Tribal citizens in Sitka are being squeezed out of Sitka’s housing market, and some are leaving town, according to a new study commissioned by Baranof Island Housing Authority (BIHA), with support from Sitka Tribe of Alaska (STA). Now, they are hoping the data – and community input –  will guide them towards solutions. 

Cliff Richter is the Executive Director of BIHA. He said the last tribal housing needs assessment was conducted about five years ago.

“Our data was getting a little stale,” Richter said.

BIHA and STA collected responses from over 300 Alaska Native or Indigenous households in Sitka and nearly 200 households of Sitka Tribe of Alaska tribal citizens outside of Sitka. The survey found that Native residents in Sitka are more likely to rent instead of own, live in older housing such as mobile homes, and rely on friends or family for shelter. The survey also found that tribal citizens are leaving Sitka at a higher rate than other residents. 

Robin Sherman is the Communications Director for Sitka Tribe of Alaska. 

“An astounding number of the people who responded said that they were really interested in living in Sitka, but lack of housing, you know, or affordable housing was a big barrier,” Sherman said.

Richter said the survey data has already influenced decision-making at BIHA – BIHA is now prioritizing higher-density housing and smaller lots in planning a new subdivision on Herb Didrickson Drive. They have other ideas on strategies to expand affordable housing, like weatherization and replacing mobile homes, but Richter said the next step is to involve the community in establishing priorities and solutions. While the survey focused on tribal housing needs, Richter said the issue – and the solutions – are community-wide.

“We’re seeing this as information that’s going to benefit the entire community,” he said.

Baranof Island Housing Authority, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, and the City and Borough of Sitka will co-host a community meeting tonight (4-11-24) to share potential strategies for expanding affordable housing in Sitka and solicit ideas from community members. The event takes place at 6 p.m. at the Sheet’ká  Kwáan Naa Kahídi and is open to the entire Sitka community. You can read the full tribal housing needs assessment here.

While Sitka — like many places — is struggling right now with the delta variant and an unexpected surge in coronavirus infections, over most of the last year it got the pandemic right: low infection rate, high support for vulnerable parts of the community. While there were some hard knocks along the way, Sitka proved to be a model of resiliency during the emergency — which is why around 80 policy researchers and government entities convened on Wednesday (7-28-21) to listen as three Sitkans explained how it was done.

The Pardee RAND Graduate School of public policy had its lens on Sitka prior to the pandemic. There’s a just-rightness to the community — something about its size, relative self-sufficiency-but-relative-isolation that make it worthy of study.

That was never more true than during the height of the pandemic, when the Sitka Conservation Society, the Sitka Tribe, and the Sitka Legacy Foundation — all helped to spearhead local relief efforts.

Katie Riley, Policy director for the Sitka Conservation Society, explained how her organization shifted gears, and adapted some of its existing programs like Fish to Schools into a widespread food delivery system called Sitka Mutual Aid.

She described many bureaucratic challenges in the program, not the least of which is that government-subsidized food programs tend to be top heavy with industrial food producers.

Riley recommended more investment in locally-based food security.

“Our organization should be brought into the response early on and experience increased communications during these times because we’re on the ground dealing directly with the folks that these programs and funding sources are trying to help,” Riley said. “And we can provide feedback when they’re missing the mark, such as the delivering of weekly dairy boxes to populations that experience high levels of lactose intolerance here in tech and throughout the region.”

There were 80 audience members on the call, many from the Pardee RAND Graduate School, but also a fair number from other universities, as well as representatives from government, including the US Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), the Department of Homeland Security (CISA), the US Centers for Disease Control, the American Red Cross, and the Food Bank of Alaska.

The Rasmuson Foundation — the state’s largest philanthropy — moderated the call.

Participants peppered Riley and her fellow Sitka panelists, Camille Ferguson and Robin Sherman, with questions about the resources available during the pandemic, and how partnerships were formed to distribute them.

