6 questions with Farina Brown, the Anchorage mayor’s new special assistant on homelessness

Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has tasked Farina Brown, special assistant in homelessness and health, with tackling some of the city’s most urgent and complex issues.

Brown started work in the new role last month, coming to the administration from the Rasmuson Foundation, where she oversaw its homelessness initiatives. Before that, Brown spent four years as deputy director of the state’s Division of Behavioral Health.

Brown is now at the helm of the administration’s homelessness and housing strategy and its winter sheltering plan, which relies largely on using hotels, referred to here as non-congregate sheltering.

She has a long history of working in community mental health and substance use treatment programs, including for Akeela Inc., and as a former executive director of the Alaska Mental Health Consumer Web, a nonprofit that offers computer access, support for recovery from substance abuse and mental health issues, housing and employment services, and peer mentoring.

She said working at The Web was a pivotal experience, giving her “boots on the ground” perspective as she oversaw a staff of “peers” — meaning staff who had either previously been homeless or received behavioral health services. Many knew clients from their time on the streets or in mental health institutions.

Part of her work as a manager was “ensuring people have a sense of dignity and respect and that voice as a peer in how we operate our services, and what their experience is in the community when people just see you as a nuisance or a problem, versus as a person,” she said.

[Anchorage lands on Henning as likely operator for winter homeless shelters in hotels]

Brown says she’s bringing lessons from that work to the mayor’s office.

“All of the work that I’ve always done — it’s not individual. You have to have a team of people. You have to have partners and collaborations,” Brown said.

The Daily News sat down with Brown to learn more about her approach to shelter, housing and homelessness policy, including how the city handles encampments. Her answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

ADN: What are your main goals for the next three years?

Brown: To ensure that we have a safety net of services. So, ensuring that we have congregate and non-congregate beds (hotel rooms) available for anyone (who is) experiencing homelessness and (needs) somewhere to go right now — including case management and navigation services. We often talk about just ensuring that people have a place to go — and that’s great — but that doesn’t create opportunities for individuals if no one is talking to (them) or helping link (them) to services. ...

We are not going to see individuals move through the continuum if no one’s talking to me about, “Hey, maybe today, do you want to think about treatment?” Sometimes people just need a little assistance to get employment, to get connected. Like, “Let me give you that warm introduction to someone that’s willing to give you a second chance.”

I don’t expect to see in three years we’ve solved homelessness. But in three years, you can see the incremental change that’s been made, that creates consistency in Anchorage so that our providers know — hey, these services are going to be available. Individuals that are seeking those services know consistently they’re going to be available.

ADN: Will there be enough shelter available this winter for everyone currently living unsheltered in Anchorage?

Brown: We are anticipating that there are 450 to 500 people that will seek shelter this winter, and we are anticipating standing up 500 non-congregate beds, scattered-site, in addition to the 200 shelter beds that we have at 56th Avenue. The current congregate shelter is at capacity, so really, having those non-congregate sites is absolutely essential.

Based on the (Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness’s) data, we know that there (are) roughly about 300 people that don’t seek shelter during the winter, and so we are working on a plan to also stand up warming centers so that those folks have somewhere to go when the temperatures drop.

ADN: What do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions about homelessness in Anchorage?

Brown: I think the biggest one is that everyone you see outside is homeless. There’s a gentleman, and I see him all the time from The Web. And I stopped and I was talking to him, and I was like, “Well, what are you doing here?”

He was like, “Oh, I live over here.”

And I was like, “Oh. Are you serious?” I was like, “Why do I always see you in Midtown?”

He was like, “Farina ... That’s where everybody is.”

For him, it’s social. When things get uncomfortable, when it gets too cold, or when he’s hungry, he’ll go home. And I think that’s hard for people to understand — that not everyone you see outside is actually experiencing homelessness, that there are a lot of people there because that’s their social connection.

The other, I think, very strongly held misconception is that individuals that are homeless are there by choice. There’s a deep lack of education and understanding about the complexity of homelessness and how individuals land in that position, how so many people are on the cusp. And it only takes that little, you know, one missed paycheck, and now your family is couch surfing, and from couch surfing, now you’re in your car. From in your car, you’re literally on the street.

The other element is, that we have not genuinely talked about the impacts of the opioid epidemic, which still continues to impact so many people. And the reason that I really harp on navigation and case management is people need access to treatment. If you get someone inside, that’s your time to build that relationship and say, “How do we start to get you connected?” And then having someone that will say, “Yes, I can take you (to treatment) right now.”

