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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Outlaws podcast.

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Speaker 3: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 2: So, Tracy, I get why, like a city like New

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Speaker 2: York City, it's housing is really expensive. It's really difficult

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Speaker 2: to build. I mean, there's not a lot of space

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Speaker 2: right in New York City. Like, I don't really blame

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Speaker 2: New York City for not building a lot of new housing,

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Speaker 2: Like where would you put it exactly right?

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Speaker 3: Manhattan is an island, seems somewhat limited. Plus it has

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Speaker 3: a giant park taking up a good chunk of it.

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Speaker 2: So what's that It seems NIMBYs are keeping it so

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Speaker 2: that we can't develop on a central park. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: like I sort of get my housing is really strand

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Speaker 2: in New York City. I don't blame anyone really for it,

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Speaker 2: but it always seems like in the more rural locations,

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Speaker 2: especially where there's not a lot of population growth, it

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Speaker 2: should be really easy to you know, just build more

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Speaker 2: houses or you know, use the houses that people left

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Speaker 2: when they moved. And yet our impression is from past trips,

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Speaker 2: et cetera, that there's a lot of strand on rural

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Speaker 2: housing as well.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So we've done a few field trips to

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Speaker 3: places like North Carolina and we learn that even in

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Speaker 3: an area that certainly is not as densely populated as Manhattan,

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Speaker 3: there are housing issues. And now we are up here

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Speaker 3: in Alaska, which you know, if there's one thing I

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Speaker 3: know about Alaska, it's that it is big. It's big,

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Speaker 3: but twice the size of Texas. Is that the stat that.

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Speaker 2: People do think like that, it's incredible, something like that,

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Speaker 2: There's got to be some empty space to build houses,

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Speaker 2: you would.

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Speaker 3: Think, right, And yet we're up here and one of

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Speaker 3: the things that people keep talking about over and over

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Speaker 3: again is this idea of housing strains within Alaska in

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Speaker 3: Anchorage too, which is where we are right now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, and we have heard that multiple times. And

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Speaker 2: so whatever the issue is that sort of the story

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Speaker 2: that we tell about Manhattan, there must be something more

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Speaker 2: to it, because it's not just a man or of

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Speaker 2: no space, because even places that are swimming in space

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Speaker 2: have strands, and so I want to understand what that is.

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Speaker 2: We've been up in Alaska. Listeners will remember our episode

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Speaker 2: we did with Mary Daily and maybe some other ones

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Speaker 2: that came out by the time this episode is coming out.

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Speaker 2: But there's no way to understand a state without understanding

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Speaker 2: its housing economy.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely not, and also just because it's Alaska. The other

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Speaker 3: thing I'm really interested in, and I think you might

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Speaker 3: be interested in it too as a relatively new homeowner,

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Speaker 3: is just the idea of maintenance on a house in Alaska.

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Speaker 3: It must be insane, right, Like, imagine how often you're

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Speaker 3: replacing a roof in a place like that gets like,

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Speaker 3: you know, feet and feet and feet of snowfall every year.

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Speaker 2: No, totally, all right, Well, we do, in fact have

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Speaker 2: the perfect guests. We are at the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation.

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Speaker 2: We're going to be speaking with Jimmy ord He is

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Speaker 2: the director of Research and Rural Development, as well as

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Speaker 2: Daniel Delfino, director of Planning and program Development. So Jimmy

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Speaker 2: and Daniel, thank you so much for coming on odd Lots.

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Speaker 4: Oh, thank you. This is Daniel. It's nice to be here.

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Speaker 4: We appreciate the invitation to chat with your highly sophisticated group.

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Speaker 5: This is Jimmy, happy to be here.

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Speaker 2: Well, thank you both for having us at your office.

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Speaker 2: What are you just for listeners? What do you do.

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Speaker 2: And what is the Alaska Housing Finance.

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Speaker 5: Corporation Alaska's in fliance corporation. This is Jimmy. We are

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Speaker 5: an organization that addresses safe, quality, affordable housing in Alaska.

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Speaker 5: That's our mission. In the early nineties in the state

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Speaker 5: of Alaska, they took the different housing departments and the

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Speaker 5: Housing Finance Agency and they put them under one roof.

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Speaker 5: So in many other states you can have housing departments

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Speaker 5: maybe in the Department of Commerce, or under revenue or

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Speaker 5: under some other function of the state where we get

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Speaker 5: to walk across the hall and talk to our counterparts

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Speaker 5: in the mortgage department or the finance department, public Housing division.

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Speaker 5: So we're an organization that is all things housing in

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Speaker 5: the spate of Alaska. It's really helped with collaboration and

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Speaker 5: getting programs and services out the door.

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Speaker 3: So Joe and I tried to do this in the

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Speaker 3: intro a little bit, But why don't you contextualize for

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Speaker 3: us what are the actual housing issues in the state

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Speaker 3: of Alaska. How would you describe some of the problems

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Speaker 3: that you're trying to solve.

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Speaker 4: So there are a lot you said earlier, go into

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Speaker 4: the details. The housing issues used to be a lot

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Speaker 4: simpler when I started in two thousand and eight. It's

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Speaker 4: kind of like the algebra problems that evolve the more

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Speaker 4: Matthew take.

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Speaker 2: You solve for C.

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Speaker 4: And you're only dealing with one unknown variable, and you're

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Speaker 4: able to triangulate that and solve it pretty simply. And

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Speaker 4: it's like, Okay, now you have two unknone variables, and

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Speaker 4: you use a substitution rule, and now you get up

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Speaker 4: to three or four unknown variables, and now all of

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Speaker 4: a sudden you have to start using one of your

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Speaker 4: equations and it just gets to this level of complexity

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Speaker 4: where you need a computer. And that's kind of what

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Speaker 4: we're dealing with in terms of the issues as they've

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Speaker 4: kind of emerged over the state. We have some places

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Speaker 4: that are dealing with population grain. We have some places

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Speaker 4: that are dealing with an aging contracting base where the

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Speaker 4: people are retiring and there's no new people coming up

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Speaker 4: behind them. We have other communities that are struggling with

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Speaker 4: the cost of housing development. I mean, you mentioned the

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Speaker 4: cost of housing and the intro There are a lot

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Speaker 4: of things that drive housing costs and housing Cholen just

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Speaker 4: guess and we'll get into here. But they have the

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Speaker 4: housing stock itself when I started, it used to be

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Speaker 4: you had apartments, you had houses, and you had hotels.

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Speaker 4: Now all the three things are effectively linked thanks to

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Speaker 4: the emergence of vacation renals and a lot of our

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Speaker 4: communities where the hospitality industry is now inextricably linked to

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Speaker 4: the housing industry because you have inventory that is taking

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Speaker 4: a multipurpose nature throughout the year. So there are a

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Speaker 4: lot of things moving all at once. And the old

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Speaker 4: days of being able to focus on one or two

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Speaker 4: issues and try and understand how it's affecting the housing

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Speaker 4: market at large, those are largely gone, and we're left

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Speaker 4: in this layer of complexity that's very difficult to conceptualize

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Speaker 4: and even harder to communicate to other people but that

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Speaker 4: don't live and breathe this stuff.

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Speaker 5: And adding to that, Daniel, I just want to make

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Speaker 5: sure folks understand the vastness of the state of Alaska.

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Speaker 5: Like you talked about there in the introduction, Imagine a

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Speaker 5: state where you can get on a plane and fly

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Speaker 5: three hours west and still be in Alaska, Okay. So

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Speaker 5: there's so much in this state that is going to

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Speaker 5: be varied because of the location and the community. And

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Speaker 5: you have communities in rural Alaska that have several dozen

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Speaker 5: people in them and they still need housing and services,

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Speaker 5: and the cost to make sure that they have safe, quality,

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Speaker 5: affordable housing is going to be extreme. So they have

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Speaker 5: to ensure that the housing that they're building is appropriate

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Speaker 5: for that space and climate. Now, if you were going

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Speaker 5: to start in southeast Alaska and you wanted to travel

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Speaker 5: to the North Slope, you're going to leave a wet rainforest,

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Speaker 5: marine climate and you're going to head to the North Slope,

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Speaker 5: which is up in Nukyavik area, and you're going to

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Speaker 5: see extreme temperature changes from fifty to sixty foos zero,

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Speaker 5: you know, to fifty sixty degrees fahrenheit above freezing, you know.

