Anchorage’s health department is set to get a permanent director after its previous director resigned in 2022 in the midst of a scandal.
Kim Rash has been serving as the city’s health department director the past two years, since her predecessor, Joe Gerace, stepped down.
That came as Alaska Public Media and American Public Media published a story showing that he’d falsified many of his credentials, including his education and military background.
Now, after keeping the department on track in the wake of Gerace’s resignation, Rash is ready to take the reins officially.
And Anchorage’s health department has a lot of responsibilities, from preparing for emergencies and providing homelessness services, to licensing child care facilities and overseeing animal control.
Rash has worked in social services her whole career, starting with helping to get low-income residents into housing.
“Then I progressed to human services work, and I was doing that work in Colorado,” Rash said. “I did that for about nine and a half years, and then I moved up here.”
Rash moved to Anchorage with her family in January 2022 to become the city’s deputy health director. Seven months later, she was thrust into the director role.
Rash said her main goal when she took over after Gerace’s resignation was assuring staff that the department’s operations were under control.
“When the transition happened, really what I was focused on was making sure that we had stability in the department, making sure that there was continuity,” Rash said.
Rash served as acting director for the last two years of Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration, a time when the department was under greater scrutiny. Not only was the country still reeling from a global pandemic, but a large spike in homelessness brought a lot of attention to how the city was addressing camps and providing shelter and resources.
Though Rash had only lived in Alaska for less than a year, she said she felt prepared to take over, even amid the controversy.
“Working in government my entire career has really poised me to be at this point, where you just roll with different things that come up, and you figure things out,” Rash said.
Rash is poised to take over the health department under Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, pending approval from the Anchorage Assembly.
And with winter setting in, Rash said the city’s plan to provide shelter for its unhoused residents is at the forefront of her thoughts.
The current plan involves continuing to use the city’s shelter to house roughly 200 people, while setting up beds for another 400 people that are more spread throughout the city.
“So I think the goal really is to continue that work, making sure that we can get as many individuals off the streets into some sort of structured housing, so that they’re safe and they’re taken care of,” Rash said.
The health department remains focused on keeping its mobile clinic active, as well as making everything from vaccinations to sexual health programs available to members of the public, without them needing health insurance, Rash said.
Still, staffing is a major struggle for the health department and that there are a lot of vacancies in its clinic, she said.
“Recruiting our public health nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, those are the hardest to recruit,” Rash said. “We’re competing with private entities, and so just making sure that we can continue to focus on the great work that we’re doing and advocacy of that work to get people in the door.”
Overall, Rash said she is optimistic about the health department moving forward. Whether it’s providing vaccinations and health clinics or responding to noise and air quality complaints, the variety of government functions she oversees make the work rewarding and exciting, she said.
“We have handled, you know, complaints with horses,” Rash said. “We have worked with providing nutrition to pregnant mothers and babies. And really it’s just the plethora of services that is amazing.”
Rash’s appointment as health director is subject to approval by the Anchorage Assembly. Assembly chair Chris Constant said he’s never seen an acting director serve in that capacity for so long, and he’s appreciative of Rash’s work so far.
“She came into the role after some very tumultuous kind of failures of the department,” Constant said. “And so practically speaking, she’s been very responsive. She’s been very effective, and I look forward to more of that.”
Rash’s confirmation hearing is set for early November, and Constant said he expects she’ll be confirmed.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
