As Anchorage’s Sullivan Arena shelter winds down, an excruciating choice: Who are the 90?

At noon Monday, Anchorage’s mass homeless shelter in Sullivan Arena closes to all but 90 of the most vulnerable clients.

Service providers at Sullivan are wrestling with an excruciating question: Who are the 90?

And where are the rest of the clients headed?

Many have already left on their own, dispersing into the streets and finding places to camp, service providers at Sullivan say.

Homeless clients also face agonizing questions: Are they among the few who can stay? If not, where would they go? Would they have to camp in one of the city’s green spaces, and could they find a tent and other supplies needed to stay dry and warm? Or could they get into another shelter, treatment or housing program before time is up?

Like many who’ve been staying in Anchorage’s emergency winter shelters, on Thursday, Jena Callahan and Keith Jackson didn’t know where they would be sleeping come Monday.

The couple, both able-bodied, don’t qualify to stay.

For four or five years, they’ve lived stuck in the unfortunate cycle of the city’s shelter system: Pack up in spring. Scrounge for gear. Find a place to camp. Find their way back to a shelter when the weather gets cold again.

“We’re falling through the cracks left and right. Every time we turn around we’re getting told, ‘No,’” Jackson said. “All we need is a sliver of a chance.”

On Thursday, service providers gathered in a back office at Sullivan, which they dubbed “the war room.” Inside, there were more than 200 large Post-It notes covering a wall — one for each client.

They’re organized into “buckets” of needs and services:

“Who needs an ID? Who needs a phone? Who needs to travel? Who’s got a voucher? Who doesn’t have support?” said Cathleen McLaughlin, CEO of Restorative Reentry Services, or RSS, a third-party contractor advising the city on homelessness policy and shelter operations.

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RSS worked alongside Henning Inc., the nonprofit hired by the city to run the shelter, to whittle down the list to 90 of the most vulnerable clients.

Last week, they came up with a list of 176 clients who they believed wouldn’t survive outside.

But that list had to be narrowed down further.

While it opted to keep the shelter open in a limited way longer than earlier planned, the Anchorage Assembly earlier this week resolved to drop the shelter’s capacity by noon Monday and fully close Sullivan by the end of May. The city’s two other non-congregate shelter locations at the Alex and Aviator Hotels are also closing come May.

The numbers

To help determine who stays, service providers at Sullivan Arena worked with the city Health Department to develop an assessment tool that uses legal descriptions of disability and mobility issues, according to Alexis Johnson, the city’s homeless coordinator.

“It basically asked the question, ‘Do you have something that impacts your daily activities?’ And that’s grooming, going to the bathroom, showering, walking, eating,” Johnson said. “And then the next question is, ‘Do you have something that impairs your daily mobility?’ Walker, canes, crutches, loss of limb, et cetera.”

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On Wednesday, 257 people stayed at Sullivan, McLaughlin said. The night before, 310 had slept there. Of the 50 or so who left, about eight or 10 went into the Streets to Success program, run by Bean’s Cafe, she said.

The warming area at the arena, a bare overflow area where people without a shelter bed could escape the winter cold, is already shuttered. On the coldest nights, at its peak use, about 150 people sought refuge there.

All told, well over 600 people have used the city’s emergency winter shelters nightly, the number rising and falling often, depending on weather.

By Friday, many cots at Sullivan were already empty. In the men’s sleeping area, where dozens stretch in rows across the arena floor, the vacated beds were flipped over on one side.

It’s hard to know whether all who are leaving the city’s shelters on their own will end up living outside, said Johnson.

Some may have a place to stay with friends or family. Some may have money for a hotel room, she said.

But many don’t.

We’re “probably looking at 300 to 400″ becoming unsheltered, Johnson said.

Most who’ve been staying at the Alex Hotel have jobs and are “self-resolving,” she said. That means finding a room with a friend, family, a hotel or renting their own place. At the Aviator, about 40 have no plans or place to go, Johnson said.

During a town hall meeting at Sullivan on Thursday morning, most clients who attended said they don’t have a plan, said Amy Urbach, housing lead and peer support specialist with Henning.

“There’s concerns about the ground being marshy still, being able to set up tents anywhere because the ground is wet. And just where to go? Because there’s no place that’s been designated for them to camp. So they’re afraid of being abated,” Urbach said.

That won’t happen — not this summer, anyway. The city can’t abate without shelter space, Johnson said, and with Sullivan closing, walk-in, low-barrier shelter will no longer exist.

The city’s focus will be on cleaning, public safety and street outreach to meet people’s basic needs and connect them to as many resources as possible, she said.