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Speaker 5: So it's quite a state, and when you're thinking of

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Speaker 5: housing in that space, it's not a magic silver bullet.

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Speaker 4: One of the things that you'll find as you go

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Speaker 4: on this journey from Southeast Alasta up to Uktyavik is

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Speaker 4: if you flip a coin, probably about half of the

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Speaker 4: merchants that you find online that you may take for

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Speaker 4: granted on Amazon won't ship to you in Alaska. So,

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Speaker 4: when you talked about some of the housing challenges, people

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Speaker 4: don't all do business in Alaska, and those that do

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Speaker 4: tend to charge us gouging prices to get things up here.

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Speaker 4: Jimmy mentioned flying three hours to western Alaska to get

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Speaker 4: to one of the communities. We did that last year

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Speaker 4: for a board meeting. And when you get to that place,

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Speaker 4: when you go down the runway, you see a plane

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Speaker 4: off to the side of the runway and it's a

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Speaker 4: plane that broke down that just stayed there. There are

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Speaker 4: things in that harbor that have rusted out because they

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Speaker 4: don't they don't come out and pick them up. I mean,

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Speaker 4: there are certain things that people take for granted, like

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Speaker 4: a shipping services that you're going to be able to

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Speaker 4: get new parts in, You're going to be able to

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Speaker 4: take things away that are dilapidated in your community. That

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Speaker 4: aren't a reality for a lot of the people that

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Speaker 4: we work with in this state. A lot of our neighbors,

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Speaker 4: especially in the places off the road system, which is

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Speaker 4: the majority of our communities, don't have a lot of

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Speaker 4: the things that most people take for granted.

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Speaker 2: So, never having been there, I can only imagine the

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Speaker 2: sort of weirdness and difficulties of trying to, you know,

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Speaker 2: commerce in housing, et cetera. In some of these extreme,

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Speaker 2: far flung locations. Let's just start though, with like the

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Speaker 2: relatively major urban centers. You know, we're in Anchorage right now,

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Speaker 2: the biggest city in the state. Like, what's happened on

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Speaker 2: the affordability front here and what's happened on the construction

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Speaker 2: front here over the last several years.

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Speaker 4: Sure, so I take a shot this one on affordability.

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Speaker 4: I've seen a bifurcation in the market. The interest rates

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Speaker 4: a couple of years ago were down in the twos

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Speaker 4: for people that wanted to refinance, and the homeowner market

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Speaker 4: was going gangbusters, and the prices when interest rates were

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Speaker 4: low reflected that there was a huge price acceleration in

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Speaker 4: the cost of homes. Fast forward to now. Instead of

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Speaker 4: at two percent interest rate, I think our rate that

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Speaker 4: we publish for first time home buyers on our website

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Speaker 4: checked it this morning at six point two percent. So

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Speaker 4: a couple of years ago things were much cheaper. Same

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Speaker 4: thing for renters, cheaper for renters. It's just the growth rates.

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Speaker 4: When I talk about the lines going up at different

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Speaker 4: angles homeowners and Anchorage, the cost has gone up by

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Speaker 4: over sixty percent in the last couple of years. Versus

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Speaker 4: close to thirty percent for renters, So both have it bad,

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Speaker 4: it's just one one has a much steeper curve. So

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Speaker 4: what we're seeing is a lot of folks could not

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Speaker 4: afford to buy their own home again at today's interest rates,

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Speaker 4: and that's affecting their willingness to sell them because they

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Speaker 4: can't afford to buy something new in another community or

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Speaker 4: even within the same community at the interust rates that

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Speaker 4: they charge. So you have folks that are maybe stuck

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Speaker 4: or less mobile in homes that are really expensive. Now

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Speaker 4: you have renters that don't have people freeing up a

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Speaker 4: home ownership sock. So it's getting a little bit more

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Speaker 4: congested there. And a lot of things are moving in

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Speaker 4: terms of the development. The inflation chaos that we were

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Speaker 4: seeing in the construction industry where no one would do

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Speaker 4: guaranteed maximum price contract anymore and it was all time

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Speaker 4: and materials. Some of that craziness in terms of the

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Speaker 4: escalations that we're seeing year of year, like twenty thirty percent,

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Speaker 4: that seems to have died down. It's still expensive, don't

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Speaker 4: get me wrong, but that's moderated a little bit. What

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Speaker 4: hasn't changed is the availability of land. I mean you

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Speaker 4: look around and you see, Wow, you're huge. You see

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Speaker 4: we bragle all the time, where twice of as big

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Speaker 4: as Texas. Why can't you build housing everywhere? Well, the

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Speaker 4: land here isn't the easiest to build on. Like you

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Speaker 4: can look at a hill and it will be considered

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Speaker 4: a federal wetland because there will be a specific type

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Speaker 4: of plant that's on the side of the hill, or

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Speaker 4: the hill is owned by the federal government or some

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Speaker 4: other entities. So what you see versus what's available to develop.

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Speaker 4: There can be a disconnect in some communities. And Anchorage

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Speaker 4: is one of our older communities, so it's been built

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Speaker 4: out with a lot of the easy and the good

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Speaker 4: land taken first. There are other places to build outside

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Speaker 4: of Anchorage, and we do see that sprawling a little

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Speaker 4: bit more outside of the main community. But for the

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Speaker 4: communities that have been developing for twenty or thirty years,

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Speaker 4: they're starting to reach the more mature stage where they're

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Speaker 4: running into the harder things to develop given what's left.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, So what I hear you saying, Daniel, is that

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Speaker 5: in many ways Anchorage is somewhat similar to other larger

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Speaker 5: communities throughout the country where they're facing cost of construction,

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Speaker 5: labor shortage is.

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Speaker 3: The lock and effect.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, but I still prefer to live here.

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Speaker 3: Okay. One thing that I know is unusual about Alaska

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Speaker 3: and Anchorage specifically, is that you have a large turnover

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Speaker 3: of the population. Right you have a lot of people

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Speaker 3: who are leaving every year, and you have a lot

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Speaker 3: of people who are coming in. And on the whole,

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Speaker 3: you have seen I think a slight maybe not for

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Speaker 3: Anchorage per se. You'll have to correct me, but there's

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Speaker 3: been an overall population decline in the state for sure.

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Speaker 3: How does that turnover in the population and the idea

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Speaker 3: that you know, for the most part you have seen

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Speaker 3: a decline in total numbers, How does that feed into

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Speaker 3: the housing situation?

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Speaker 4: Not the way that you might think. Okay, So in

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Speaker 4: twenty ten, shually after I started, we were talking about

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Speaker 4: a housing plan here and Anchorage, and there were projections

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Speaker 4: that Anchorage was going to grow. As far as I

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Speaker 4: could see, We're going to have all these people coming in.

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Speaker 4: Six years later, the population peaked and then it started falling.

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Speaker 4: So it's like, okay, we peaked in twenty sixteen, and

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Speaker 4: then we started going down to a base around twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty twenty one, and then we start coming back up.

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Speaker 4: So we have about two thousand more people now in

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Speaker 4: the last recorded population year than we did in twenty sixteen. Well,

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Speaker 4: the vacancies have gone up, and it's when we see

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Speaker 4: that people leave, you would expect, Okay, the vacancy rates

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Speaker 4: should go up, right, That's not happening. So it's like

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Speaker 4: some of the things when I talked earlier about you

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Speaker 4: used to have one variable or two variables explaining things,

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Speaker 4: and now we have a sort of multipurpose inventory. Why

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Speaker 4: is that there are people? To me a huge question

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Speaker 4: are people changing their living arrangements? Do we have housing stock?

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Speaker 4: Because I mean, if you go from the supplying demand,

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Speaker 4: if you reduce the supply, you can you can get

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Speaker 4: back to a tighter vacancy rate by doing that, even

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Speaker 4: if the demand is falling. I don't know if that's happening.

