Alaska’s communities are working together to address the housing shortage and build a brighter future. Leaders across the state have formed Housing Alaskans: A Public-Private Partnership (HAPPP) to accelerate housing development and ensure access to safe, affordable homes for all.
Fiscally sponsored by The Alaska Community Foundation, HAPPP is jumpstarting stalled housing projects and helping communities develop sustainable housing action plans. With 84 new homes already move-in ready, HAPPP’s work is creating stronger, more vibrant communities. Learn how you can be part of this impactful initiative!
Alaska’s pervasive housing shortage stifles economic growth, destabilizes families, and hampers community well-being. A 2023 Agnew::Beck study conservatively estimates that we need 27,500 new and rehabbed homes over the next ten years. Housing prices have outstripped the wages of those earning even as much as $96,000/year, depressing development because developers cannot “pencil” projects for what Alaskans can afford.
As a result of the status quo housing development failing under today’s market and production conditions, statewide business and community leaders formed Housing Alaskans: A Public Private Partnership, or HAPPP. In collaboration with The Alaska Community Foundation, HAPPP is pursuing two strategies to accelerate housing development throughout the state: 1) provide direct grants to reignite shovel-ready housing developments stalled by rising construction costs or a final funding gap preventing groundbreaking or project completion and; 2) assist communities to develop local housing action plans and coordinate public and private funders to breathe life into the local plans.
Housing developments are financially complicated, requiring dozens of different funding sources. It most often takes years and considerable staff time to maneuver through the various application processes to build a capital stack. Far too many developments languish for years, lacking the final funding needed to launch or complete.
Certainly, more resources are needed to build or rehabilitate housing under Alaska’s challenging and expensive conditions. However, it is also true that better coordination of existing resources will expedite development, reduce overall costs, and ensure project completion, which is an outcome that the current system of siloed and piecemeal funding processes is not reliably achieving. In short, more and better-coordinated resources will advance the goal of adequate, affordable options for low- and middle-income Alaskans.
In 2023, HAPPP was able to offer grants for housing developments that needed only a relatively small amount of final funding to launch or complete last year. HAPPP invested $750,000 toward housing in six communities, which generated 84 new homes. Housing success stories include:
● Aspen House in Wasilla, opening 40 new homes to seniors this month;
● Nine Soldotna families moving into the homes they helped build by this holiday season;
● Seven new units in Juneau that are now home to domestic violence survivors;
● HomePlate Nome Apartments opened 15 new homes for Nome’s most vulnerable residents late last year;
● A family now housed in a 3-bedroom energy-efficient home in Nikolai; and
● Twelve new cabins are being built in Sitka to provide permanent supportive housing opportunities for Sitkans.
These projects had been stalled, and some were on the verge of losing previously raised public dollars, despite all having robust capital stacks from multiple funders, but the serial, siloed nature of housing funding left them with no help to make sure that the projects would actually come to fruition. Because this was “top-off” funding, these projects had already been well-vetted by highly credible and reliable funders, so the HAPPP application and review process was able to be simple and quick – a most welcome relief to the project developers.
The HAPPP Board is committed to opening a new grant cycle for every $1M secured and is currently raising funds to offer another grant cycle for “top off” grants for projects that will launch or complete by the end of 2025. The Wells Fargo Foundation generously granted $200,000 to accelerate housing developments in rural Alaska communities and hopes that others will step up, too. No single funder alone can resource housing but joining forces to ensure that projects get completed increases the impact of every dollar raised.
The Alaska Community Foundation is proud to assist Housing Alaskans and serve as a platform for ambitious coalition work to address Alaska’s housing crisis. To learn more about HAPPP and consider making a donation, click here.
Together, we can overcome our housing crisis and foster vibrant economies in resilient communities across Alaska.
