The nonprofit planning to open a new behavioral health center for people in crisis in Anchorage’s Fairview neighborhood has revised its proposal following opposition from neighbors.
Earlier this spring, the Anchorage Assembly was set to award a grant to True North Recovery, an Alaska-based addiction treatment organization, to pay for a property that would house a new behavioral health and navigation center. Once approved, the Anchorage Health Department planned to pass through $750,000 in federal funding to True North Recovery.
The organization hoped to purchase a building on East 10th Avenue to run a program modeled after its existing Day One Center in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The building currently houses Access Alaska, a nonprofit that owns the building and serves residents with disabilities.
Although the project had been in progress for about a year, the desired location had not been publicly discussed before the meeting where Assembly members were scheduled to allocate the grant funding. Fairview residents, some Assembly members and state legislators were caught by surprise. In response to the opposition, Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance pulled the proposal off the agenda.
[Previous coverage: Fairview residents surprised by proposed behavioral health treatment center]
After hearing concerns about the project’s proximity to a community recreation center and the high concentration of services in Fairview, True North Recovery revealed a change of plans this month. Rather than using the Fairview facility as a crisis response center, the nonprofit’s providers instead would offer telehealth therapy, behavioral health assessments and other outpatient treatments. The building would also serve as office space for providers and administrative staff.
“We really want the support of the community to be able to move forward, and we spent the last month trying to engage in as many conversations as we can to understand what the concerns are, and how best to address them,” True North Recovery founder and CEO Karl Soderstrom said during an open house at the proposed Fairview site on June 12. “I think the fear is real.”
“The last thing that we want to do is to continue to perpetuate a problem that exists,” he said.
During an Assembly Housing and Homelessness Committee meeting on Wednesday, LaFrance announced she would bring the updated grant contract back to the Assembly on July 7.
“I want to commend the team at True North for hearing the community’s concerns and finding ways to both serve people in need and to be great neighbors,” LaFrance said.
“It’s very clear in so many ways that we need these services,” she said.
According to a Fairview Community Council draft resolution opposing the project, residents believed a new behavioral health center would reduce their “sense of safety” and quality of life and lower property values. Community council officers have not yet taken a vote on it.
“True North Recovery has stated that individuals will come to the ‘Launchpad’ in their ‘Window of Desperation,’” the resolution states. “In response to a question: Could such individuals be under the influence of alcohol or illegal substance? The answer was: Yes. In response to a question: Could such individuals be in crisis as they travel through the neighborhood to access the facility? The answer was: Yes.”
Fairview Community Council President Allen Kemplen said he appreciated True North Recovery’s willingness to modify its original plan. He requested that True North Recovery eventually sign a “good neighbor” agreement with the community council assuring that the kinds of services offered don’t change over time.
“If you do have good intent, if you mean what you say you say and they’re just not words trying to sway people in a meeting, then we can have substantive conversation,” Kemplen said June 12 during the open house, where the majority of the people in attendance were members of the LaFrance administration, the Anchorage Health Department and True North Recovery staff.
If the contract is approved, True North Recovery could begin operating out of the Fairview location as soon as September. The nonprofit emphasized in its revised plan that it would not offer crisis services at the 10th Avenue location, and instead would purchase mobile crisis vehicles that will deliver care at existing Anchorage shelters.
“(Keep) in mind, though, this is by-right zoning use,” LaFrance said. “Behavioral health services were once provided at this location, and anybody could go in and provide those services without any additional requirements.”
A high concentration of social services
In 2018, the Assembly passed a resolution declaring it a “public policy” to disperse homelessness and supportive medical and mental health care services throughout the Anchorage Bowl, rather than concentrating them in the Fairview and downtown areas. Residents “beared the brunt of (the) secondary effects,” it stated.
Fairview resident and real estate agent René Kennicott lives between Sullivan Arena, Anchorage Suite Lodge and the Black Angus Inn. When the municipality used the arena as a mass shelter during the pandemic, she said, she often came home to people parked in her driveway, sitting in her yard and leaning against the house.
In response to “constant disruptive behavior,” Kennicott said she eventually decided to put up a fence and video cameras around her home.
A month ago, she said a person tried to break into her car and steal a generator.
“When you have to deal with something like that on a daily basis, it’s tough because then you’re afraid for your pets to go out, you’re afraid for your kids to go out, you’re afraid for yourself to go out,” she said.
Resident Maria Crawford echoed some of the challenges the neighbor has experienced. Many businesses stay locked during regular open hours and buzz customers in, she said. One of her neighbors experienced PTSD after administering “life-saving” first aid multiple times to people in crisis, she said.
“Having all of the services that we’ve had historically all in the small radius in the neighborhood leads to a lot of gathering and congregating and ease of access to things that might not lead to a healthy recovery,” Crawford said.
The East 10th Avenue facility is surrounded by residential homes and along a path residents say elementary students regularly walk after school to the Fairview Community Recreation Center.
Complex timing
Because the municipality is not paying for or managing the project, health department staff have said the public engagement requirements were “less rigorous.” After the proposed location became public, members of the LaFrance administration and True North Recovery fielded questions from residents at a standing-room-only Fairview Community Council meeting in May.
Approaching deadlines for the federal grant funding have fueled the recent pace of the project. During the open house, Soderstrom said that the grant has an “expiration date,” and that True North Recovery must complete the real estate transaction to meet the existing requirements.
The nonprofit also plans to use the grant to leverage other funding sources to expand its services, he said. True North Recovery has already been doing outreach work in Anchorage for more than a year and a half, he said, and has contracts with the Anchorage Police Department and Covenant House.
The municipality needs to spend the money by mid-October, according to Jedediah Drolet, a program manager in the Anchorage Health Department. The longer it takes to finalize an agreement, the harder it becomes to reallocate the money, he said.
Assembly Vice Chair Daniel Volland, the District 1 North Anchorage representative, said he was unsure what outcome he should advocate for since Fairview residents hadn’t been given the opportunity to digest the new proposal.
“The entire timing of this, I think, has felt very frustrating to the folks that represent the neighborhood,” Volland said during the open house.
The Assembly is currently scheduled to consider an updated grant contract two days before the Fairview Community Council’s regular July meeting. According to longtime member SJ Klein, the community council is still deliberating its stance on True North Recovery’s proposal.
