Youth Advocates of Sitka (YAS) and Southeast Alaska Independent Living (SAIL) are holding a survival skills camp during Spring Break for students aged 14+. Camp will feature visits to the Sitka Fire Department and U.S. Coast Guard base, first aid and cold water safety training, trauma informed communication skills, as well as a trip to the Sheet’ká Treetop Adventures ropes course. The free camp takes place March 16-20 at the SAIL office. You can call SAIL or go to KCAW’s Community Calendar to register. Juliette Langley and Maria Beck to joined KCAW on the Morning Interview to discuss what to expect from the upcoming camp. Listen to their conversation here:

After a couple of setbacks, Youth Advocates of Sitka can now move forward with plans to create a residential treatment program for teens and young adults experiencing homelessness, both in Sitka and from around the state. Earlier this year, the group had applied for a permit to convert a duplex into the facility, but was initially denied by the local planning commission. The nonprofit successfully appealed that decision before the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (6-13-23).

Youth Advocates of Sitka, or Y-A-S, scored the $2 million dollar federal grant to develop the residential treatment facility last year. Dubbed Coastal Haven, the pilot program would house around a dozen teens and young adults, providing them with mental health services, wilderness therapy and life skills training. 

But the program hit its first snag in January, when the Planning Commission denied YAS’s first permit application to convert a duplex on Dodge Circle. The local nonprofit went back to the drawing board, landing on a duplex on state highway Halibut Point Road. But in April, they were again denied their permit, this time on a split vote. 

The reason for the denial was two-fold: the permit would affect the “character of the neighborhood” and it found the R1 zoning “incompatible” with the facility. It also cited “unified dissent of the neighbors.”

Amanda Johnson was one of the dissenting voices. She voiced concerns about safety and the HPR location. 

“It’s not just the safety of myself and my family. It is concerns about the safety for the clients at this residence being protected, being able to get to-and-from town, and their privacy at this residence,” Johnson said. “It’s not so much the neighbor’s privacy is the concern. It’s the fact that when they’re sharing that beach, when they’re in the house, they’re in a fishbowl.” 

Testimony and concerns from neighbors ranged from questions about YAS filing its appeal after the deadline, to worries about privacy, noise and other programming questions. And Brit Galanin, who said she’d helped circulate a petition that garnered 40 signatures challenged the idea that the neighborhood pushback had been discriminatory in nature.

“This was not a ‘Not in my backyard’ issue,” Galanin said. “This is actually about this house. It’s not about YAS. It’s about whether or not this house is the right place for this pilot statewide program. As YAS mentioned, they have almost two more years to find a more suitable location. I would highly encourage our community to come together to support YAS in doing that, because this is not the right location for it.”

Several said they felt like YAS hadn’t done enough outreach to the neighborhood. Supporters of YAS challenged some of those concerns. Wendy Leverett called for the assembly to grant the appeal, and said that the YAS facility needs to be in a neighborhood, even though she felt no matter what neighborhood they tried to move into, they’d get pushback.

“I get why people are nervous. There are a lot of unknowns welcoming something like this into your own backyard so to speak,” Leverett said. “These kids, these young people have been through more than we understand, and it wasn’t their fault. The only hope they have of having a healthy, normal life, is to be in a regular neighborhood and feel like regular people, and learn what healthy is, and what it looks like, and what they could have.”

And Rachel Jones who’d lived near another facility run by YAS said she didn’t find it had impacted her property value, and she’d only noticed the police at the property twice. 

“There was never any sirens, never any disturbance, and in the same amount of time, I actually had a neighbor called the police on us twice, once because they didn’t like where we placed a fence post and once because one of our chickens got loose,” Jones said. “Which are the kinds of things that happen in a small, tight neighborhood, and that particular house, I don’t think, caused any more disturbances than my fence or my chicken did.”

In its appeal before the assembly, Y-A-S argued that the Planning Commission, in denying the permit, had both overturned an application that met the conditional use requirements under city code, and also violated the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination.

An independent legal review from an Anchorage law firm also raised questions about whether the commission’s decision could be scrutinized under federal law. The report essentially called for more evidence, either from the planning commission supporting its decision to deny the permit under city code, or more evidence from YAS that its application was supported by code.

YAS executive director Heather Meuret said that if the assembly didn’t overturn the Planning Commission’s decision, they would file a housing discrimination report to the Housing and Urban Development, the federal department that awarded the grant. And Meuret submitted an additional stack of documents to the assembly for review, including the organization’s policies on noise and quiet hours, and a letter notifying the assembly of its official request for reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities under the Fair Housing Act. 