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Speaker 4: We're trying to track the vacation rental data as best

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Speaker 4: we can. We go through a company. I don't want

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Speaker 4: to name a company in case I guess meant some

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Speaker 4: commercial issue here, but we get proprietary reports where we

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Speaker 4: track the growth in vacation rental listings across the state,

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Speaker 4: and we see that those have gone up, They've almost

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Speaker 4: doubled since I want to say, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen

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Speaker 4: when we started tracking them. Is that just the data

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Speaker 4: set being completed, or is that legitimate growth? I mean,

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Speaker 4: these are questions that we're asking because these are new issues.

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Speaker 4: If it's legitimate growth, and the vacation rental stock did

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Speaker 4: actually double, and now we're looking at seven thousands that

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Speaker 4: have come online across the state in the last couple

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Speaker 4: of years, that's a big number. If that's just counting

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Speaker 4: what the data set wasn't recording in the earlier years,

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Speaker 4: then I don't know. So we're seeing a lot of

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Speaker 4: these things that offer explanations, but there's still such new

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Speaker 4: issues in the data and in housing in general that

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Speaker 4: we're really reluctant to come out forward and say determined skill,

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Speaker 4: Yes it's this, Yes it's that. But we do see

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Speaker 4: things that don't make sense because usually housing is a

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Speaker 4: function of people. If you have less people, you should

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Speaker 4: probably be less housing, and that's not what we're seeing

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Speaker 4: in the data.

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Speaker 3: And so Joe, it's unironically our fault as some of

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Speaker 3: the visitors coming to inncreation in hotels though, Yeah, okay,

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Speaker 3: but we might go to Aridamba later this weekend.

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Speaker 2: That's true.

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Speaker 4: I'm sorry, seven thirty nine for the state and a

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Speaker 4: couple of years ago, and now we're at seven forty one. Yeah,

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Speaker 4: so two thousand more people.

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Speaker 5: I came to Alaska in the late nineties, and I

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Speaker 5: feel that that was the number back then. It just

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Speaker 5: it just hasn't really changed that much. And so to

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Speaker 5: your point, Tracy, where you have people moving to the state,

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Speaker 5: they work for a period of time and then and

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Speaker 5: then they move out. You know, they've they've kind of come,

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Speaker 5: they've experienced the wildness of Alaska, and then they're moving

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Speaker 5: on to do a different things.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, and we used to be a countercyclical state and

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Speaker 4: that the people would come up here when there was

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Speaker 4: a downturn in the Lower forty eight as we refer

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Speaker 4: to the rest of the country.

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Speaker 2: We've probably heard the term lower forty eight more in

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Speaker 2: the last three or four days.

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Speaker 4: They had not a pejorative. It's just a geographical distinction

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Speaker 4: where we are.

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Speaker 3: No one calls Alaska the like Upper one.

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Speaker 2: The Upper one, the forty nine state.

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Speaker 4: That would sound elitas.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So my other question in terms of housing stock

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Speaker 3: in a place like Anchorage. Was just how much is

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Speaker 3: lost through like sheer attrition, I guess, and like depreciation depreciation,

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Speaker 3: And I could kind of I could see arguing this

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Speaker 3: both ways. So on the one hand, because construction costs

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Speaker 3: are so high here, if you have a house, even

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Speaker 3: if it's aging and falling apart, you probably want to

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Speaker 3: hold on to it, try to fix it up and

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Speaker 3: keep it. But on the other hand, just looking at

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Speaker 3: the environment here, just looking at the weather, you must

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Speaker 3: have rapidly, rapidly depreciating housing stock.

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Speaker 5: That's one of the biggest challenges that Anchorage housing faces

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Speaker 5: is its resilience. Most of the housing and Anchorage was

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Speaker 5: built during the seventies and eighties when Alaska. You may

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Speaker 5: have heard of this thing called the Alaska Pipeline, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 5: And a lot of the housing was thrown up with

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Speaker 5: two by four construction based on construction techniques and practices

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Speaker 5: that were appropriate for somewhere down south. How's that for

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Speaker 5: not saying lore for you? And what that means is.

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Speaker 2: We're this third part of the United States here, and

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Speaker 2: when we go back to New York, the housing's really

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Speaker 2: not built appropriately for this climate. I mean it was

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Speaker 2: built where you don't have a consideration for the long

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Speaker 2: term sustainability and resilience of that housing. So we find

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Speaker 2: ourselves in a situation where when people come in and

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Speaker 2: they're a homeowner to a new house, they have to

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Speaker 2: spend a lot of their resources improving that existing house because,

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Speaker 2: like Daniel said, we don't have that much land to

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Speaker 2: build in new places in the Anchorage area, So a

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Speaker 2: lot of what we have to do is fix the

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Speaker 2: current housing stock that we do have. So an investment

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Speaker 2: in energy efficiency installation, making sure you have an appropriate

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Speaker 2: heating system, making sure that the windows and doors are

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Speaker 2: in the right place is what we focus our time

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Speaker 2: and effort on to make sure that a housing is appropriate.

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Speaker 2: Can we talk a little bit more about this essentially

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Speaker 2: supply side, like how many active developers are there in

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Speaker 2: terms of like companies that do housing development, and then

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Speaker 2: the specific supply chain constraints that the inherent nature of

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Speaker 2: Alaska poses to construction and repair.

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Speaker 4: Sure, so I'll take a shot at this the development community.

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Speaker 4: It's a very dangerous thing for a person like me

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Speaker 4: that works in US or a quasi government agency to

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Speaker 4: try and speculate about the true population developers because There

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Speaker 4: are all kinds of people that I don't talk to

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Speaker 4: that do very important things in the state. We operate

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Speaker 4: about ten different housing programs that build or buy things

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Speaker 4: that people will live in that's consistent with their mission

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Speaker 4: across the state. We have roughly seventy partners that we

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Speaker 4: work with across the state that are various nonprofits. Will

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Speaker 4: have maybe thirty or forty different developments going on at

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Speaker 4: an't given time across the state. So I mean, is

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Speaker 4: it ten, is it twenty? It depends on the year.

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Speaker 4: And what are we talking about? Are we talking about

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Speaker 4: people that work with government money like the lowcome Housing

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Speaker 4: tax credit program or grants or are we talking about

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Speaker 4: individual home builders. Is it a person who's building a

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Speaker 4: multiplex downtown that it's going to be an eight figure

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Speaker 4: development or more, or is it a person who's building

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Speaker 4: a duplex? So who's a developer? It's sort of a

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Speaker 4: loaded question, sort of like when people ask us how

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Speaker 4: much does it cost to develop per door? When we're

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Speaker 4: reporting what we're doing on the public side with building

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Speaker 4: housing in its we're looking at a complete budget. So

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Speaker 4: when we say it costs three hundred and fifty thousand

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Speaker 4: dollars a door to deliver new housing to a community

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Speaker 4: in the state. We're talking about the cost of acquisition,

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Speaker 4: the cost of construction, paying an architect, picking a developer fee,

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Speaker 4: all these other things. If you're talking to a contractor

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Speaker 4: who might also consider themselves a developer, they might just

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Speaker 4: be reporting the vertical construction costs and they're keeping things off.

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Speaker 4: So the language when we define these terms really affects

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Speaker 4: the answer. So the developers that we work i'd say

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Speaker 4: about ten to twenty work with our agency to develop

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Speaker 4: multi family housing through our grant programs. There are a

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Speaker 4: ton of people that build housing all across the state

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Speaker 4: that I think would equally be called developers by other people,

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Speaker 4: including their banks and their community partners. So it really

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Speaker 4: depends on who you talk to.

