Funds for homeless programs found after state error
Published Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — Legislators revived $650,000 for homeless housing programs after the line item vanished in then-Gov. Sarah Palin’s budget proposal.
Her office apparently compressed the dollar amount with another pool of money, and no one caught the lapse until after the legislative session in April.
But the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee approved the funds at a Friday meeting, which means the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority and Alaska Housing Finance Corp. will be able to accept grants for an estimated $3.5 million to
$5 million this fall from entities interested in providing supportive housing.
That’s housing for the most needy Alaskans, coupled with supportive social services that range from simple reminders — Did the mail get checked? Is the electrical bill paid? — to basic household management lessons such as budgeting and grocery shopping.
AHFC’s planning department director, Mark Romick, said everyone is better off if homeless people can get the resources they need to find a place of their own in which to live. Costs of incarceration, law enforcement, emergency medical services and more are likely to go down when people aren’t living on the streets.
“Providing housing for people with a minimal amount of service, allowing them to live independently, is far less expensive to the public,” Romick said.
At least seven people have died on the streets in Anchorage this year, with three deaths within 10 days in May. Tough economic times also raise the number of homeless families, Romick said, and few cities have resources to adequately serve those populations.
The two state entities partnered to bring a bigger pool of money that can fund grants covering construction, operations and support services — or one-stop shopping for resource agencies around Alaska, said Jeff Jesse, chief executive officer for the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority.
“Other places have had phenomenal success,” Jesse said. “We know this works.”
Romick noted that the level of integration, “where we have the three legs of the stool — capital construction, services and operating,” is new.
The money was approved by the trust’s board of directors and included in a budget forwarded to Palin’s office. There, the money was apparently compressed into a smaller sum with another pool. That escaped the trust’s attention and the scrutiny of the legislative finance committees until after the session.
“It was deleted in the governor’s budget and overlooked in the (legislative) budget process,” said David Teal of the Legislative Finance Division in a report to the LB&A committee.
The money was already budgeted for the homeless housing efforts and as such doesn’t count as “new” state spending, Jesse noted.
Fairbanks Community Behavioral Health Center is among the resource agencies working with supportive housing.
Community Discussion
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NM--please fix the headline error.
Wow, the government managed to 'misplace' money. Who woulda thunk it?
Miraculous!
I wonder where the money got "lost" to.
Interesting that it was conveniently found, just in time to possibly address all the publicity regarding the homeless (i.e. deaths) in Anchorage and who knows where else.
"Oops, my bad!" says the legislature...with no accountability, I'm sure. I wonder how they manage their own money.
Law enforcement costs go down???
I'm purty sure they will stay the same, but dunkin doughnuts profits will probably rise
sounds to me like sarah palin put it aside for her own use
There's no Dunkin Donuts in Alaska, good try Jonny_Hypocrite
wink, wink
ak1958 must be a cop. Only a cop would behold this kind of knowledge.
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