An Anchorage program has housed more than 150 people from shelters and encampments

A new Anchorage housing program moved 150 people into apartments from the city’s winter homeless shelters between December and May. Over the last several weeks, it’s moved another 27 people into housing — this time, directly from homeless encampments into apartments — bringing the total housed to 177.

The Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness has led the housing initiative, called Next Step. It’s a system of housing services based on a successful model from Houston, Texas, which reduced overall homelessness there by more than 60% in the last decade.

Anchorage’s program provides a year of support to clients. It pays some or all of their rent and pays move-in deposits. It outfits the apartments with necessities like a bed, towels, linens, kitchen items and other move-in supplies, and it provides clients one-on-one case management through local service agencies. The Assembly in January directed $1.5 million to the coalition to help fund the project.

It also gives regular support to the landlords and property management companies that rent units to Next Step clients. A liaison works with the landlords, case managers and clients to manage problems that arise.

According to the coalition, about 96% of the 150 people moved out of Anchorage’s winter shelters are still housed, living in apartments across the city.

But it will take much more time before its mid- and long-term success can be measured — how many Next Step clients who can remain housed after the year of rent money and case management support ends isn’t yet known.

With a substantial homeless population, Anchorage has been grappling for years with a lack of shelter beds, and a lack of transitional and supportive housing options amid an ongoing housing crisis. Supporters of the Next Step initiative say that such programs can play a critical role in reducing homelessness in the city.

‘We all deserve extra chances’

For Patricia Kohler, the tiny apartment she’s renting with the help of Next Step is the chance she needed.

Kohler, 51, moved from the city’s former winter shelter in the Alex Hotel into a studio unit downtown in February.

“I went in having shock,” Kohler said. Even though she has lived in apartments in the past, “from being outside, or being in the shelter, to going into a room, or going into an apartment. It’s just like, ‘Wow, I’m inside. I have my own place.’ You know, you just — you’re in disbelief.”

She’s since moved into a slightly larger one-bedroom in Mountain View. On a recent evening, she sat in its small living room on a futon couch she’d just bought from Wal-Mart.

A TV and an array of art supplies and novels were arranged on a small shelf.

“We all deserve a second chance, maybe even a third chance, or whatever — as many chances as we need. Some of us need extra, more, extra hand-holding than some others. But you know, we all deserve extra chances,” Kohler said.

Kohler, who grew up in Aleknagik in Southwest Alaska, moved to Anchorage in 2017. She’d been homeless off and on since about 2018, sometimes couch surfing, sometimes staying in camps and in shelters, she said. She was struggling with depression, anxiety, substance misuse and finding a job, she said.

Eventually, “I just gave up,” Kohler said. “Because ... just hopelessness, you know. Like that feeling of, I keep trying to get a job and just lack of support — not from my family or my friends — but just the lack of support trying to make it out here.”

Kohler was living outside in a camp in December when she slipped on ice and broke her ankle. She wound up at the city’s mass shelter on East 56th Avenue, and after a few weeks, she was transferred into a room at the Alex Hotel shelter.

That’s where she encountered Daryl Burse, a case manager in the Next Step program with local homeless services nonprofit Henning Inc. Burse was working at the Alex as a housing specialist and helped move Kohler into housing.

Burse is currently the case manager for 21 people in the program, including Kohler. Most of the other people who stayed in the Alex moved into leased housing through Next Step as well.

In June, with encouragement from Burse, Kohler landed a full-time job with Graceful Touch Transitional Services, another local nonprofit. She works as a case manager at a former hotel that was recently converted into low-income housing. Kohler helps residents there navigate the often frustrating and confusing system of social services and benefit applications.

In her spare time, Kohler crochets hats, scarves and socks for people who need them, as she did when she was homeless. She still passes them out to people on the street who look cold, donates them to homeless shelters and gives them to her case manager to pass out to people in camps. Kohler uses yarn with tinsel that’s reflective, so the wearers will be better seen in the dark.

“Instead of ‘hats for the homeless’ I call it ‘hats for my homies,’” she said.

Measuring success

Meg Zaletel, executive director of the coalition, is evaluating success in three ways.

“The immediate success is that these folks aren’t experiencing homelessness,” said Zaletel, who is also the Assembly’s vice chair.

Then, after the year of support services ends for the first 150 clients, the goal is to see 85% stay in their housing, said Zaletel — and she believes they are “on a good track” to reach that goal.

“We know a year of supports may be plenty for some folks and may not be enough for others,” she said.

Anchorage doesn’t have enough permanent supportive housing for those who need longer-term help with housing costs and services, she said. Next Step is a “rapid rehousing” program, lasting for just a year.

The longer-term metric the coalition will track is whether the Next Step clients keep their housing two years after support services end. The coalition is hoping to see the 85% retention rate maintained, she said.

The case management focuses on getting people ready to maintain their housing on their own, she said. They’re trying to set people up to have a “runway” of funds they can use to continue paying rent, so no one hits a “rent cliff,” she said.

Kohler has been sober for about a year, is now paying part of her rent, and she’s saving for a vehicle, she said.

She’s nervous, because come February, she won’t have scheduled check-ins with Burse anymore. He’s someone she relies on to stay on track.

“Last week, I had that urge to go out and use or drink or whatever it was, but I talked to my case manager, and I was like, ‘No, I came this far. I should not mess it up.’ And he was like, ‘No, you don’t need to. Don’t. Please, don’t,’” Kohler said.

She considers Burse a friend, she said.

Burse said a lot of his other clients are also nervous. For those who were housed in December, the program ends in just a few months.

“I know I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous for them,” Burse said.

Lately, Burse has helped move people who were living in encampments at Elderberry Park and Jacobson Park into housing. This phase of the program has brought more challenges, he said. Those who were at the Alex had already stabilized, but those in camps are moving into housing straight out of survival mode, he said.

“Their mindset is totally different,” he said. “It can work, but you have to get them stabilized.”

That means multiple check-ins a week, and helping them refocus on goals.

Burse has intervened when some filled their apartment with old belongings from their former encampment, struggling to let go of the things they once depended on to survive, or when they’ve moved other people into their new home, trying to help friends who were still on the street.

He explains to clients that they need to help themselves first, honor their lease agreement, and keep the place nice, so the landlord will rent to another person experiencing homelessness in the future, he said.

“Showing them step by step, just what you need to do, this is what you don’t do — that helps them grow,” Burse said. “That helps them put their trust in the system. They have to put their trust in you, and it helps them go back out to the community where they came from and say, ‘Hey, look buddy, this worked for me. Just try it. Come on, get off the street.’ And it’s a win-win situation for everyone.”