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Speaker 3: So just on this note, I take the point about

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Speaker 3: permitting and where you're building in a place like Anchorage,

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Speaker 3: but talk a little bit more about what the constraints

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Speaker 3: actually are on new construction. So there's the high cost

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Speaker 3: of materials, I imagine, there's probably labor, and in many respects,

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Speaker 3: you know, if you're building residential in a place like Anchorage,

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Speaker 3: you might be competing for contractors with I don't know

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Speaker 3: an oil and gas company that's probably paying more money

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Speaker 3: for them to build something else. So what exactly are

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Speaker 3: the exact constraints, you know, whether it's materials, construction, labor, permitting,

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Speaker 3: land availability, finance, how would you describe those?

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Speaker 4: Sure, so there's you said to get technical. So Cobb Douglas,

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Speaker 4: do you remember the production function from economics class where

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Speaker 4: like what you can do as a function of labor

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Speaker 4: and capital, right, there's also something that involves technology that

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Speaker 4: transforms that curve. So there are labor inputs, there are

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Speaker 4: capital inputs in terms of money, but it's also what

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Speaker 4: you do with technology and the system behind it. So

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Speaker 4: your question about development constraints, it is part labor, it

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Speaker 4: is part capital, it is part logistics. Because these are

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Speaker 4: huge issues. But with the aging sort of group of

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Speaker 4: people that we have that are starting to retire and

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Speaker 4: the people that are spread out all across the different

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Speaker 4: our flung reaches of Alaska, the capacity is as much

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Speaker 4: of a constraint for a lot of these folks. And

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Speaker 4: this is something I think Jimmy's team works with our

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Speaker 4: partners a lot on as well. The capacity is as

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Speaker 4: much of an issue to some of them as funding

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Speaker 4: or construction materials. Because we can put money out there,

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Speaker 4: there can be resources to build housing, but if no

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Speaker 4: one knows how to do anything with it, that can

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Speaker 4: stop a community from actually developing housing. So that's one

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Speaker 4: of the things that we've been doing with some of

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Speaker 4: our development initiatives is not just coming forward with some

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Speaker 4: of the needed things like money or some of the

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Speaker 4: other better resources, but saying, hey, we know some of

436
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,320
Speaker 4: the things that maybe your community doesn't. Because in addition

437
00:21:57,359 --> 00:22:00,439
Speaker 4: to being spread out community wise, our skill base as

438
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:03,360
Speaker 4: a state is also spread out. We have people all

439
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 4: over the state who understand things. There are people who

440
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,360
Speaker 4: are great at procurement that are located off the road

441
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,679
Speaker 4: system that don't have running water. There are people that

442
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 4: understand finance. You'll find stand for grads in some of

443
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:16,120
Speaker 4: these communities. But you need to put together a team

444
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 4: of people that understand a lot of things to make

445
00:22:18,080 --> 00:22:21,200
Speaker 4: housing happen. So when we see that they have three

446
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:22,960
Speaker 4: of the five things that they need to make a

447
00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 4: housing development move forward, there may be the missing two

448
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:28,000
Speaker 4: things that we have that we need to bring into

449
00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 4: the community. That's as much a part of the development

450
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:32,479
Speaker 4: equation as capital is.

451
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, Daniel, I think that speaks to Alaska's and finance

452
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:40,960
Speaker 5: corporations partnerships with a lot of entities in the states.

453
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:43,560
Speaker 5: You know, I think of the Alaska Association of the

454
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 5: Housing Authorities. It's a fourteen member organization of different regional

455
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 5: housing authorities in the state, and you know how we're

456
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 5: able to communicate with them and bring additional resources to

457
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 5: bear so that we can be in this together, right

458
00:22:58,080 --> 00:23:00,680
Speaker 5: because like I said earlier, there's there's no magic bull.

459
00:23:00,800 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 5: There's no one size fits all, and you know, to

460
00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 5: be effective, you have to provide that assistance as a

461
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 5: team member.

462
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:11,159
Speaker 2: I think there's just like a really interesting idea that like,

463
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 2: you know, in a place like New York City, like

464
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 2: of course, any new housing development is going to take

465
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 2: lots of people with lots of different skills, whether it's

466
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 2: the person who knows how to put in plumbing the

467
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:24,399
Speaker 2: electrical knows how to deal with permitting. And you know,

468
00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 2: I'm sure many of the big developers in New York

469
00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 2: City are like one stop shops or maybe it's a

470
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:32,440
Speaker 2: two stop shop or whatever. And the idea that in Alaska,

471
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,719
Speaker 2: like all that knowledge is there, but it's just so

472
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 2: spread out, so you don't have that sort of like

473
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 2: knowledge density or those network effects which we don't really

474
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 2: think of. I think a lot when it comes to housing,

475
00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:43,960
Speaker 2: but it's very intuitive when you talk about it in

476
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 2: this context and.

477
00:23:45,080 --> 00:23:47,280
Speaker 5: Think about right back to the population of the state.

478
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,480
Speaker 5: We still have to do all the same things. Yeah,

479
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 5: there's still all the same jobs. There's just over seven

480
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 5: hundred thousand people, right, But if you're in a place

481
00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,479
Speaker 5: like New York, there's millions of people to do the job, right.

482
00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,359
Speaker 5: So there's much greater opportunity here in the state for

483
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:06,359
Speaker 5: individuals to step into a role and learn new things,

484
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 5: but there's not as many of us to do the

485
00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 5: things that need to get done.

486
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 4: That's I think one of our strengths because there are

487
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 4: a lot of things that are challenging about building housing

488
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 4: in Alaska. But I'm trying to make it sound like

489
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 4: it's all doom and gloom. We have a lot of

490
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 4: things that do go for us.

491
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:20,720
Speaker 6: Well.

492
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 4: I was just in a fairly small community. It's a

493
00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 4: hub off the road system and the Mari Wason a

494
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 4: job site with us, and one of the carpenters referred

495
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 4: to they're affectionally and where probably HR wouldn't like, but

496
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 4: they're very jovial, and this selected leader runs a gift

497
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 4: shop in town and she's on a first name basis

498
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 4: with the contractor. She punched the utilities director in the

499
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:45,480
Speaker 4: arm when he got out of the truck. I mean

500
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:48,040
Speaker 4: they know each other when we go in with this

501
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 4: sort of connection where their neighbors and these are people

502
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 4: that live right next to each other, They're willing to

503
00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:55,399
Speaker 4: help each other in a way that I don't know.

504
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 4: If Mayor Adams has that relationship with carpenters in New

505
00:24:58,400 --> 00:24:59,920
Speaker 4: York City, I'm sure.

506
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 5: Would say.

507
00:25:02,520 --> 00:25:04,919
Speaker 2: What the nature of it is, we don't exactly know, but.

508
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 4: But they care and they are a lot more predisposed

509
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 4: to work with each other because they live in a

510
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 4: way that's probably difficult for people in major cities with

511
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:16,600
Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of people to understand the relationships between

512
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 4: the elected leaders that we may work with and the

513
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 4: people on the ground that are actually going to be

514
00:25:20,320 --> 00:25:22,439
Speaker 4: able to do the work. And that's what's made some

515
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 4: of the initiatives that we've been doing recently actually work,

516
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,159
Speaker 4: because these are people that actually know their neighbors and

517
00:25:28,200 --> 00:25:30,959
Speaker 4: they have a really vested, a joint vested interest as

518
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,120
Speaker 4: a community and making something happen. So that is one

519
00:25:33,119 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 4: of the things that we have a lot of challenges,

520
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:37,439
Speaker 4: but that's one of our greatest strengths when we go

521
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 4: into the communities is being able to leverage those relationships.

522
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 3: Just to hone in on this point, can you give

523
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 3: us an example of, you know, a project that you

524
00:26:00,320 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 3: did in I don't know, like a Sitka or something

525
00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:05,719
Speaker 3: like that, that you know where you were trying to

526
00:26:05,840 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 3: bring in the requisite skills or the requisite construction workers

527
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 3: and expertise in order to get something off the ground,

528
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,439
Speaker 3: and like, in excruciating detail, walk us through what that

529
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:17,679
Speaker 3: process actually looks like.