But when it came time for the assembly to deliberate, they steered clear of discussing the constitutional question of whether the permit denial was discriminatory. Instead, they kept most of their comments to city code, and whether the YAS application had met the threshold for the planning commission to approve it.

Assembly member JJ Carlson said from her research and looking through YAS’s proposal, they met the city code requirements for a conditional use permit. 

“The adequate public facilities and service, they’ve met that. You’ve met the “reducing of hazardous conditions, by mitigating what they need for public health, like potential noise,” Carlson said. “I mean, this isn’t a paint factory. There’s no downside here to housing people. I mean, yes, “quasi-institutional,” but in a residential treatment environment, it does fit within a residential zone.”

And the rest of the assembly agreed. Assembly member Crystal Duncan said when reviewing the materials, she’d expected to find a hole in YAS’s mitigation measures, but she didn’t. 

“Did they end up having to give greater detail? Yes. Because there was that public pressure to say, ‘Well, we want to know more.’ Tonight, they brought forth policies to say ‘We do have policies around noise. We do have policies around this,'” Duncan said. “I feel like they have been tested and required to rise above what…somebody who wanted to operate a business would have to do because there is this public input saying we need more and more and more.”

The group unanimously found that the YAS had met the six requirements for a conditional use permit under city code, and voted to grant their appeal, making one adjustment to reduce the number of beds that YAS would serve by two. And while the decision was unanimous, most members acknowledged the feedback from neighbors, and assembly member Tim Pike said he hoped YAS would consider that moving forward.

“There’s no winning, so-to-speak, in this environment,” Pike said. “Both sides, in this case, actually have quite a few points that are quite good, so I hope that YAS has heard that they have some work to do with their neighborhood.” 

During her appeal, Meuret perhaps summed up best what’s next for the organization, now that they can move forward with purchasing the home on Halibut Point Road. “YAS is a good neighbor,” she said. “We will show everyone we are a good neighbor, and if you give us our permit, we will prove you all wrong.”

Tonight the assembly will weigh the evidence presented to them during the appeal process before deciding whether to grant or deny the appeal or send it back to the Planning Commission. 

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

View the full meeting agenda here

Sitkans eager to weigh in on the proposed location of a residential treatment center for teens will have to wait a bit longer to share their views. Citing an outstanding legal issue, the Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (5-9-23) postponed action on an appeal brought by Youth Advocates of Sitka, whose plans for the project have now been denied twice by the local planning commission.

For the last year, Youth Advocates of Sitka, also known as YAS, has been in the planning phase of opening a residential treatment center for teens and young adults. In its most recent iteration, “Coastal Haven” would serve a dozen 16-21 year-olds from Sitka and throughout Alaska experiencing homelessness, substance use, or trafficking. The project is backed by $2 million dollars in federal grant funding, that was awarded in 2022. 

In January, YAS tried to secure a permit to convert a duplex on Dodge Circle into the facility, but neighbors circulated a petition with concerns about noise, traffic, and maintaining the single family nature of the neighborhood. In response, the Planning Commission unanimously denied their application. In April, YAS tried again, this time for a waterfront duplex several miles out of downtown on Halibut Point Road. The second proposal gained more public support, but it also saw pushback and a petition from neighbors. The commission denied the application on a split vote. YAS decided to fight the decision. 

In documents presented to the assembly for its appeal process on May 9, YAS outlined a list of arguments for overturning the Planning Commission’s decision, even asserting that the denial of the conditional use permit violated the federal Fair Housing Act, which protects people from discrimination when renting or buying a home. It was on that, and a few other legal and constitutional concerns that municipal attorney Brian Hanson recommended the assembly press pause on the process, until they got further legal counsel:

“In particular, some of the questions that have been brought up…whether it’s legal to require a conditional use permit for a quasi-institutional group residence? If it is legal, did the Planning Commission exceed its authority by denying the permit on unconstitutional grounds,” Hanson said. “And the third one, if it didn’t exceed the authority was the decision based on unconstitutional bias. In other words, were they discriminatory under the Fair Housing Act?”

Hanson said he’d been out on vacation when the appeal was filed, and it wasn’t until earlier that day that he’d had time to review the legal questions surrounding the case. That hadn’t been enough time to form an opinion. So he recommended that the assembly hold off on a decision and stay the hearing. 

Around 40 residents packed the assembly chambers to hear the appeal– one Sitkan voiced frustration that the assembly was considering a postponement when there was a crowded room of people ready to speak to the issue, but several were supportive of the delay, including YAS executive director Heather Meuret. 

The assembly unanimously voted to postpone consideration of the YAS appeal until the June 13 regular assembly meeting.