Ferguson is the Economic Development director for the Sitka Tribe. She said that while the STA’s Social Services Department stepped up to increase services to tribal citizens during the pandemic, her role wasn’t clear at first. Eventually, she began partnering with organizations in town to shelter homeless during the worst of the pandemic in local hotels, and providing other agencies — like the Sitka Conservation Society — with mini-grants to expand their existing programs.

“So that we knew that we were going to be able to provide funding for those who are already doing existing services so that we wouldn’t duplicate those services, but support those services,” said Ferguson.

In the middle of it all was the Sitka Legacy Foundation. One of a handful of grant funders in Sitka, the Legacy Foundation knew a lot about the individual capacity of Sitka’s nonprofits to help during a crisis. But director Robin Sherman said covid required a team effort.

“So right at the beginning of the pandemic,” she explained, “the two things that we did was we convened our nonprofits to say, what are you seeing among your clients and stakeholders? And what do you need. And then we also, right at the very beginning, started talking to our city assembly and city administrator and saying, when you are planning your municipal relief efforts, keep us in mind both in terms of what we need and how we can help.”

The coordination ultimately led to the prompt and equitable distribution of $14 million in CARES Act funds, toward everything from utility relief for households to direct payments to nonprofits and businesses.

And where there is communication, Sherman said, there is an exchange of ideas — not all of them about money.

“One great example was that in our conversations with human service providers, we heard that there were a lot of sick residents who had mental health needs that were going unmet because residents couldn’t afford to pay for mental health services,” said Sherman.

The takeaway message from the Sitka panelists was basically this: If Sitka is a model for government coordination, inter-agency communication, and community resiliency for the nation, that model could be improved. 

Camille Ferguson said that the pandemic brought food security into clear focus for the Tribe.

“Pandemics and catastrophes are something that we really need to be better prepared for, especially in an island community that we are,” Ferguson said. “We are victims of transportation. The only way on and off this island is by boat or by plane. And we know now what can happen when the planes quit coming.”

Katie Riley was also blunt. The coronavirus pandemic is not likely to be the only crisis to be faced by communities in the near future.

“And I emphasize investing in improving local systems because we as a Conservation Society don’t really see this pandemic as an anomaly,” Riley warned. “We’ve seen what the future holds as we experienced climate change here in Sitka, and the record wildfires and heat waves that have rocked the Pacific Northwest just this summer, as well as the spread of covid variants in Sitka and across the United States.”

Riley added that gathering feedback on programs “early and often” from communities, and adapting them to better respond to local needs “is really crucial for community resilience now and into the future.”

Following the shopping holidays of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is a chance for people to support community organizations. During the pandemic, many of those organizations need more help than ever. The Sitka Legacy Foundation announced $26,000 in grants to local nonprofits at a recent Rotary meeting. Program manager Robin Sherman and board member Brian Hames join KCAW’s Erin Fulton on the Morning Interview to talk about the importance of local philanthropy.

The Betty Eliason Childcare Center will receive $15,000 from the Alaska Community Foundation. (KCAW file photo)

Robin Sherman is program manager for the Sitka Legacy Foundation. She joins KCAW’s Robert Woolsey to discuss three recent grants to local nonprofits in support of their efforts to provide relief services during the pandemic.

Robin Sherman, with the Sitka Legacy Foundation, and Capt. Matthew Morrow, with the Salvation Army, discuss how Giving Tuesday benefits Sitka. You don’t need to be wealthy to contribute: You can volunteer time, as well as money, at any of Sitka’s nonprofit organizations. To ring a bell for the Salvation Army, call Morrow at 906-750-5978.

The Sitka Legacy Foundation on Wednesday (10-23-19) distributed just over $16,000 in grants to local nonprofits, during the regular luncheon meeting of the Sitka Chamber of Commerce. 13 organizations in all received funding, averaging around $1,000 per organization. The foundation this year received requests from 18 nonprofits totaling over $33,000.

In a news release, SLF chair Mike Venneberg said, “Every single one of the applications we received this year were for fantastic projects to benefit our community.” He added, “We wish that we could have funded them all.”