530
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:21,480
Speaker 4: Okay, So there are a lot of places in Alaska

531
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:26,240
Speaker 4: where housing is such a challenge that local employers have

532
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 4: resorted to actually building housing for their employees. State workers

533
00:26:30,240 --> 00:26:32,359
Speaker 4: don't really have that option because the state doesn't have

534
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 4: deep pockets like some of the big health client student

535
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,640
Speaker 4: to do all these other things like banks. So what

536
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 4: we started seeing was our executive director, Brian Butcher, was

537
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 4: reaching out to some of the other commissioners in the

538
00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,119
Speaker 4: state and they had positions that had been vacant for

539
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 4: a long time and they were in danger of losing

540
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 4: the positions because they had been vacant for so long

541
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:53,320
Speaker 4: because there was nowhere for these people to live. And

542
00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 4: so if you go out to these communities, the person

543
00:26:55,880 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 4: who takes care of the runway and the winter, which

544
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 4: is your main source of transfer for logistics, might not

545
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 4: be able to find housing. Like this is a really

546
00:27:02,560 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 4: this is a life and death issue for some of

547
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 4: these communities. So we like, well, why aren't we we

548
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 4: have programs, why aren't these communities utilizing our programs to

549
00:27:10,359 --> 00:27:13,639
Speaker 4: develop housing? Well, we decided to get a little bit

550
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 4: more direct. We're like, well, we're they're local governments, we're

551
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 4: a QUASEI state agency. We can work with them on

552
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 4: a government to government basis and say what is it

553
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:24,600
Speaker 4: going to take to get housing developed in your community?

554
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 4: Because this is like a critical issue for community and

555
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 4: we need to come together and figure out a way

556
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 4: to solve it. So we developed something that we came

557
00:27:31,040 --> 00:27:32,399
Speaker 4: up with. We called it the Last Terunt to Your

558
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 4: Housing Initiative after our state's motto, and we approached local

559
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 4: governments with about five million dollars each, just a couple

560
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 4: of them, and said, we want X number of housing

561
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,400
Speaker 4: units to go up in your communities. Some professional workers,

562
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,399
Speaker 4: some affordable housing. We tried to make it big enough

563
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 4: so that it would be a big enough dollar amount

564
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,760
Speaker 4: that would be attractive for the community and have generate

565
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 4: some interest. But that's all we did. We didn't come

566
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 4: and say it has to be at two bedroom, it

567
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:59,000
Speaker 4: has to be this, X, Y or Z. We allowed

568
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 4: asked to the community to come from a place where

569
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 4: we could be responsive to what they wanted to do,

570
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 4: because some of them wanted to help out municipal people.

571
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 4: We didn't know what kind of land they'd have, what

572
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 4: kind of capacity they'd have, and all the conversations with

573
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 4: the five partners that we approached were extremely different. One

574
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 4: community was down twenty people and this is a small community,

575
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,359
Speaker 4: so down twenty people for a municipal staff is big.

576
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 4: They didn't even have a city attorney. They're like, we

577
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:28,200
Speaker 4: basically need you to do almost everything for us. We'll

578
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 4: be on a review committee for you, but that's about

579
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,760
Speaker 4: all we can do. Another community they had land, and

580
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 4: they're like, uh, yeah, we have a procurement department. It's great,

581
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 4: we have land. We don't know how any of this

582
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 4: stuff works with your program. So we flew down there

583
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,720
Speaker 4: and we did training with them and all this other

584
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 4: stuff another community. They didn't understand a lot of it.

585
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 4: We had to go up there and it was like

586
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 4: an episode of Shark Tank, sitting there for a couple

587
00:28:50,080 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 4: of hours while everyone from the community started asking questions

588
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 4: about the resource, because a lot of these people are

589
00:28:55,720 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 4: sold a bill of goods from folks that fly in

590
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 4: and offer probably well intentioned help, saying, oh, Alaska, we'll

591
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 4: show you the way. Well, let us lead you out

592
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 4: of the wilderness and.

593
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: To jump in there.

594
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 5: That is what Alaskans do not want to hear somebody

595
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:11,959
Speaker 5: from the Lower forty eight coming here and telling us

596
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 5: what we need or how to do something.

597
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 3: We're from New York and we're here to help.

598
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,479
Speaker 4: Yeah, because that conversation does not go over well. I mean,

599
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:19,640
Speaker 4: we're flying into the community of maybe a thousand people

600
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:21,959
Speaker 4: and a bunch of the community elders are at the table.

601
00:29:22,520 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 4: We're the guests in the community. So it's like, here's

602
00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 4: our resource, we want to help you, and that's pretty

603
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 4: much just laying the conversation play out. So the approaches

604
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 4: were very different based on what the community wanted from us.

605
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 4: But the thing that underpinned all of it was we

606
00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:38,959
Speaker 4: were coming to them with the resource and a promise

607
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:42,320
Speaker 4: of support that we would stand behind, and everything else

608
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,680
Speaker 4: beyond that was the community's decision as to what they

609
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 4: wanted to do. Do they want to take a more

610
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 4: active role did they not want to? Like some of them,

611
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 4: we're dealing with city managers who are dealing with sewer lines,

612
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 4: things like this, any number of issues. They don't know

613
00:29:57,240 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 4: how to negotiate with the contractor. They have no idea

614
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 4: if a contractor asking for this payment request is reasonable

615
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 4: based on the facts and circumstances. So for some of them,

616
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 4: we were just a lifeline saying we have lots of

617
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 4: developments and we any given point in time, we have

618
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 4: hundreds of millions of dollars in developments that are going

619
00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 4: on across the state. So this is second nature for us,

620
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 4: and we can provide that technical expertise from a place

621
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 4: that they trust because they've worked with us for a

622
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,520
Speaker 4: number of years. This isn't the first conversation that we've

623
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 4: had with a lot of the communities. They know that

624
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 4: the agency that we represent doesn't have a history of

625
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,280
Speaker 4: burning them. So when they call and say is this reasonable,

626
00:30:32,320 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 4: let me say, well, have you thought about this? Have

627
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 4: you thought about this? Have you thought about this. They're

628
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 4: having a conversation that anyone else could have with them,

629
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 4: but they trust us to provide them the truthful answer

630
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 4: and we were able to do a lot with that one.

631
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 2: Since you mentioned one hundreds of millions in development, let's

632
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,120
Speaker 2: actually talk about the finance part of finance, and we're

633
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:53,239
Speaker 2: very interested in various financing models for housing and are

634
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 2: there way given especially given where interest rates are, etc.

635
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 2: And who bears the burden? Well do you talk to

636
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 2: us about like how you find out it's yourself, whether

637
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 2: you use the municipal bond market and our creative ways

638
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 2: of financing the construction of housing in Alaska that are

639
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 2: not maybe those of us in the lower forty eight

640
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 2: don't appreciate.

641
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 4: So I'm not the CFO, and our CFO hockey player

642
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 4: that he is would probably come down here very aggressively

643
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 4: if I tried to explain what he did. We're a

644
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 4: self supporting corporation, so we have a mortgage department that

645
00:31:25,600 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 4: provides mortgage financing. Our finance department is active in the

646
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 4: bond market making sure that our programs have capital.

647
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:32,320
Speaker 5: A lot of the.

648
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 4: Programs that Jimmy and I operate are funded from hfc's earnings.

649
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 4: We're under the Executive Budget Act, so our budget goes

650
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 4: to JUNO every year and it's allocated and usually there's

651
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 4: a recommendation of what to do with the earnings from

652
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 4: the corporation for some of our programs. So like our

653
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 4: department in the Planning department, we manage roughly twenty programs

654
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,280
Speaker 4: and it's a combination of state, federal, and foundation grants

655
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,880
Speaker 4: and tax creds from Treasury, and then Jimmy has other

656
00:32:00,200 --> 00:32:03,680
Speaker 4: funding sources from a bunch of different places, so it's

657
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 4: a self supporting corporation. Sometimes there are foundations that come

658
00:32:06,560 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 4: in and match other things like that. There are financial

659
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 4: tools that we use in housing, some of them more

660
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,440
Speaker 4: more relevant than others when you're looking at development that

661
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 4: costs a I don't know, five hundred thousand dollars to

662
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 4: develop unit off the road system. Going from a six

663
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 4: percent interest rate down to five and three eighths doesn't

664
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 4: really make that five hundred thousand dollars a door something

665
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 4: less prohibitive. So what we tend to see in terms

666
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 4: of the things that are driving housing in the mission

667
00:32:36,160 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 4: spaces that Jimmy and I think work in a lot,

668
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 4: it's not usually these things like people throughout terms like

669
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 4: mezzanine financing or these other weird types of debt products.