Assembly calls for increase to BSA

The Sitka Assembly is calling for the Alaska legislature to increase state funding for local schools. 

When the group met last night/on Tuesday (5-9-23), it approved a resolution supporting a boost to the annual Base Student Allocation, or BSA. That’s the amount of money the legislature dedicates to each school district, per student, each year. It’s only been raised once since 2017. 

The assembly’s resolution doesn’t specify an amount or percent increase they’re supporting. Assembly member Kevin Mosher, who cosponsored the resolution with JJ Carlson said he’d be fine with including a number if that was the assembly’s preference, but he mostly just wanted to get the message across.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence they’re going to do a lot with this, other than it’ll be important for legislators to have and say, ‘Listen, we need more,'” Mosher said.

“It’s not just about money, it’s about consistency,” he added. “We need to have a steady income so that people can plan every year.”

The resolution passed unanimously.

In January, Youth Advocates of Sitka tried to purchase a duplex on Dodge Circle that would house their new residential mental health treatment program, Coastal Haven. YAS won around $2 million dollars in congressional appropriations through Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office to build a facility that would provide residential mental health services for teens and young people who were victims of trafficking or otherwise at-risk, from across the state and in Sitka. 

But because YAS was looking at a duplex in a residential zone, they had to secure a conditional use permit from the Planning Commission first. But their application was met with pushback and a petition from members of the Dodge Circle neighborhood, and that weighed heavily on the commission’s decision to deny the application.

So Youth Advocates went back to the drawing board, and they changed some of the stipulations for the program. It now focuses more broadly on teens who are at risk or have experienced homelessness or trafficking. While it would also serve teens who are referred from communities around the state, according to a letter submitted to the commission, YAS has identified three local teens who would qualify for the program.  

They found a large duplex oceanside of state highway Halibut Point Road. They planned to ultimately house twelve young people from age 16 up to 21 at the home, a slightly younger demographic than they’d previously proposed.   

Planning Director Amy Ainslie says the new proposal saw more community support than the Dodge Circle proposal, including a letter of support from the Sitka Women’s Club. But it was also met with equal pushback. Ainslie says during public comment the commission was presented with a petition with around 40 signatures opposed to the facility. 

The commission was split as well, and Ainslie says the group spent some time deliberating whether YAS’s proposal qualified for the permit. The Dodge Circle location would have been accessed from an easement, a sidestreet that’s privately maintained and generally intended for lower traffic. With the new property, residents would not only access it from a state road, but the highway would act as a buffer between the facility and most other neighborhood properties.

The YAS application failed 2 to 3 with commissioners Katie Riley and Wendy Alderson in favor, and commissioners Chris Spivey, Darryl Windsor and Stacy Mudry opposed. 

KCAW reached out to YAS Executive Director Heather Meuret, who did not return our calls by press time. YAS has ten days to appeal the planning commission’s decision. 

Almost a year ago, local nonprofit Youth Advocates of Sitka received a congressional appropriation to create a facility to house young victims of human trafficking and other exploitation. But the proposed location encountered strong objections from neighbors – and the Sitka Planning Commission refused to grant the facility a permit. Now its future is uncertain.

The $2 million dollar appropriation arrived quietly through Senator Lisa Murkowski about a year ago. The intent was to create a residential treatment facility supporting vulnerable youth experiencing human trafficking and exploitation – by purchasing an existing duplex or other multi-family dwelling and adapting it to this new purpose

Through a pilot program named Coastal Haven, Youth Advocates of Sitka – or YAS – planned to provide mental health care, clinical services, life skills, and employment training for teens and twenty-somethings. While the facility would prioritize Sitkans, it would be open to young people from around the state.

According to documents presented to the Sitka Planning Commission, YAS zeroed in on a possible location for the facility in June of last year – a duplex on Dodge Circle. After receiving the funding in November, they put a $5,000 down payment on the property and signed a purchase agreement, anticipating closing on the sale in January. But since the duplex is in a residential zone, the group needed to first secure a conditional use permit for a “quasi-institutional home” from the Sitka Planning Commission.

But neighborhood pushback was mounting. At the  January 18 meeting of the Planning Commission, nine Sitkans spoke against the facility in person and in writing, sharing concerns about noise, traffic, and maintaining the single family nature of the neighborhood. Area resident Mary Todd Andersen presented a petition with around 30 signatures from neighbors who opposed the proposal. Two Sitkans spoke in favor of the plan, and shared personal stories of youth in their lives who would have benefited from the facility. 