Just six years old, the SLF now has in excess of $500,000 in assets. The rapid growth of the fund is due to the participation of the Rasmuson Foundation and the Alaska Community Foundation, which over the last three years have matched all contributions to the SLF up to $125,000. The matching plan will be in place for one final year in 2020.

Here’s a complete list of 2019 Sitka Legacy Foundation grant recipients:

• Alaska Arts Southeast, $1,000 for financial aid for Sitka students to attend Sitka Fine Arts Camp
• Betty Eliason Child Care Center, $1,000 for toddler classroom furniture
• Brave Heart Volunteers, $1,000 to support the companionship program
• Catholic Community Service, $2,000 to support meals program at Swan Lake Senior Center
• Friends of Sitka Circus Arts, $500 to support youth scholarships
• Hames Center/Alaska Arts Southeast, $1,500 to support teen nights
• Mt. Edgecumbe Preschool, $1,000 to support an intergenerational music program in partnership with
the Pioneer Home
• Raven Radio Foundation, $1,575 to replace live coverage equipment
• Sitka Homeless Coalition, $1,470 to support purchase of tent cots and blankets for a new men’s
winter shelter
• Sitkans Against Family Violence, $2,000 to support home goods and household supplies for the
renovated shelter
• Southeast Alaska Independent Living (SAIL), $1,000 to support the independent living program for
Sitka elders and residents with disabilities
• The Salvation Army, $1,500 to support the Sitka food pantry
• The Uncommon Music Festival, $500 to support Conversations with Whales: Facing Ecological
Change as a Community

Sitka’s economy isn’t exactly booming, but it’s not doing too badly, either. While much of the rest of the state has been in a recession over the last five years, Sitka has experienced modest growth in many areas of the economy, with the notable exception of population — which has remained stable for 25 years.

Jim Calvin, an economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau, delivered the news to a full house at Harrigan Centennial Hall last week (4-24-19).

The most glaring omission in the numbers was data from the 2018 fishing season. Power trolling for salmon remains Sitka’s top fishery, and a poor season in that sector, combined with a record-low pink salmon harvest, would have taken some of the shine off of what was otherwise an unexpectedly bright report.

Economics — like climate — is the study of long-term trends, and not short-term highs and lows.

On a bar graph and pie chart, Jim Calvin says Sitka is doing pretty well.

Sitka’s exhibited a remarkable degree of stability and resiliency over the last 25 years as it’s gone through various ups and downs. But pretty stable, pretty diversified economy. Some year-to-year noise in unemployment, but all-in-all pretty stable. Income has been trending in the right direction. Per capita total personal income for residents has been trending in the right direction. The latest data we have is 2017, but the last four or five years it’s all pointed in the right direction.

There are some interesting contrasts in the numbers: At 4-percent, Sitka has the lowest unemployment rate in the state, but 60-percent of the community’s workforce is non-resident. School enrollment is down sharply, but not the overall population. By 2030, almost a quarter of the population could be hitting retirement age.

Any one of these statistics don’t necessarily represent a threat to Sitka. Calvin says the darkest clouds are coming from Juneau.

Sitka has a remarkably diversified economy and has ridden out Alaska’s recession largely unscathed. It’s been tough sledding in Anchorage for example, and oil industry employment across the state is down by a third. And those are all high wage jobs. So Anchorage has taken a hit for sure. The state, since the recession has started, has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 12,000 jobs. In the meantime, Sitka has been steady-as-she goes. Clearly, there are challenges each year depending on the strength of the fish run, or the number of visitors that are coming into the community. But you have a nicely diversified economy from which to look to the future. There are some challenging things in front of the community: The state budget is one of those key challenges. A lot of that is beyond your control. Frankly the legislature and the governor have it within their power to push the state back into recession, or to at least hold the gains that we’ve made as we’ve been trying to come out of recession, depending on how we address our budget situation. In the meantime, Sitka has kind of been an observer in that and suffered the kind of economic pain that other communities which are much more dependent on the oil industry, and the professional business services that feed the oil industry. So you’re in a good place in that regard. But still as Alaskans we’re all in this together, and if we can’t figure out a way to provide necessary state services and balance our budget, we risk shooting ourselves in the foot. That’s what we’re most concerned about — it doesn’t have to be a bloodbath for us to get our financial house in order. But we risk that.