670
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 4: Those don't usually move the market for the multifamily stuff

671
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 4: in the space that I see at the corporation. But

672
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 4: there's an entire world of home ownership and lending in

673
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 4: the relationships with the banks that we don't really touch

674
00:32:57,280 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 4: that I don't want to speak too because that's probably

675
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 4: really out of our area of expertise.

676
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say that's true.

677
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, sort of a related question. But I imagine,

678
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 3: no matter what's going on with your finances, you are

679
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 3: limited in some way and what you can do. And

680
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 3: you have housing needs in relatively large urban centers within Alaska,

681
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 3: so whether it's Fairbanks or Anchorage or whatever, and then

682
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 3: you have lots of housing needs in lots of different

683
00:33:25,680 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 3: rural communities. How do you decide where you need to

684
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:33,160
Speaker 3: intervene and how you actually prioritize a project.

685
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 5: As Daniel mentioned last, Housing Finance Corporation is a quasei

686
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 5: state governmental entity, so we take our direction from the

687
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 5: legislature and the Governor's office essentially, right, So there's a

688
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 5: lot of the initiatives that we work on are coming

689
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 5: with that direction in that intent. For example, one of

690
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 5: the areas that I work on and we work on

691
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,959
Speaker 5: our team is improving the housing stock in rural communities

692
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:05,560
Speaker 5: through weather'zation and making sure that the individuals in those

693
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 5: communities again have housing that is appropriate for their climate,

694
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 5: because you know, they you know, the people that have

695
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 5: lived in Alaska for long durations and over the generations,

696
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 5: you know, they've always had this can do attitude and

697
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 5: I'm going to put some sweat equity into something that

698
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 5: really shines through in their lifestyle and their community. But

699
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 5: oftentimes they you know, they don't necessarily have the resources

700
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 5: to do that. And Daniel was talking about the Last

701
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,840
Speaker 5: Frontier Housing Initiative program, and I think that's a wonderful

702
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 5: way to help the community is providing those resources. So

703
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 5: when we go into a community with our weather'zation program,

704
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:51,080
Speaker 5: we're not just going in to do one house. We're

705
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:53,080
Speaker 5: going to come in and we're going to do the community.

706
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:56,000
Speaker 5: Because we need to take advantage of economies of scale.

707
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 5: We need to make sure that if we're going to

708
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 5: put materials, ination, windows and doors, things of this nature

709
00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:07,880
Speaker 5: on a barge to then ship them up to the

710
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 5: Norton Sound and maybe up a river to get to

711
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 5: the community, so that we can do an overall weather'sation

712
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 5: project in that whole community and impact seventy eighty percent

713
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 5: of the housing units there.

714
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 6: You know.

715
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,840
Speaker 5: So I think having the ability to take advantage of

716
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 5: economies to scale and then work with the community to

717
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,360
Speaker 5: make that housing more resilient is very appropriate.

718
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 4: Yeah. So on the subject of prioritizing, we're a stay

719
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 4: weight agency, So it's kind of like asking a parent

720
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 4: to choose their favorite child. We try and make sure

721
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 4: that our resources are allocated in a way that responds

722
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:44,960
Speaker 4: to the instire state in a way that's relevant. So

723
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:47,000
Speaker 4: one of the things that we do, so we operate

724
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:49,080
Speaker 4: a lot of programs over twenty in our department alone.

725
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 4: We get a lot of information from the operations of

726
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 4: these programs of how much homeless housing interventions cost, how

727
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 4: much developments cost, operating cost, trends, things like this, And

728
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 4: then we all so commissioned primary data on the rental market,

729
00:36:02,800 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 4: and then we do a quarterly survey of lenders to

730
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:08,319
Speaker 4: try and understand what is the market doing on its

731
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,480
Speaker 4: own that we don't need to do because it's already

732
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 4: taken care of it, so we try to make sure

733
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 4: that we're not being redundant to what's already happening, and

734
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 4: we're actually serving an unmit need in our state with

735
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:19,400
Speaker 4: the housing resources. So that's a big part of it.

736
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 4: But then the other thing, and one of the things

737
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 4: that makes the last run to your housing initiative work

738
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 4: and some of our COVID responses, we talk to our partners.

739
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 4: We have seventy different partners all across the state, and

740
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 4: we engage with them on a fairly regular basis and

741
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 4: we just ask questions like what's going on in your community.

742
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 4: I mean, technology has been able to do a lot

743
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 4: about expanding access to programs and things like that, but

744
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 4: the old school way of actually connecting and engaging with

745
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 4: partners face to face, going out to their communities, like

746
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 4: what we've been doing over the summer, that is really

747
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 4: where we learn a lot of what we need to

748
00:36:52,680 --> 00:36:55,840
Speaker 4: do to reposition our programs, because especially with our state programs,

749
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:57,919
Speaker 4: these are our own word documents that we can change

750
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 4: upstairs if Brian gives us the go ahead or tells

751
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 4: us that we need to change direction. A lot of

752
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,319
Speaker 4: our homeless response initiatives from COVID. We're developed based on

753
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 4: feedback that we'd heard from our homelessnes support of housing

754
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:11,440
Speaker 4: partners over the last decade, the last turn into your

755
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 4: Housing initiative. The same thing when we're going through revisions

756
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 4: to some of our writing programs, we actually call people

757
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 4: and say, well, how do you make a decision on

758
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 4: when it's time to renovate your project or when you're

759
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 4: looking at a development? What do you actually walk us

760
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 4: through the process. We try and understand things from them,

761
00:37:26,880 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 4: so it's not so much us making a decision from

762
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 4: our low for story building here and Anchorage for the

763
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,320
Speaker 4: entire state. We really do try and inform that based

764
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 4: on the data that we get from our programs and

765
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:40,760
Speaker 4: the conversations from our community partners.

766
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:43,800
Speaker 3: Let me ask a related question, how do you judge

767
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 3: the success of one of your programs, Because again, I imagine

768
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 3: in a rural area like an anchorage, maybe you could

769
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:53,200
Speaker 3: measure it in sort of, you know, traditional ways. So

770
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 3: we built a bunch of housing and then we saw

771
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,000
Speaker 3: a bunch of people move in, and we saw economic

772
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 3: growth increase by whatever basis point are percent or whatever.

773
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 3: But if you're talking about a remote community where you know,

774
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 3: maybe a large chunk of the population is basically subsistence living.

775
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,920
Speaker 3: How do you actually measure the difference that your housing

776
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:15,799
Speaker 3: initiatives have made for that particular community quantitatively?

777
00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 4: It's very difficult to come up with a benchmark that

778
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 4: doesn't basically redline communities because if you look at it

779
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 4: on a quantitative standpoint and say it has to be

780
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 4: this growth rate or this unit thing, you're going to

781
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,560
Speaker 4: disadvantage in one community or not. I'd say, over the

782
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 4: seventeen so years that I've been here, what I've come

783
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 4: to view success from in terms of our initiatives is

784
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:37,760
Speaker 4: we do a lot of benchmarking when we design these things,

785
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 4: and whether or not the outcome delivered more than I thought,

786
00:38:43,080 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 4: that's usually what I see a success. Was there something

787
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 4: that we didn't account for that we captured in the

788
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 4: process that drove the outcome further than we thought it would.

789
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 4: The last run to your housing initiative, we thought we

790
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,640
Speaker 4: were going to get fifty three units. We got over sixty.

791
00:38:56,120 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 4: So our leverage rates for the units were in excess

792
00:38:59,560 --> 00:39:01,680
Speaker 4: of what I did or what we were modeling when

793
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 4: we set that up. We were able to get broad

794
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 4: based support that led to other new programs. So we

795
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 4: got more than we thought we were going to and

796
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:12,320
Speaker 4: people seemed happy with it. That tends to breed success

797
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 4: that has support for our programs going forward in the future.