Ultimately, the commission voted unanimously to deny the permit application due to strong objections from the neighborhood. Commissioner Wendy Alderson told KCAW that she felt conflicted about her vote, and ultimately decided that the project didn’t meet all the criteria for a conditional use permit in a residential zone. She said she’s always been an advocate of keeping residential neighborhoods residential. And she said that as a commissioner, it’s her job to consider community feedback, even if she doesn’t always agree.  

“I guess this felt like it was just pushing it a little bit in R1 zone,” Alderson said. “That, on top of the neighborhood turnout, was enough to sway me to vote against issuing the conditional use permit, even though I totally support the project.”

“I think that the fears were greatly exaggerated,” she added. “But that’s not my choice to make. It’s the neighbor’s choice to make, whether they support something like that in the neighborhood, and they overwhelmingly chose not to, so I had to take that into consideration.”

In an email to KCAW, YAS Executive Director Heather Meuret wrote that her organization had nothing more to add to the story.  YAS had until February 1 to appeal the decision, which would have brought it before the Sitka Assembly for deliberation, but according to Planning Director Amy Ainslie, YAS did not file an appeal.

That means YAS will likely have to put the congressionally directed project on hold until they find a new location. KCAW reached out to Senator Murkowski’s office to find out what happens to the funds if YAS can’t identify a space, and they referred us to a representative from the office of Housing and Urban Development, who did not return our request for comment by press time.

The grand opening of “The Cloud” teen center is this Saturday, August 24. Sydney Carter is the community program coordinator for Youth Advocates of Sitka and Simon Rose is a teacher at Pacific High School. The two joined KCAW’s Brooke Schafer in the studio to discuss the center. 

Read more about the effort to open a teen center in Sitka here.

YAS director Charlie Woodcock says the home-based model for addressing teen homelessness is a proven success. The last time YAS offered a transitional living program for teens (2007-12), all 42 participants either found work or other housing stability. (Flickr photo/Aidan-Sally)

Sitka’s homeless youth may soon have more permanent shelter, if some residents are willing to open their doors to them.

Youth Advocates of Sitka has won a three-year grant to implement a home-based program for kids age 16 to 21.

Read previous reporting by KCAW on transitional living for teens in Sitka.

Unlike other clients of YAS, who are receiving what’s known as “therapeutic foster care,” participants in the transitional living program are mostly receiving a stable home, support, and relief from the circumstances that have left them homeless.

Charlie Woodcock is the executive director of Youth Advocates of Sitka. He says the economy is a big factor in youth homelessness in Sitka, as is the prevalence of alcohol and substance abuse.

“We find that in our work that drugs and alcohol — directly or indirectly — touches every one of our youth. They’re either engaged in those behaviors, or they’re living in a home that’s ravaged by some sort of substance abuse. Or they have FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) or they’re in a domestic violence setting. So I think that drugs and alcohol play an extreme role in the issues that youth are having in Alaska, and in Sitka, too.”

For more information about becoming involved in the Transitional Living Program please call or email:

Charlie Woodcock, Executive Director

Youth Advocates of Sitka

907-747-2910

charlie.woodcock@sitkayouth.org

Youth Advocates of Sitka previously ran a transitional living program — from 2007 to 2012 — and Woodcock considers it a success. In fact, a 100-percent success.

“We actually served in-home 42 youth. And according to the data all those individuals were successful, and were gainfully employed or had home security after the program.”

Woodcock calls transitional living a “step back” from the more intensive residential program that YAS runs out of Hanson House. Families who participate in the TLP receive a monthly stipend to cover the expenses of housing a teen, and there is support from a case manager, program coordinator, employment counseling services, and other resources.

According to data from the Sitka School District, there are around 30 homeless students of all ages enrolled in any given year. He believes that this is a critical time to get their lives back on the rails. Homelessness in youth is a different problem than adult homelessness.

“Usually when a teen or youth is homeless they’re couch surfing from one place to the next, staying with the uncle, then moving over to the aunt, and then staying with a friend’s family until they wear out their welcome. And then they’re out on the streets sometimes. But it looks different (than adult homelessness) and the dynamics are different, and the resources needed are different.”

The transitional living program is funded by a three-year grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, at $200,000 a year. Woodcock is hopeful the program will be renewed when the current grant expires. He’s still looking to fill a couple of staff positions — and he’s definitely looking for Sitka households willing to take in a homeless teen for anywhere from a month or two, up to a year.

Note: Helen Strothers, with the Child Trauma Center, was scheduled to appear in this interview — but could not, due to technical difficulties.

Downloadable audio.

(Photo by Anne Brice/KCAW)

Taking care of the homeless is an ongoing problem in Alaska and elsewhere, and unfortunately, it’s not limited to adults. There is also a large, and less visible, population of homeless kids. By day, they might be in school, indistinguishable from other students. But by night, they’re short-term crashers, or couch surfers. These kids may be avoiding an unsafe situation at home, or they’re over 18 — between childhood and adulthood — and simply have no options.

