was like, well, well, yeah, I mean, and again, kind of our fault really for not kind of explaining the process better at that point. That, you know, there's a bunch of stuff we have to do before we can actually enter into an agreement to provide this funding. Community engagement is not a formal legal requirement of that process, but it is something we do because it is important that the community be aware. But the thing is that the key thing is that that point in early April when they identified the building, they told us That's the beginning of the process, really, of community engagement, not the end. So we got going on— we have screenshots of our internal chats about this on April 10th, of like, when's the next Derby Community Council meeting?

We got to get on the agenda there. And we were planning our outreach approach and also doing these other things in parallel. So environmental review and the assembly member effort, which So, you know, we drafted and submitted in the system. Those can take a while. So we wanted to be doing a lot of these things kind of in tandem with our understanding that, like, we were still a few weeks out.

Like, they had a 30-day due diligence period that they would have to do as part of the sale. You know, there were all— nothing was going to happen like tomorrow at that point. And so, you know, we drafted the assembly memorandum, put it in, it ended up going. Faster than these other pieces. It kind of went right through the system, landed on the addendum for the April 28th meeting.

That was the first time that this became public, that the specific location and the neighborhood that it was in. And that caused some reactions. Everyone was kind of blindsided by that. That is totally fair and a reflection of our weakness in.

In doing that community outreach in advance, as you say, that here's how it should be done, here's how we typically do these things. But we didn't really— we weren't sufficiently proactive in doing that in this case. And so it did end up catching everybody by surprise, which is totally fair. So we are still at the beginning of that community engagement piece. And The step that we're at right now is meetings like this and getting, like, having that dialogue where True North can explain what they're doing, community can ask their questions, we can kind of see what, what sort of agreement we might want to put in place.

One of these requirements I'm going to put on the grant agreement is a good neighbor agreement with the community so that there are specific standards for kind of how that relationship works. That's something that some facility shelters are required to do by code. They have to do that. This type of facility doesn't have to, but, you know, we had identified that as a need in this case. So, Fairview Community Council meeting is next week.

We'll be there. A lot of people will be there. And that will be, you know, an opportunity to explain this to the community more broadly. What, what True North is trying to do, our role in it. And as kind of Eric had mentioned, like, our role in this is purely as a funder.

There's no regulatory factor here. The building is already zoned for its use. If there were not public money involved in here, they could have already closed the sale without any communication to the neighborhood at all. That is not what they would have wanted to do, I'm sure. And that's not, you know, the situation that we're actually in.

You have public money involved here, and so we are going through that public process. But it kind of went in a direction I don't think anybody wanted, certainly not us. And it is kind of an object lesson, the importance of that community engagement piece, which we are going to be revising our processes to put more emphasis and weight on as we do these processes in the future. Thanks, Mike. I am serious about this conversation.

I think now what I would ask Commissioner Fulbright, was it a good idea, bad idea on this one? But if the two parties kind of want to wrap up your thoughts and intentions, and if there is an ask of the Commission, to please include that. But, you know, I think really the important thing here is continued conversation. I I'm sure this will not be the last conversation about this, and the Hand Commission's role as it stands right now is really kind of a facilitator of this community conversation and making sure that, you know, we— some sort of public process here. So, and I asked each tribe to keep it to like 2 minutes or less so we can actually get done by 5:40.

But I guess I would start with True North again, um, to sort of sum up. I don't know what else you want to say, and if you have an ask of the commission, now's the time.

I, I would ask— I would employ, employ anybody that hasn't seen our day one campus to please come take a look at our program and to see what it is we do. Um, I would invite you to, to grab one of my cards, grab one of Nick's cards. Nick and I will be everyone's point of contact for this project citywide. Um, and I, and I'd also like to pose the same question this evening that I posed on Monday, and that is, what is the solution? What, what can True North do to be a good neighbor?

I think that's a question we're going to have to ask, whether we're in Fairview or whether we're in another community council. Um, and, and if someone could provide some guidelines on, on what that good neighbor looks like and how it is we put something together Um, it's not lost on us that we're standing in the living room asking to come over. We're, uh, we're, we're very much, um, we're learning alongside. It sounds like Eric's learning as well. We're learning together this process.

Um, I'll say again, our, our desire is to help the folks that are the absolute most vulnerable in this community, and, and we want to do so with integrity. We want to be a fantastic neighbor. We can— we plan to continue what I believe is a stellar service record as an employer, as a service provider, and as an organization, and, and one of Alaska's leading nonprofits in the behavioral health field. Well, thank you guys very much for your time. Thank you.