798
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:17,400
Speaker 4: So and it's a kind of a fuzzy thing and

799
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:20,160
Speaker 4: quantitative world, but it's really more of a qualitative thing

800
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 4: that drives whether or not what we did works, at

801
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 4: least from my perspective.

802
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 5: And I'm going to take a little different approach in

803
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 5: thinking some of the space that my team and I

804
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 5: operate in, and that's focusing on the existing housing stock.

805
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 5: And I talked a little bit about the weather'sation aspect.

806
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,919
Speaker 5: So what we've done in Alaska housing since the early

807
00:39:39,000 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 5: nineties is developed an energy modeling software which is unique

808
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 5: to the state of Alaska. We call it aqwarm Akworm,

809
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 5: And what this tool allows you to do is assess

810
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:54,160
Speaker 5: the building's energy efficiency level from a performance standpoint. So,

811
00:39:54,200 --> 00:39:56,280
Speaker 5: if we're going to go into a community and whether

812
00:39:56,400 --> 00:39:58,959
Speaker 5: is it like I talked about earlier, you know, we

813
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 5: do an energy modeling of that home to determine and

814
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 5: benchmark its performance. So if we're going to then do

815
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 5: insulation and air ceiling and some other aspects to improve

816
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 5: its resilience. We can then measure that on the back end.

817
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 5: Thinking back to two thousand and h two thousand and nine,

818
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 5: the state of Alaska made a very large investment in Weather'sation.

819
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 5: I mean had two big programs. One was targeted more

820
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 5: towards the low income residents and it was weather'zation services

821
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 5: provided by many of our partners throughout the state at

822
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,719
Speaker 5: no cost to the participant. And the other one was

823
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 5: a rebate of up to ten thousand dollars for homeowners

824
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:42,080
Speaker 5: making improvements of the house. And what this allowed us

825
00:40:42,080 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 5: to do was create a database of more than one

826
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 5: hundred thousand housing units throughout the state. Right And there's

827
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 5: what was correct me if I wrong, Daniel, But in

828
00:40:53,239 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 5: the neighborhood like two hundred and sixty thousand occupied housing

829
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 5: units somewhere in that neighborhood.

830
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 4: I tried never do math in public, but that sounds.

831
00:41:01,520 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 5: Right, yeah, and at least owner occupied. And you know,

832
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 5: so you think about having a database of over one

833
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 5: hundred thousand of these buildings in one centralized location, and

834
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 5: you have information on how much installations in there, the

835
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 5: square footage, the location, the building performance. I mean, that's

836
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,319
Speaker 5: an incredible wealth of information they then can use to

837
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 5: make decisions.

838
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 2: One of the things that we've heard is that Alaska

839
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: has particularly high quality public data in part due to

840
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 2: the dividend that people get from the Permanent Income Fund,

841
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 2: and the people are willing to hand over some data

842
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 2: in order to get that check. So it sounds like

843
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,359
Speaker 2: it sounds like you guys have it pretty hand better

844
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 2: than many in terms of having sort of some visibility

845
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 2: inter yourn state. I want to ask about one of

846
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 2: the things in New York City is that you know

847
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:53,799
Speaker 2: there's a fair amount of public housing, but there's this

848
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 2: perception that's not kept up well, that it's in disrepair,

849
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 2: that elevators go and fix, et cetera. Public housing is

850
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 2: under your purview here at the Housing Finance Corporation. Talk

851
00:42:05,760 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 2: about your how that works, and also maybe maybe we

852
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 2: could use some lessons or what you've learned about, like

853
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 2: how to keep the housing stock there good.

854
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the public housing is a different department than

855
00:42:18,280 --> 00:42:21,080
Speaker 4: what Jimmy and I manage. What I can say is

856
00:42:21,120 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 4: that the units that we operate, that HFC owens do

857
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 4: tend to be kept up better than a lot of

858
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 4: the other folks. So the stories that you may have

859
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 4: heard or read about in other cities. I think our

860
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 4: units tend to be kept up very well. It's one

861
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 4: of the benefits of being the type of agency that

862
00:42:39,040 --> 00:42:41,240
Speaker 4: we are. If there's an issue with one of the units,

863
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 4: it's very easy to get through to someone at HFC

864
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 4: to connect with it. And I don't know the relationship

865
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 4: that other housing authorities have in other states. I'm guessing

866
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:53,600
Speaker 4: they have a different reporting structure than what we have

867
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 4: here at HFC, where Brian has a very close relationship

868
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 4: with the folks in the elected government the other things,

869
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 4: so it's a they tend to look nice relative to

870
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 4: the other ones. We read the same stories that you

871
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:10,239
Speaker 4: do about other places like that wouldn't happen here, But

872
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 4: maintenance is an issue in Alaska.

873
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 3: Sorry, did you want to say something?

874
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in the room here, we also have a

875
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: Stacy Barnes, Director of Government Relations and public Affairs here

876
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 2: at the Housing Finance Corporation, come into the conversation.

877
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:26,399
Speaker 6: Well, thank you. So you've had some really great dialogue

878
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 6: and a couple of things that I was thinking about

879
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:30,440
Speaker 6: as you're talking about is as it relates to public

880
00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 6: housing and the work that we do statewide. You know,

881
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 6: we're one of thirty nine of the original Moving to

882
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 6: Work Agencies, which is a designation moving to Work. It

883
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 6: was a designation that was authorized by Congress for US

884
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 6: when Senator Stevens was still in the US Senate, and

885
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 6: that gave us great flexibility to accommodate many of the

886
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 6: needs that we see across the state. So as a

887
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 6: result of this designation, we've been able to provide a

888
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 6: lot of flexibility and meet the needs of Alaskans where

889
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:03,319
Speaker 6: they're at. So we have public housing in sixteen communities

890
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 6: across the state. We own and manage more than two

891
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 6: thousand properties ourself, and we also work really closely with

892
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,600
Speaker 6: landlords across the state. And on the question of funding,

893
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 6: of course, there's never enough HUD funding to meet all

894
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 6: of the needs in New York or elsewhere. Our state

895
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 6: augments the funding that comes in because of the success

896
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:25,480
Speaker 6: that our mortgage and our finance business have and as

897
00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:27,839
Speaker 6: a result, we pay a dividend to the State of Alaska.

898
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 6: Jimmy mentioned being under the Executive Budget Act. That means

899
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:33,840
Speaker 6: that we get authority to spend some of the dividend

900
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 6: toward our public housing maintenance, and that has been really

901
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 6: successful in helping us to maintain the units.

902
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 3: All right, So, as we're wrapping up this conversation, I

903
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 3: guess one thing I would be really interested in hearing

904
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 3: from you is what do you think is like the

905
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 3: big takeaway from the Alaska experience that could pertain to

906
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 3: the lower forty eight What should people know about the

907
00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:58,719
Speaker 3: housing market here and your housing initiatives that could possibly

908
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 3: have some insights for housing bottlenecks elsewhere in America.

909
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,120
Speaker 5: I thought a little bit about this question as we've

910
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 5: been talking over the last hour or so, and I

911
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 5: take a lot of what Daniel talked about with regard

912
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 5: to how we are working with our partners in specific

913
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:21,399
Speaker 5: communities and meeting the needs of those community members where

914
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 5: they're at. You cannot have one big magic policy to

915
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 5: fit every situation throughout the state, and I honestly think

916
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:36,720
Speaker 5: that other places throughout the country can take that to heart.

917
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:41,279
Speaker 5: That you have to recognize that giving the power to

918
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 5: the people to make the decisions and giving them the

919
00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 5: resources to determine the path forward for their situations is

920
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,720
Speaker 5: a best approach and a best practice that we've taken

921
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,480
Speaker 5: here in Alaska, and I think that's something that others

922
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 5: can take away from this conversation.

