Erin Baldwin Day is one of two candidates running for Anchorage Assembly District 4, representing Midtown Anchorage. We asked each candidate the same five questions and gave them 90 seconds to answer each one. Read the transcript of Day’s answers below and click the play button above to listen to where she stands. Find the rest of the Anchorage municipal election candidates’ Q&As here.
1. Why should people vote for you for Anchorage Assembly?
People should vote for me for three reasons. First, I'm a local kid. I'm a Midtown Anchorage, born and raised, and I think that's a really important factor when you're talking about local governance. I think my background lends itself really well to leadership. I've served in a variety of capacities in this city, as a nonprofit leader, as a coach, as a pastor, as a policy advocate, a community organizer, and all of that has taught me how to work across lines of difference. And especially in this political moment, I think that's really important.
2. What is the single biggest issue facing the city and how would you address it?
Well, I think I have a little bit of bias here, because my most recent work is in housing policy advocacy, but I would say that our biggest challenge right now is housing supply, and I think the fact that working folks can't afford to live in Anchorage is influencing the outmigration that we're seeing. The fact that the median price of a home in Anchorage is over half a million dollars, that doesn't make us a friendly city for young professionals, for families, for elders who might want to age in place. And I think that fixing that supply problem also helps rents to come down and allows us to house more people, and it allows Anchorage to thrive in new ways.
3. What do you see is the best way to reverse Anchorage’s trend of outmigration in recent years?
I'm trying to think about how to answer that question without repeating what I just said.
I think the answer to outmigration is multifaceted. One of those, obviously, is whether or not people can afford to buy or rent a home in Anchorage. And another is, with respect to industry and small business, is how are we incentivizing opportunities for people to have employment that matters, that keeps them here locally. I'm aware that many of our industries, many of our unions are really struggling to find employees, to find workers, and I think that if we were able to retain a workforce here locally, we could shore up some of those staffing shortages in really important parts of our city.
4. How would you reduce homelessness in Anchorage?
Again, wow, homelessness is such a multi-faceted and nuanced issue. It is both a public health issue, it is a public safety issue, it's a humanitarian issue, and I think that the approach of only sheltering is clearly not what's working. I think we need to really consider that housing first is the model that works best, both for housing our unhoused neighbors, but also for creating an environment of stability in which they can actually get their lives back on track. It's very, very difficult to make significant life changes, especially with respect to substance abuse or mental health, without a baseline feeling of safety and stability, and a shelter-only model just doesn't, doesn't provide that. So I would opt for housing first with wraparound supports, and do what we can in the interim to make sure that we're providing as much stability as we can.
5. How would you address public safety in Anchorage?
Well, if I was queen of everything, and I could wave a magic wand, I think I would do two things. First, I would staff up both Anchorage Police Department and the Anchorage Fire Department. Both of those departments are running under capacity right now, which contributes to all sorts of issues with respect to burnout and to safety, all of those things. So fully staffing our public safety would be fantastic. Expanding our mobile crisis team with Anchorage Fire Department would be top of list. We've just moved into a place where they're offering, are going to be able to offer 24/7 response, which I think is fantastic and needs to be amplified, because that is hands down the most called upon unit in AFD. And then I think really addressing homelessness with housing first is part of that equation. Offering people stability and an opportunity to make change allows folks to transition from being fairly desperate and often contributing to public safety challenges, and gives them a chance to make some significant changes in their lives, and I think we owe that to our community to explore.
Read the candidate Q&As with Day’s competitor: Don Smith.