Because fentanyl, opioids, meth — all of these things are still a major impact in our community, and they have been for the last four years, five years or so. And that has and continues to play a huge role in what people visibly see.

We have to understand that there are so many contributing factors that will keep someone in that place, and how do we do a better job of recognizing multiple solutions?

[An Anchorage program is moving scores of people from shelters and camps into housing]

ADN: One of the action items in the administration’s draft health and homelessness strategy is to “reduce racial disparities in access to shelter and housing.” What are some of the strategies or steps you think the city could take in order to begin addressing these disparities?

Brown: I think we’ve taken the first step, which is acknowledging the disparity, and then from there — and you’ll hear me say this often — this is really around collaboration. And there is no singular solution that I’m going to bring forward and say, “This is the thing.” But the first thing that we have to do — and that we have done, and I’m grateful to the mayor for — let’s acknowledge that there’s a disproportionate group of individuals that are experiencing homelessness.

And then how do we bring partners together? Let’s look at the data, and let’s try to walk back and understand — why do we see that?

When you can’t acknowledge a thing, you can’t address a thing. I think we’ve taken a really big first step, and from here it is, how do we bring partners together, and then how do we use data best practices to make a difference?

ADN: Since the Supreme Court decision allowing cities to enforce camping bans, we’ve seen cities in the Lower 48 — San Francisco, for example — take aggressive action to move unsheltered people out of public spaces. Anchorage has taken a different approach. Can you describe that approach, and why you’re taking it?

Brown: We want to be incredibly respectful for both our unhoused neighbors as well as the communities that are hosting our unhoused neighbors. We have to be very truthful that we have campers that are absolutely engaging in criminal activity and making communities unsafe — and within those camps, we also have vulnerable people that are being victimized, because they are unsheltered, because they have nowhere else to go.

So, being thoughtful around — how do we understand what that community is experiencing? But also, when we abate a camp, where are those individuals going? We know the (56th Avenue) shelter is at capacity, so engaging and using our outreach partners in advance and as much as possible to link people to resources, that want those resources, while helping the community to feel heard and to address where there’s criminal activity.

It’s a very hard conversation to have because we fully recognize that we are displacing people. But we also know that is unfair for a community that, you know, kiddos can’t walk to school, where people feel like they are unsafe in their own neighborhoods. So it’s a twofold issue of ensuring that we can get outreach out there to link people to services, and then partnering with our community action police to engage. ...

(This month) we launched the (police department’s) HOPE Team. The HOPE Team has been able to go out — in advance of even being launched publicly — to engage in these camps where we know there’s more criminal activity that’s occurring. And just doing some of that boots on the ground and being proactive around, you know, “This camp is going to be abated. Look at the proximity you are to a school. Hey, this is a neighborhood where kids are walking to school ... This is not the place where you can stay.”

ADN: What would your message be to Anchorage residents and businesses who are frustrated about encampments along trails and in public places, and can they expect to see something different next spring and summer?

Brown: I completely understand the frustration for our trails. Alaska is a beautiful place that people want to be outside. People move here, live here and thrive here because they want to be outdoors. And so how do we ensure that everyday citizens, hikers, bikers, walkers, all have the ability to go out and enjoy the beauty of Alaska, while also recognizing that there are going to be individuals who are unhoused? ...

Our goal is to ensure that we are not setting up ourselves this winter for everyone to leave shelter and then be on the street. We’ve talked about, in our strategy document, looking at safe parking, making sure that we are creating a year-round congregate shelter and smaller, target-specific, population-specific congregate shelter so that we’re creating movement in the system, where someone can actually go into an apartment if there’s permanent supportive housing. But then also, are there other shelter sites that we can move people to give them some level of stability?

I have to be as transparent as possible. We know that there is not enough housing that everyone that will go into congregate or non-congregate will be able to go into housing, and (recognize) that not everyone wants to be sheltered. People will go inside because it’s winter, and then they will want to go back outside.

So, acknowledging that, how do we reduce the number of people that, at the end of the winter, will return to being unsheltered? But also acknowledging that there will be some people that (make that) choice. But ensuring that there are options for them, and where they can go, and being clearer around, these are our priorities when we’re thinking about abatement. I think as much transparency as we can have, not just for communities, but our unhoused neighbors, is the best thing that we can do.