And see, the start of being a good neighbor, showing up spaces like this and having this conversation. Appreciate all being here. So thank you, Helen. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] We explain to them, you know, what we're doing, what we're building, you know, in Fairview, and the initiative that we've undertaken, you know, the success— the successes that we've achieved. Folks, we know, you know, we were able to, you know, reconnecting from Washington, DC, you put out a, you know, RFP for, you know, Reconnecting to the Union Square And we were at the table, and we partnered with, you know, Network Alaska and, and put in a submission in a national competition, a national competition, right?

And we were successful in getting our grant funded. And this is, you know, small nonprofit and a few individuals. It's a testimony to the abilities and human talent that exists even we hadn't very, uh, deal with it. We've been successful in getting two vacant lots over on English Street out of DOT's hands, and we're making adventure community gardens with Dr. You know, we're having a big hill on the second half, other community garden.

See the neighbor, you got to show up, put your shoulders in the wheel, and then we'll end up with something. That would be a good neighbor. So, as you said, um, we have— we're active, we're engaged, and we're working hard to improve, you know, our part of town.

So my ask of the— if you say you want to be a good neighbor, just use the words, right? You know, walk the talk. So the They ask your other hand commission. I've been here, I've been here. We have new members, you know, but I've been here before, right?

And I have appealed to you, to the hand commission, you, to focus on neighborhood development, right? Homeless housing and neighborhood development. So in these words, right, and focus on neighborhood development and realize, you know, what we are doing at the grassroots improve our part of town, to overcome, you know, decades of legacy, you know, institutional, organizational, individual bias against, you know, the Fairview area.

And we want— we need your support. We earnestly hope that you can give us your support. We're working hard, we're doing our part, and we just want you to do your part also.

Thanks. Thank you. Bye. I have a quick question. What was the main— what is the date for your garden project?

May 10th. This coming Sunday. So it's 1 o'clock, the one before. So I got my Good Neighbor Critter all set up. I'm coming over, you know, unloading it, and I'll be hosting the barbecue.

Anybody who's participating You move your buildings. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I had one question. Sure.

Uh, you had mentioned that the building has been for sale for a while, but interested parties, it's not signed. Since March of '25. Since March '25. So the building is going to sell at some point, and it's probably going to sell to—. Would have been under contract Tuesday.

So if—. I literally did not sign because I was Okay, so that's why you heard the language of it's convertible, right? Right. So if for some reason it does not work out with this organization, um, another organization essentially which you mentioned similar is going to move in because of the zoning that has been set up?

Yes, I will affirm that. Okay, I just wanted to clarify what they're looking at here. Thank you. I appreciate that. And June 10th, we will be doing our second annual block party.

July 22nd. And I would also like to say that the community council would be totally supportive, uh, and work with you through the necessary permits and zoning, whatever zoning clearance, and we would work with you through the process. Well, now, I— grocery store, you put on that upper level, it's something that's desperately needed, you know, in our community, and you will get a lot of support for that. So you can stay, you can stay You in the neighborhood? But, and so we'll talk later.

I'm just saying, I was so close to get this done at 5:40. We're going to move to extend the clock. Public comments. Now if we can get the timer up. All right, Ron, are you up first?

Jamie, are you putting yourself in the queue as well? Uh, well, we have Ron, Penny. Penny's no longer here. Hold on. Ready, set, take it away, Ronnie.

Sorry, really quickly, the property owner to, uh, the brother Francis Shuffler, well familiar with, with neighbors. Barbecues are great. Animal control provides all the fresh meat according to— mix all any sauce in there, but any I'm here to give you heads up on next month. I'd like to appear with PowerPoint to explain Vindal State Park and Habitat for Humanity. I've been an auction company.

I had my family grow up next to the shelter, 5 kids, um, still there, yeah, converting it to Vindal State Park. I have a 24-man construction camp that I'm renovating, and it's going to be Habitat for Homeless. It's hopefully going to be a recycling center, and what you're to do is turn camps into stability, and we're going to renovate them into tiny homes. It can be mobile. I have 30 Arctic tents.

