What role should the Assembly play in addressing housing and homelessness issues in the city?

  • District 2 Assembly

    • Derek Dzinich

      Candidate for District 2 Assembly

      I think the City and Borough of Juneau has a very active role to play in addressing the issues surrounding housing and homelessness here in town. We at the City and Borough of Juneau, they have the ultimate responsibility ability to address these concerns. I think that not enough attention has been paid in the past to looking at underlying costs. I think that we need to take this time to zoom out a little bit, look for the underlying causes and look where maybe we’re failing some people, some folks in terms of mental health services, affordable housing. But obviously, it never hasn’t been more apparent than people need assistance now.  I think that local businesses are struggling to cope as well. So we need to focus more on emergency short term sheltering and long term affordable housing options. And I think going forward, we have to realize that taxpayer money is better spent when it goes to preventing — helping people experiencing homelessness, rather than focusing on stopgap measures.

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    • Lacey Derr

      Candidate for District 2 Assembly

      That is an amazing question and that is something that the city is working on very diligently. Homelessness, housing, property taxes — those are all city issues. And we need to take what we’re hearing and work with the resources we have to work to improve. These are our community members. We can’t just say, “Oh, they’re just — that’s just someone on the street.” That’s not acceptable. These are our family. These are someone’s sons, daughters, husbands, wives, children. It’s going to take all of us to work together to improve this. And we want to have sustainable, long-lasting change. The Glory Hall moving out to their new campus, to be able to support these issues from all sides. I’m very supportive of it and I think we will start to see some movement forward and some positivity from them.

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    • Robert Shoemake

      Candidate for District 2 Assembly

      Homelessness and housing are kind of two different issues. Homelessness tends to be a result of a mental health issue. Housing, on the other hand, could result in homelessness, if we reach a point where people cannot afford to actually have a house. So my recommendation for affordable housing is for the CBJ to turn over more, sell more land to developers who in turn will build more housing and leave it up to developers to set the market values. If there’s — supply and demand drives the way things work. And so if there’s a huge demand for affordable housing, then developers who want to make money will figure out how to sell affordable housing. Even if it’s building more housing at market value and letting the market shift to allow more affordable housing at the bottom of the market. Homelessness, addressing the mental health issue is the key.

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    • Christine Woll

      Candidate for District 2 Assembly

      I think the city needs to be playing an active role in dealing with both housing and working with people who are experiencing homelessness. We need more affordable housing options in Juneau, especially downtown and it’s going to take a proactive approach to be able to offer that. I think that, you know, we often — you know, people who are experiencing homelessness in this community are residents, they’re members of our community and they’re not always treated like that. And so it is our duty as a city to help provide the support that they need by working in close partnerships with the nonprofits who really know what, what that population needs.

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  • District 1 Assembly

    • Alicia Hughes-Skandijs

      Candidate for District 1 Assembly

      Our role that we play is, you know, we provide resources right now to some extent through the (Juneau) Community Foundation and we have the homeless coordinator — homelessness and housing coordinator — who does good work. But I would like to see us increase the amount of resources that we’re putting towards rapid rehousing, when things like permanent supportive housing projects come along and are ready like the Housing First project. I think it’s in the city’s best interest to support those as we get asks (from the community). And I’d really like to see our coordinator position take a little bit more of a formalized role.

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    • Kenny Solomon-Gross

      Candidate for District 1 Assembly

      We have to be an important integral part. We have to work together with the energy of our nonprofit and our businesses and everybody work together to come up with solutions on how to take care of our homelessness problem. There’s a huge mental health problem in this city, in the country, and we have to get together with the state, maybe change some local laws and make sure that we are able to take care of our people. Right now, what’s going on downtown and the homelessness — we are failing. I will make this a top priority if I get into office.

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  • Areawide Assembly

    • Maria Gladziszewski

      Candidate for Areawide Assembly

      The city has worked on housing for a long time. Housing prices have been and housing stock have been difficult for years, for decades in fact. So continuing to work on the housing issue to try to reduce the cost of housing, have there be more housing so that people can have more choices and the prices can come down. And the homelessness issue is, you know, been a long time in the making and if there was a quick fix, we would have done it already. The city helped with Housing First, two phases. One phase is completely moved in. The second phase folks are moving in, in fact, right now as we speak. So that will provide another 30 or so people with a place to live. That is good. But we will still have something like 75 to 100 unsheltered people that we will still need to work on more options for them. And permanent supportive housing is the goal. Campgrounds and warming shelters are not really a long–term solution. 

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