Sitka businesses shared insights into the economy that weren’t necessarily fleshed out in the data. 109 local businesses responded to McDowell’s survey, compared to the 200 which responded in Juneau — an economy roughly four times as large.

In short, Sitka businesses are concerned about upward trends in the economy that aren’t so desirable, like the cost of living, and the unavailability of housing.

This is what the business community expects from the local economy over the next five years. This surprised us a little bit. More than half — 57-percent of the respondents — expect the economy to decline over the next five years. And that compares to 14 percent who expect it to improve. You know a lot is going on here: I think the state’s budget challenge is a big part of that. Sitka is particularly exposed with the high school, the university, the Pioneers Home — all are part of that state budgeting picture. In addition to DOT, and Fish & Game, and other sources of state employment. State government’s an important part of the picture. You add into that Medicaid payments that flow into the economy, capital project money that flows into the economy — state money that flows to and through Sitka is an important part of the economic picture. So I think we’re seeing concern about that here. Probably also some concern about the hospital/SEARHC issue, what that might mean in terms of the housing market and employment picture going forward. So that’s kind of a downer on what the business community is seeing about the economy going forward, and that’s not a good thing, because these are the people who invest in the community, and you would like your potential investors to be more optimistic about what’s coming.

Calvin took questions on the contrast between Sitka’s generally positive economic data and the negative business confidence. He said “Part of the challenge we have as researchers is that all of the data makes us look backwards, we can’t look forward. But we do know that people are very concerned about the state budget situation, and for good reason.”

Downloadable audio.

The Greater Sitka Legacy Fund, an affiliate of the Alaska Community Foundation, will host an open house on November 27 for Giving Tuesday, a post-Black Friday international holiday of charitable giving.

GSLF is a long-term endowment that supports local nonprofits through grants ranging from $500 to $1500. As the endowment grows through income from investments and charitable donations, more money will become available for grantmaking.

Mike Venneberg is chair to the GSLF Advisory Board. He and Program Manager Robin Sherman (previously the interim General Manager of Raven Radio) spoke with KCAW’s Robert Woolsey about the endowment, philanthropy, and their annual campaign on this Morning Interview.

Downloadable audio.

Becky Meiers will take over as Raven Radio’s General Manager on October 15th.

The Raven Radio Foundation Board has hired the station’s sixth general manager. Becky Meiers will be joining us October 15th from Portland, OR. She joined us on the Morning Interview alongside board member Ted Howard.

What music would Becky bring to a desert island? How did she fall in love with community radio? She said, “I live and breath radio, which is kind of a privilege.” Howard added, “One thing that impressed us about [Meiers] is her passion for public radio and creativity. We think [she’s] going to be a great fit for our Raven family.”

Meiers is currently the Development Director at KBOO, a non-commercial community radio station in Portland, Oregon. She also volunteers for several other media organization. In the past, she has worked as a radio announcer, administrative professional and teacher of English as a second language overseas. She speaks French and Korean in addition to English. Meiers earned a Bachelor of Art degree in photography. She is a voracious reader and enthusiastic player of role-playing and board games. Read Raven Radio’s full press release here.

Lily Herwald and Robin Sherman served as Raven Radio’s interim general managers in the past year, after Ken and Rachel Fate left the position in August 2017.

Downloadable audio.

Robin Sherman, KCAW’s interim manager, discusses the upcoming Raven Radio solstice cruise on Friday, June 18, from 6-8:30. Cruisers will have a chance to view wildlife, eat catered food, listen to live music, and enjoy cocktails on what is predicted to be a lovely June day. Raph Odell Shapiro will be performing live and the cruise will take place on an Allen Marine catamaran. Tickets are available at Old Harbor Books and are $50 for adults, $30 for kids 12 and under. This is a special way for KCAW to interact with listeners, and for listeners to give back to the station.