Housing is Healthcare

Anchorage is taking part in an initiative exploring how healthcare systems can help reduce and end chronic homelessness.

Our goal is to make measurable progress toward ending chronic homelessness, with a focus on healthcare & equity.

Meet our new Healthcare Integration Director Ziona Brownlow. She is leading the Coalition’s Healthcare and Homelessness Initiative.

They were recently promoted from their prior role as Coordinated Entry specialist. They were born and raised in Anchorage and use lived expertise to find innovative responses to community needs. Before joining the Coalition, Ziona founded a mutual aid organization fighting hunger and has worked with clients in a myriad of capacities and settings including hospitals, shelters and libraries.

The Foundation

  • Build sustained belief in and action toward supporting the community to end chronic homelessness.

    • Build shared health system buy-in, including from leadership.

    • Build & sustain will and clarity around shared community-wide goals and aligned strategies.

    • Build trusting relationships with partners in the space.

  • Establish processes and priorities for collaboration, measurement of system performance, & governance.

    • Create dedicated staffing and oversight within both the health system and Continuum of Care to collaborate and manage priority projects.

    • Establish platforms for regular collaboration between partners.

    • Develop and maintain a data-driven learning system for system improvement.

    • Establish standards for advancing racial equity and engaging people with a lived experience of homelessness.

The Goal

  • Increase housing placements and retention rates for those experiencing chronic homelessness.

    • Participate in community-wide housing placement processes and help grow capacity & capability within the system.

    • Support people in their journey to permanently retain housing.

    • When housing availability is the bottleneck, create more housing.

  • Prevent short and long-term inflow of individuals into chronic homelessness.

    • Leverage role as anchor institution to support staff and community well-being to prevent housing instability in the first place.

    • Provide or link to housing stabilization services.

    • Advocate for and invest in quality, affordable housing.

    • Screen for unmet behavioral and social needs and coordinate linkage to supports.

The Plan

  • Work alongside community partners to identify & fill gaps to create an equitable system of care.

    • Support and contribute to the community-wide quality by-name-list.

    • Engage in cross-sector case conferencing in service of individual housing placements and system improvement.

    • Establish data sharing with the homelessness system in service of improved care coordination and system-wide planning & improvement.

    • Coordinate to document assets and fill gaps in the continuum of care around outreach, health care, medical respite, and housing placements.

    • Plan for discharge and transitions in care to connect individuals back to their personal supports or to coordinate entry to the homeless response system.

  • Establish and build upon financial mechanisms that support the overall system aims for ending chronic homelessness.

    • Strategically fill the unmet financial needs for homelessness response system services.

    • Explore financial levers for expanding quality affordable housing & supports.

    • Align organizational assets with an anchor mission strategy to end chronic homelessness.

What is our role?

The Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness is the lead agency for the Anchorage Continuum of Care, and in that capacity, we collaborate with stakeholders and the Homeless Prevention & Response System to better support and invest in the health of our unhoused neighbors.

  • Reduce chronic homelessness

  • Advocate for equitable systems

  • Create new partnerships

  • Measure for success

  • Promote transferrable learning

  • Build a dynamic project portfolio

“We saw the role of the complex care shelter as plucking those individuals out of congregate shelter into a place where they can be better served,”

– David Rittenberg, Senior Director of Adult Homeless Services Catholic Social Services

Hotel Conversion Success

On December 16, 2022, Community Solutions published a case study on the former Sockeye Inn which was successfully converted into a complex care shelter.

— Dakota Orm
Former Healthcare Integration Director

“We’re addressing the complexity behind experiencing homelessness.”

  • There are so many barriers to accessing housing...

    and one of them is being medically fragile.

  • Social Drivers of Health determine quality of life.

    Where a person lives, works, learns or plays.

  • A person's housing status is a Social Driver of Health.

    People experiencing homelessness often have a difficult time accessing medical care.

  • Housing is healthcare.

    Pre-existing health conditions are made worse during bouts of homelessness, and many develop complex health issues that require treatment.

  • Emergency rooms are often the first medical care people without homes receive.

    This leads to high costs for care and less personal attention.

  • We are addressing the need.

    We are working to improve healthcare access and service delivery for people experiencing homelessness.

  • Better for individuals, better for Anchorage.

    Providing better care for our vulnerable neighbors will save considerable community resources while improving many lives.

Stakeholders