923
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 4: Yeah, from the lessons I think I've learned from our

924
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 4: implementation of some of the COVID initiatives and what we

925
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 4: did with the Last Runtier Housing Initiative and say that

926
00:46:07,600 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 4: there's a change in terms of how we do work

927
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 4: as housing professionals. That feels like it's happening at different

928
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 4: speeds all across the country. Through the pandemic, we were

929
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 4: able to develop systems that really connected us to our partners,

930
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 4: and we used a shared space, and through the Last

931
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 4: Rountier Housing Initiative, we're connecting partners to our institutional infrastructure

932
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 4: here at Alaska Housing, and people are able to and

933
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:36,320
Speaker 4: other communities do things that used to take self contained

934
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,000
Speaker 4: agencies with the staff and a finance department and all

935
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 4: these other things because they're able to connect with our resources.

936
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 4: So they're able to do more in a sort of

937
00:46:46,480 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 4: cohesive community framework now than they could a couple of

938
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:52,520
Speaker 4: years ago. When you think about vacation untls, we talked

939
00:46:52,560 --> 00:46:55,319
Speaker 4: about that earlier people have wont houses for a long

940
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 4: time that they could have rented out, but now with

941
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 4: platforms online, they can connect to some corporate infantry structure

942
00:47:00,520 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 4: and someone traveling here from Japan can find their house

943
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 4: and the Keennine Peninsula and rent it for the weekend

944
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 4: that they're in Alaska. So the people on the Keene

945
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 4: Peninsula that are doing that are able to leverage some

946
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,799
Speaker 4: corporate infrastructure that exists somewhere else to have market opportunities

947
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 4: for them in their community. These sorts of connections can

948
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:21,880
Speaker 4: apply to some of the housing programs, and we're starting

949
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 4: to see that happen where we're connecting communities that are

950
00:47:24,320 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 4: off the road system with communities that are on the

951
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:29,839
Speaker 4: road system within our state. So Alaskans in Juno are

952
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 4: helping Alaskans Innme operate some of our programs. And these

953
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 4: barriers that have historically been there through technology for any

954
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 4: number of reasons are starting to come down. And technology

955
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 4: is really helping us expand access to some of our

956
00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 4: programs to people and communities that may not have had

957
00:47:46,360 --> 00:47:48,600
Speaker 4: all of the necessary tools to utilize them in the way.

958
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,879
Speaker 4: And that's a really exciting thing. It's bringing a lot

959
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:52,880
Speaker 4: of people together and doing more for our state than

960
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 4: we could have a decade ago.

961
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:57,000
Speaker 6: And I'm just probably closed by saying that, you know,

962
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,359
Speaker 6: our bonds are rated double A plus and higher on

963
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 6: Wall Street. We had more than six hundred million dollars

964
00:48:02,200 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 6: in single family mortgage activity last year, and the delinquency

965
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 6: rate on our loans is less than one third of

966
00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 6: one percent. We are doing exceptionally well there. So you

967
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:13,880
Speaker 6: heard Daniel and Jimmy talk a lot about partnership, but

968
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 6: we heard Mary Daily talk a lot about resilience as well,

969
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 6: and the people of Alaska are very resilient and we're

970
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 6: very optimistic as well. As we work together in the

971
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 6: smallest and most remote communities to attempt to tackle these

972
00:48:26,480 --> 00:48:27,280
Speaker 6: many challenges.

973
00:48:27,480 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 2: I think for me listening to you, it's like one

974
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 2: of these things is by necessity, you have to have

975
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 2: a lot of collaboration, which is a word everyone uses

976
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:37,879
Speaker 2: all the time. But you're literally, you know, so many

977
00:48:37,880 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 2: different sort of entities and vehicles under one roof, and

978
00:48:41,400 --> 00:48:43,760
Speaker 2: that seems like a sort of necessity, But it also

979
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 2: seems like the type of structure that you know in

980
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 2: other states, or like New York City where a lot

981
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 2: of authority is extremely vulcanized, or other fights about who

982
00:48:53,640 --> 00:48:57,399
Speaker 2: has authority, Like maybe merge some departments and actually put

983
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 2: them under one roof could be a pretty useful takeaway anyway, Jimmy, Daniel,

984
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 2: and Stacey, I'm glad. I'm glad you also joined us.

985
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on AVLAS. That was

986
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 2: really fascinating and really educated.

987
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 6: Thank you allanting me to pop in.

988
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, happy to be here.

989
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:28,160
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Tracy. I love that conversation. I love

990
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 2: the detail. I love you know. In our conversation we

991
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 2: talked with Mary Daily and she talked about Alaska's economies

992
00:49:34,239 --> 00:49:37,319
Speaker 2: and listening to housing is like very clear what that

993
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,880
Speaker 2: means that this is just a very diverse state in

994
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 2: terms of the challenges and the nature of living arrangement.

995
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 3: You definitely get a sense of it from that conversation.

996
00:49:45,280 --> 00:49:47,479
Speaker 3: The other thing I was thinking about was in terms

997
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:50,520
Speaker 3: of like the usefulness of this type of program. I

998
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 3: can imagine having dealt with a bunch of contractors that

999
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:56,760
Speaker 3: just being able to call someone up a government agency

1000
00:49:56,800 --> 00:49:59,000
Speaker 3: or quasi agency and ask, like, I just got a

1001
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:03,200
Speaker 3: quote for the following activity. Does this sound reasonable to you?

1002
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 3: As someone who has been involved in many, many of

1003
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 3: these projects, that would be a huge helping point just

1004
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:10,760
Speaker 3: when you're getting started.

1005
00:50:10,920 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 2: I think another takeaway from me from this conversation and

1006
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 2: others is that like infrastructure bottlenecks or choke points in

1007
00:50:19,239 --> 00:50:22,000
Speaker 2: the lower forty eight everyone started paying attention to them

1008
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 2: in the second half of twenty twenty, and that they

1009
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 2: feel like endemic to the nature of living in Alaska.

1010
00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:30,480
Speaker 2: The idea that if the person who clears the runway

1011
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:32,799
Speaker 2: can't find a house right then that that is an

1012
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 2: open position, and then that is the threatens the lifeline

1013
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:39,440
Speaker 2: of an entire community. That is not like a twenty

1014
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 2: twenty two story. That's a story that's like endemic to

1015
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,359
Speaker 2: how Alaska operates. And so it feels like all these

1016
00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 2: things that we've just sort of like woken up to

1017
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 2: are like the core like challenges of you know, operating

1018
00:50:52,040 --> 00:50:52,759
Speaker 2: the economy here.

1019
00:50:52,960 --> 00:50:55,000
Speaker 3: Alaska is truly an odd thoughts themes.

1020
00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, it really is.

1021
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:57,200
Speaker 3: All right, shall we leave it there.

1022
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:57,920
Speaker 2: Let's leave it there.

1023
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:00,480
Speaker 3: This has been another episode of the Authoughts podcast. I'm

1024
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 3: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

1025
00:51:03,239 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 2: And I'm Jill Wisenthal. You can follow me at the Stalwart.

1026
00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 2: Check out the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. Maybe some lessons

1027
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:12,680
Speaker 2: to be learned in your state. Follow our producers Carmen

1028
00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:15,680
Speaker 2: Rodriguez at Carmen armand dash Ol Bennett at Dashboud and

1029
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 2: Kilbrooks at Kilbrooks. For more Odd Lots content, go to

1030
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 2: Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots with the daily newsletter

1031
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 2: and all of our episodes. You can chat about these

1032
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 2: topics twenty four to seven in our discord Discord dot

1033
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 2: gg slash od.

1034
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 3: Lots and if you enjoy odd Lots, if you like

1035
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:34,240
Speaker 3: it when we travel to Alaska to learn more about

1036
00:51:34,280 --> 00:51:37,160
Speaker 3: its various economies, then please leave us a positive review

1037
00:51:37,200 --> 00:51:39,960
Speaker 3: on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are

1038
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,399
Speaker 3: a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our

1039
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:45,040
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1040
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 3: find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcast and follow the

1041
00:51:47,719 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 3: instructions there. Thanks for listening

1042
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:06,440
Speaker 6: In