Travis Hedwig: co-editor of Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North; Alexis Johnson: Anchorage's housing and homelessness coordinator

Dr. Travis Hedwig is the assistant dean of the division of population health sciences at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. He is co-editor of a forthcoming book entitled Housing, Homelessness, and Social Policy in the Urban North. The book brings together leading scholars from Alaska, the Canadian north, and Greenland who examine the factors contributing to our housing and homelessness issues and how to develop policies that respond to our northern realities. Travis was an instrumental researcher in Anchorage’s early foray into Housing First policy with Karluk Manor. Karluk Manor was Anchorage’s first permanent housing project that did not require any level of sobriety for the chronically unhoused individuals that were chosen to stay there. Although that project was met with fierce community resistance, now over ten years later, it is seen as a great success and guides our commitment to Housing First policy.

Alexis Johnson, Anchorage’s housing and homelessness coordinator, joins us to discuss the municipality's emergency cold weather shelter plan for this coming winter.