Shelters in Anchorage are already full as winter sets in — and the city is trying to keep up with demand.
Officials recently opened 50 extra beds between two city-run homeless shelters, according to Thea Agnew Bemben with the mayor’s office. Even so, people are still turned away from muni-funded and independent shelters every night.
“The data tells us, right now, that we have more people wanting to come into our shelters than we can accommodate that night,” she said. “We generally get people in within a few days. So it just may be that the moment that they say, ‘Hey, I need a bed,’ that bed might not be available at that location right then.”
Agnew Bemben said it’s pretty common for shelters to fill up the colder months. But the city is doing everything it can to have fewer people sleeping outside this winter, she said.
That means ensuring every single one of the nearly 1,000 shelter beds is filled each night. Agnew Bemben said the city and its partners are doing that by improving communication between shelter providers, outreach teams and other agencies — including at nonprofits like Brother Francis, at rehab facilities and at the Anchorage Safety Center.
“That is our number one goal,” she said. “The mayor said that at the beginning of her term – ‘We are going to have fewer people sleeping outside,’ – and so we want to see that number go down, and we're doing all we can to make that happen.”
The muni won’t open a warming center this winter like it did last year. Agnew Bemben said warming centers, with their limited two-hour stay and prohibition on sleeping, did the bare minimum.
Instead, she said, any additional funding approved by the Assembly will go toward opening up 50 more winter beds at muni-owned shelters.
Plus, she said the city has revised its rules linked to bed availability in muni-run shelters. She said it’s sometimes unclear whether a person plans to return to their bed at night. A new policy allows people looking for a bed to wait in shelter lobbies until staff determine whether there are any available.
And, Agnew Bemben said, the city continues to explore other ways to keep people out of the cold.
“We're trying to create as many options as we possibly can,” she said. “I'm also in discussion with churches and other faith communities to see if some of them can add some emergency shelter during the winter, because that used to happen.”
That declined with COVID she said, but she’s optimistic there’s a way to expand faith communities' involvement in the city’s cold weather homeless response.
She also points to a community-funded program set to launch this month called “The Good Neighbor Fund” which will use donations to get people into emergency housing, hotels, or even on flights back home to friends and family.