I have space for vehicles. Uh, it's an amazing location. One of the things, when the MLNP sold, I mean, $15 billion, they should have kept the property, North Campus, for a homeless compound and Southern Charities, uh, Catholic Charities in Southern Nevada has it. It would have been a perfect location. Security was there, location was there.

Uh, we already been there over 40 years. Ellen knows me, I go way back. I don't think anyone suffered more from alcohol, spice, drugs, homelessness than the adjacent property to the shelter. Now we have the crown jewel. Some 8, 13 years ago, I opposed access coming next to the Fairview Council.

It's the domino effect. What happens 20 years later, they show up. That doesn't mean they're going to be not equipping adjacent property. So I want to present this because Anchorage needs solutions, a new approach. Recycling, waka, uh, low of camps.

I hired the homeless. My annual income was over a million dollars. 20% Of it went to homeless hires. I hired all drug users, uh, out of, uh, different programs, and I put them to work. It can all work.

So there'll be housing training, and then counseling. We have it all. Uh, it'll be like a micro village, but it can be portable. Minneapolis, uh, renovated Connex box into a housing unit, roll it into a warehouse, keep it there temporarily, roll it out. It's an amazing thing.

I think with the PowerPoint, when you see it, you'll say, hey, it's gonna work. It's a solution that is a different approach But with recycling and the idea of producing jobs for addiction, uh, it's amazing. Idle hands are the devil's workshop. But the guy got stripping copper. Thank you.

It's amazing. Come down at Third Main Grove. I'll give you a tour. And hey, I heard this all before, you might as well pay a fee. Thank you, Ron.

Any questions? We'll get you on the agenda for next month. Um, PowerPoint, 5 minutes, because I represent more than 5 minutes than just myself. That's 5 minutes.

Uh, thank you, Ron. Thank all of you. Thank you, Alan. He's been there and served you like a cornerstone since dirt. Uh, Kenny, well Alan, and then, and then to you.

He's doing ladies first. Thank you. Oh, we, we had, we had—. I don't care, go.

I grew up in Fairview, so—. And if you could, uh, state your name. I live here, or I was here last fall. And I'm a customer of the Health Department, Environmental Services, had a bad landlord overrun our entire complex, 26 apartments with mice. I got help from the inspectors.

They were short on people. He opened the case because I am credible. I have pictures and I tell the truth. He wrote a letter to my landlord, clean it up. It's your responsibility.

You own the perimeter. I got illegally evicted 2 years ago. Still homeless, been in and out of the shelters. I've toured Anchorage, can tell you where the good food is. Complex care, their Peter.

Yep. Uh, and I'm having now an additional problem. I have to give up, um, trying to find an apartment because eviction is on my record. It's illegal. I need the health department to help me get this off court view and hold that landlord responsible.

$96,000 A year of tenant rents are taken, and he didn't even improve things for the people. He paints it, make it look good on the outside, but that overrun went for 2 years. Now I need a short-term stay at one of the extended stay suites. I'm supposed to bring my mom to my apartment. What apartment?

I can't get one. She is being incarcerated in protective custody by the state of Alaska due to my brother who suffers from SUDs, and they cannot get him into treatment. APD laid down on the job and allowed violence, theft, All sorts of death threats to go, "Oh, that's boys will be boys." If they had headed it off 2011 and 2019, I would not be here. I could have my mom at her house and take care of her house. She has a house.

Right now, I found an extended stay. I need help. I've been to the ADRC. I've been to the— down to the homeless meetings. I have called Alaska Housing.

I've called everybody. There is no help. I've called Good Neighbor Fund. They have 1 or 2 nights. This is going to be, uh, there's a court case right now for the house, but the brother is stealing the house.

The state is battling it. Uh-huh. Meanwhile, my mom, $8,000 a month. She's in depression. She says, I'm going to die here in the system.

So I need— find that money bucket yesterday. I've been trying to find an answer since December. There's nothing. The elders are forgotten. I was one of the oldest at Complex Care.

I got booted out with COVID I find out in September, oh, the whole shelter shut down to outside because of COVID I got booted August 1st. I still waiting for a room. So 9 months waiting for a room. I would not be able to bring my mother there. She's 88.

So I need a bucket of money. To get a short-term stay at State— like State Bridge, if they have a washing machine, scrambled eggs, swimming pool, because I'm going to be doing this PT. So thank you. Anything we got about the money? How many days is it?

