Municipality Plans to Launch Rehab and Repair Program for Some Anchorage Homes
One Community Update
March 10, 2026
Source: Yahoo! News
A new city program could eventually offer cash that low-income homeowners can use to cover pricey home repairs, and incentives to builders wanting to convert vacant or aging properties into new rentals.
While the new residential rehab program is not yet fully developed, city officials say it is intended to help Mayor Suzanne LaFrance meet her target of creating 10,000 homes in 10 years.
The municipality is pursuing new builds and larger housing developments to meet a portion of that goal. The other half of that number must come from existing homes in need of rehabilitation, said Thea Agnew Bemben, a special assistant to the mayor who focuses on housing policy. Much of Anchorage’s housing stock, constructed in the ’80s and ’90s, is aging and needs “significant renovation or repair,” she said.
The housing rehab program addresses the need to preserve existing housing in addition to building new units, often a more costly alternative. The Anchorage Health Department plans to launch the program with $700,000 in reallocated federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The money comes from projects that either didn’t move forward or came in under budget, Jedediah Drolet, a community systems program manager in the Anchorage Health Department, said during a Housing, Homeless and Neighborhood Development Commission meeting earlier this month.
To shift the money into the new program, the municipality went through a 30-day public comment period that closed March 6, and must receive approval from the Anchorage Assembly. The Assembly is scheduled to review the details at its next meeting on March 24. The hope is to launch the program this summer, Drolet said.
Recent changes to Anchorage’s zoning code have created new opportunities for landowners to add new units to their property, Agnew Bemben said. Some of the adjustments made it easier to build smaller, more affordable kinds of housing, such as mobile homes, multi-family apartments and townhomes and accessory dwelling units.
The “target group” for the new residential rehab program is residents interested in small-scale development who may not have enough money for a project to pencil out, she said. Residents could use funding to convert a vacant home into a rental duplex or add an accessory dwelling unit.
“These folks have some assets, like some land, good intentions and maybe some access to financing, but they don’t necessarily know how to get through this process,” Agnew Bemben said.
Many of the program details, such as the funding structure, remain undecided, Drolet said. The municipality will likely split it into two tiers. The first will offer grants for smaller-scale home renovations, and the second for loans on larger housing projects, he said.
The health department plans to work with the code enforcement team to determine which properties are worth renovating and which are better off demolished, Drolet said. Contractors may help with project assessments and cost estimates. When the program launches, residents can submit applications for possible projects, but municipal staff may also refer properties that may be a good fit for the program, he said.
The health department last month got a call from an Anchorage homeowner in a pinch. After receiving a furnace replacement quote they couldn’t afford, the resident decided to use space heaters to warm the home, Drolet said. It’s a situation the new program could pay for, he said, and the type of repair that may help keep a resident in their home.
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