Mayor Bronson’s East Anchorage homeless shelter proposal faces Assembly vote

The Anchorage Assembly is set to vote on Tuesday on a proposal from Mayor Dave Bronson to revive a partially-constructed project — now stalled for nearly a year — to put up a large tent structure to use as a homeless shelter in East Anchorage.

Assembly members pulled the plug on the 150-200 person facility in a vote last October, after learning that city officials had authorized millions in construction work without first getting approval from the Assembly as required in city code. Members at the time also cited concerns about ballooning costs, lack of a detailed operations plans with no long-term funding source identified, and unresolved questions about structural safety, among other concerns.

Those same worries and questions lingered for many of the Assembly’s current members as of Friday, when they met with Bronson officials to discuss the project ahead of Tuesday’s slated vote.

Members had delayed a vote on the project in June, asking the administration for more information about costs and potential funding sources. Assembly Chair Christopher Constant and member Felix Rivera, who chairs the Housing and Homelessness Committee, reiterated several questions in an Aug. 15 letter to the mayor and municipal manager, including a request for an updated cost estimate to complete the project.

The city would now need another about $11.4 million to $12.4 million to finish site construction and erect the tensioned-fabric tent as planned, Bronson officials said Friday. That’s on top of what has already been spent — about $2.5 million in work at the site and another about $2 million for the purchase of the tent from Sprung Structure — and it doesn’t include furnishings, fixtures and equipment, another $395,000, Bronson officials estimated. That brings the total construction cost somewhere near $17 million or $18 million, though an exact total is not clear as estimates have previously changed.

The latest estimates include a 15% increase to account for inflation, according to Lance Wilber, director of the Office of Economic and Community Development. Last year, officials estimated the city needed around $15 million to finish the facility, fully furnished.

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The Assembly had earmarked $9 million for the project during a series of votes in 2021 and 2022. After the city halted work, construction management firm Roger Hickel Contracting sued the city for payment of the work already done at the site, and in June the city agreed to pay out a nearly $2.5 million settlement with the company.

Officials on Friday presented members with an array of possible funding sources totaling about $11 million. The list includes remaining money earmarked for the project previously, redirecting unspent federal pandemic relief money and $2 million in alcohol tax dollars.

That list sparked frustration and some heated comments from Assembly members, upset that the proposal would pull funds out from projects and places where the Assembly had directed it.

“You’re undercutting all the policy calls already made,” Assembly Vice Chair Meg Zaletel said, frustrated that the Health Department did not spend the $2 million in alcohol tax funds as directed, in grants to organizations for early childhood education or prevention work for domestic violence, substance misuse, behavioral health and other issues.

Some members said the funding proposal directly contradicted statements from Bronson officials earlier in the week.

Homeless Coordinator Alexis Johnson told members at a meeting days before that the city is reaching a “fiscal cliff” and has not identified funds to pay for emergency cold weather shelter this year.

“This seems to be in basic conflict with that statement,” Assembly member Anna Brawley said.

The funds in the list aren’t recurring streams of money, and so should be used to invest in a capital project, Johnson replied.

“The reason I didn’t include a lot of these costs is these are one-time funding and we’re building out infrastructure that we cannot afford year over year and we have not identified any annualized funding for emergency cold weather shelter. So, in my opinion, at least alongside the administration, one time-funding should be used for one-time projects, especially in a capital cost,” Johnson said.

Assembly member George Martinez pushed back on her answer.

“Unless I’m misunderstanding, that is exactly what we’re proposing here — to use one-time funding to create a thing that has an annualized cost that we don’t have funding for,” he said.

The shelter and navigation center would cost between $6 million to $8 million a year to run, depending on the level of services provided there, Bronson officials have estimated.

“We were already at almost $20 million just on paper, and we don’t have a funding mechanism to run whatever is being proposed,” Martinez said.

Constant, pointing to one $400,000 item, which was supposed to fund WiFi equipment in city recreation centers, said the “document makes a liar” out of him as an Assembly member.

“Because I have reported regularly quarterly to the Fairview Community Council and the Mountain View Community Council that this project to purchase WiFi was well underway, and we were just waiting for the delivery of materials that were on backorder because of the manufacturing crisis. And so, if all of a sudden we see $400,000 is available, that means we never spent a dime of that money,” he said.

Assembly members also pushed back against the idea of using $1 million in funds set aside for mitigation of trees killed by beetles in city green spaces, which reduces the chance of wildfire.

Speaking by phone on Monday, Constant said it’s unclear what Tuesday’s vote will bring, but that it will likely be close, he said.

Though some are skeptical or critical of the idea, some Assembly members have called for the city to finish the project, pointing to the current lack of available shelter beds in Anchorage and the money already spent.

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An Assembly vote last May saw the project advance by a one-vote margin.

Weeks before the Assembly halted the project, the city’s structural engineers had flagged several concerns with the building’s seismic design and wind load. Because work on the project came to a full stop, those issues have not yet been resolved, Wilber said on Friday.

The frame is aluminum, while the city’s building code only allows steel structures, said Greg Soule of the city’s Development Services Department.

Officials tried to assure skeptical Assembly members that the structure would pass review by the city’s building official once Sprung Structures formally submits the necessary documentation.

Brawley said that it’s “surprising” the city had already purchased a structure that doesn’t meet its building codes.

Wilber told Assembly members that the structures have been used in other areas with high winds, such as in Dade County, Florida, and in places with snow.

“We’re just waiting for responses from the manufacturer to share that information with us. So that can make the building official and development services comfortable that it will stand up to the wind and the snow,” Wilber said.

Work done at the site left for the last year — foundation footers that were poured and rebar that was laid — has passed an inspection and can still be used, officials said.

Constant noted that in Reno, Nevada, a 600-bed homeless shelter in a framed-tent structure manufactured by Sprung saw structural issues within a year of opening, and another made by the same company used at a ski resort in Colorado collapsed due to heavy snow.