It's going to be probably a month. It's in a court— there's a court hearing that I've got to go to, but I would put an emergency hearing if I could move her tomorrow. It's $8,000. Been $60,000 on her bill since last fall. I can't even get an apartment.

It's outrageous. Thank you. Thank you. Um, oh, you can— you can throw Shembo over next.

Great. Well, thanks. I want to make— I appreciate, you know, staff explaining the pro— what occurred with the process, and certainly helps us to understand a little bit better, and I appreciate that. I would like to point out though, I mean, there's concept, both the concept of moral hazard Right, so moral hazard is when one party, you know, takes an excessive risk because they, you know, they know someone else will bear the cost of something going wrong. And I think that's what we're— the municipality is skating on thin ice.

It was a moral— creating a moral hazard that relates to the Fairview neighborhood. Because we are the one— our neighborhoods are the ones who bear the cost. Our property owners, our residents, we're the ones when, you know, when the department makes a mistake, right? Because they don't have to take— they don't have to assume the risk, right? And I just want to make sure that you're aware.

Let's not—. Let's not go there. And thanks. Thank you. Okay, Jamie, bring us home.

Mr. Ritzberg, to get a larger— uh, so anyways, uh, Jamie Lopez, the Sacred Form Coalition. So, um, yeah, walked in on this one late, trying to get into speed. So it sounds like the issue here is, uh, treatment consolidated The question is, is it the proximity to the rec center, or is it just in the fairview area at all? Um, you know, there's bars, which is— that's a possibility. But I would say this, uh, professionals there successfully— I have no affiliation whatsoever, but I do know people that want to get into that facility.

And I do know the entire downtown area has very number of people with SUDs issues and getting treatment. And so Why not put a treatment facility in the area where the people are actually experiencing the issues and then get them treated? That would improve the area. It certainly will. Um, you know, I, I can't tell you how many times I've come across people, and they gave a presentation today at the Public Health and Safety Committee meeting, they hit it dead on.

Uh, there are moments in time when you come across people and they need help. Clearly, it's just within proximity, uh, to be able to get people treatment. Uh, and if you're not right there at the right place, right time, within distance like that, you know, uh, you miss your opportunity. And he talked English again, which is very remarkable. And so what I can say is this: I take food to homeless people all the time, and I work the issue, and I go out all times of the night in the situations that Dave Perfection has gone.

Um, but this, this is not going away. It's basically been here a millennium. The question is, how do you manage your problem? How do you work it? And how do you find successful solutions?

And these guys are doing it right. So I would suggest going ahead and approving this. A service provider has to go in the building no matter what. But you got somebody who's ready to get in there right now and start treating people. And this is not going away.

So that's pretty much all I can say. Thank you. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] And the record, the HAN Commission does not have the power or the ability to approve or not approve this. We are just facilitating the conversation. So thank you all for a robust discussion.

With that, we'll move on to the Commissioner's comments. I had a quick question for Jessica about HAP funding and the state budget. Uh, a win there. The HAP funding got put back into the state budget. Previous year, it was at $10 million, got dropped to $5 million, and then due to some advocacy by a bunch of people around this table and others, it got put back in the field.

That's—. So that's exciting, and hopefully it survives the pen of the governor. That's all I have for Commissioner's comments. Any other Commissioner's comments? [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] More meetings.

More meetings. More meetings. I mean, is there a pause with the assembly? I believe they took it off and they're going to put it back on for another week or two meeting, sounds like. So is there an actual approval that is needed to move forward?

Yes, it needs assembly approval if it's going to move forward. It is not currently pending before the assembly because they pulled it. Administration, it needs assembly approval to move forward with the use of Public funds. Yes. So, yes, next steps procedurally are— but I mean, there's several things we're doing on our side, environmental review and so forth.

But in terms of approval, the next step is Assembly approval, which will require it to be reintroduced because it was pulled from the agenda. Next steps practically are a continued series of meetings over the next week and a half to continue this dialogue. So the next major one for us is going to be very good Committee Council on the 14th. Any other commissioners? Just like a big clarification very quickly.

March 13th, 10:30, the assembly is— May, May, sorry, May, May 13th, the assembly is at 10:30, something, the special meeting on this issue.

Great. Actually, there's not— what I understand— yeah, he said he saw me. Is that right? Yeah. Oh, there we go.

Always good to have—. Yeah, uh, we have no reports, and with that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Move. Move. Second.

Any opposition? Hearing none, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.

[FOREIGN] [FOREIGN].