KCAW visits with a family in Sitka who participates in a host home program — the only one in Alaska, and one of very few in the nation. They take in kids from ages 16 through 21 who have no place to go and give them a home.

Listen to iFriendly audio.

There’s this family in Sitka that has homeless teenagers living in their house. It might make some people nervous — it’s not easy to raise a teenager or being one for that matter — especially when dealing with all the problems that come with being homeless. The family, a longtime married couple, looks past what the kids might seem like on the outside and look inside for who they really are.

“We’ve had children in our home that people are just dumbfounded that we let them into our home,” the host dad says. “Their jaw drops. My response is, I don’t know this person you’re talking about. Kids make mistakes. If they make mistakes in a different environment, that’s a different deal.”

The couple is part of a program run by the nonprofit Youth Advocates of Sitka, or YAS. It places homeless youth with families in the community. We’ve been asked to keep the resource parents’ names confidential to protect the identities of the homeless teens they’ve hosted.

The resource dad says most of the people they invite into their home have really become part of the family.

“I call them all my children,” he said. “Long after they’re gone, many of them have grown up, and have bought their own homes and their own cars, have their own families, and have moved to different parts of the United States. For us it’s about family. We wanted to have a large family and sometimes things don’t turn out the way you think, but it’s been a blessing for us because now we can still have a large family.”

Clients can be 16 through 21 years old and are able to stay in a home for up to 18 months. The program is funded by a federal grant and is the only one of its kind in Alaska.

The couple has hosted more than a dozen youth over the five-year life of the program. They also take younger foster care kids. Since they always wanted a big family, they’re committed to having the same dynamic in their house.

“I have five sisters and three brothers,” he said. “She’s the oldest of 7. So we’re very comfortable with large families. We know what it’s like to share food and do dishes and have to think of others…we encourage family dinners. Every night. That’s really important. We both come from families where everybody, no matter what your schedule was, you had to be home at a certain time.”

Cultivating healthy relationships can be really hard, especially if trust has been broken in the past like it has been for many of these youth. And the host mom believes that to have a healthy relationship, love isn’t necessarily required.

“A big thing is communication and trust,” said the host mom. “Trust is a huge thing. A lot of times, we’ve had conversations with our kids or with each other about what matters most, love or trust? You know, you don’t need to have both to have a healthy relationship. But having trust is so much bigger.”

Love is unconditional; trust is not. They say that to cultivate and keep trust, you have to avoid so-called “deal breakers.”

“If you violate emotional, physical, spiritual…those kinds of things are deal breakers.” It usually comes down to physical abuse or emotional abuse.”

Other deal breakers are using alcohol, pot and other substances that might play a large role in some of the lives of these kids. This is a clean home – they don’t even drink a glass of wine at dinner.

“So, they’re able to see that kind of a lifestyle,” she said. “It’s a little different for them to experience that, and to learn how that kind of lifestyle is and to know that it isn’t accepted into their home.”

“What we don’t want to create is an environment where they have to be dishonest with us,”‘ said the host dad. “So, we really try to foster dialogue and an environment where they’re going to feel safe to talk with us. Some can’t handle it. Their substances are very important to them, so have to leave the house.”

And the program has some deal breakers, too. In order for the youth to qualify for the program, they have to be willing to set some goals of their own and work toward becoming independent.

Jessica Clark is the family resource center program manager of YAS. She meets with clients to make an individual plan. She says just setting goals helps a lot of people get on their feet.

“We’ve heard people say, I would like to be a rockstar,” said Clark. “When you’re working with youth, it’s really easy to be like, come on now, you’re homeless and you wanna be a rockstar. Let’s talk about reality. The reality is, if you start listing what you need to have in line and do to be a rockstar, you’ll find out that it’s a lot of the same job skills that you might need, minus maybe the music part.”

Just as each person’s life plan is individualized, so is the home placement. All different types of families take part in the program, and a lot of care is put into matching up the family and youth in a situation that they all feel good in.

“We always keep in touch with them,” said the host dad. “They call us up, they still come over. Even years later, the kids do. To say hello, wish us happy birthday. It’s like having older kids when you’re…I feel like an old man, because I’m going to my kid’s house…”

Youth Advocates of Sitka was recognized by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in its Housing and Outreach Strategies for Rural Youth, Best Practices from the Rural Youth Survey.  YAS is one of 91 organizations across 42 states that provides services to homeless youth, and has been asked to present at a national conference in Washington, DC about its host home program.