On Friday at 10 a.m., 180 people lined up outside of the former warming area.

By then, most knew whether they would be staying or leaving.

The Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness brought more than 250 blue waterproof duffel bags for clients who would be leaving Sullivan. They were packed with a few supplies: sleeping bags, ponchos, food and a small waterproof bag for keeping documents safe.

Clients shuffled through the former warming area in the line. Workers with Henning stuffed a three- or four-person dome tent into the blue bags. About 150 arrived at Sullivan that morning via a private donor.

Medics from the Anchorage Fire Department’s Mobile Crisis Team stood by. At a cluster of chairs, they tended to a large, open wound on a man’s leg.

Other service providers sat behind a row of tables, there to make contact with the clients — RurAL CAP, Cook Inlet Tribal Council, the VA and Bean’s Cafe.

‘At least we have each other’

Cindy Herr is one who will stay.

“That’s a huge weight off my mind,” Herr said. She uses a walker.

Last week when she spoke with the Daily News, she said she was afraid that she’d end up on the street again.

Now, she has one more month, a buffer she hopes will be enough to find housing for herself and her two Chihuahuas before time runs out.

Herr’s pets have been a big barrier to finding housing, she said. She’s been working with housing specialists at Sullivan.

“They’re trying their hardest, they said, but it’s hard because of my dogs, and so many of the workers, the social workers want me to get rid of my dogs, and I said, ‘No. Would you get rid of your kids?’” Herr said.

Recently, a doctor gave Herr paperwork to prove that her dogs are necessary for emotional support.

[Previous coverage: ‘Who will make it out on the streets? Who would die?’ Uncertainty and fear at what comes after the Sullivan Arena shelter closure]

“They’re my babies. And they usually know when I’m not feeling good, with my back the way it is. They’re so comforting. With the two rods and 20 screws in my back it’s like, I can’t, you know?”

Callahan and Jackson stood in a line with other homeless residents on Thursday afternoon. They gathered on the mezzanine floor, near a cluster of tables where service providers from several agencies spoke with prospective clients.

They waited to speak with someone from Cook Inlet Tribal Council in hopes of being helped into a housing or treatment program that would take them both.

They moved back into Sullivan Arena when the city reopened it for winter shelter at the end of September.

A lot of programs don’t take couples, Jackson said.

Last month, Jackson had a chance to enter a one-year inpatient substance misuse rehabilitation program, he said. They both arrived ready to sign up after a worker on the phone told him they could each enter the program, living separately.

But they turned Callahan away, the couple said. So Jackson opted out.

“I’m not going to stay in my safe place, and she’s out here, twisting in the wind,” Jackson said.

They had also signed up for a culinary training program downtown. But on Wednesday they missed an interview.

“We were supposed to do an interview yesterday, but we had, you know, this place is shutting down,” Jackson said.

“At least we have each other. He keeps me safe, and I keep an eye out for everything,” Callahan said.

On Thursday, Callahan and Jackson didn’t yet have a tent or any other camping supplies, they said. Gear they used last summer was long gone, left behind in Centennial Park Campground, where they’d camped alongside a few hundred other homeless residents last summer. Most other belongings they’d brought to Sullivan have disappeared, stolen.

On Friday morning, Jackson was able to get ahold of a tent. Others in line weren’t able to get the blue supply bag. Only clients who’d stayed at Sullivan the night before could get those.

“We’ve got a list of who’s staying here, and we know those folks are going to be out,” said Jason Cates, outreach director with the coalition. After everyone on the list is squared away, they’ll pass them out to others, he said.

Now that Sullivan is closing, the outreach teams are preparing to ramp up, Cates said.

The coalition recently estimated about 300 people were already living unsheltered in the city. That number is rapidly rising.

‘Not going to qualify’

Downstairs, near where rows of cots stretch across the arena’s floor in the men’s sleeping area, a man paced, anxious.

He approached Johnson and asked her if she knew where a social worker with Henning was. Could she page him?

He was waiting for the worker to take him to an appointment at Alaska Community Mental Health, he told her.

With trembling hands, he held out his ID and appointment card and showed off a brass key to a postal box.

What time was it? — he asked. His voice, soft, broken, difficult to understand.

He had about an hour to wait, she said. The worker, Gary, would find him. Where could he wait? Could she call a number? She did, but the number didn’t work.

He sat briefly on a chair, but soon stood up, anxious to find Gary. Later, he became agitated and strode off, yelling through the men’s area.

“When you meet people like that, they’re not going to qualify for an additional month. But what happens?” Johnson said. They need a high level of care, she said.

“It’s devastating,” she said.