Healing Housing for IAC
Healing Housing for IAC
This project will support renovations and upgrades to The Interior Alaska Center for Non-Violent Living's (IAC) low barrier housing. Read below for more information about this incredibly important housing resource in our community!
IAC provides services to survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence throughout the Alaskan Interior. These services include an emergency shelter; a 24 hour hotline that anyone can call to talk to a trained advocate about issues related to domestic violence and sexual assault; permanent supportive housing and low barrier housing options; group support for survivors; legal support and advocacy; and sexual assault response. The agency as a whole also addresses survivors of trafficking, incest, and teen dating violence. The agency provides prevention to the region, primarily focusing on primary prevention and outreach to the community as a whole.
The building, Carmen House, located at 720 10th Ave. Fairbanks, AK 99701 is a 4,140 square foot eight-plex apartment building built in 1946. It sits on a 0.2 acre lot across from Barnett Middle school and is managed by IAC. Carmen House is dedicated to Carmen Dore, a formerly battered woman who was a client of IAC and was killed by her husband on April 29th 1986 while she was trying to live independently. Carmen’s husband killed Carmen and himself leaving their three children orphaned one week after a protective order was violated and an order of arrest was issued for Carmen’s husband. The building was dedicated to Carmen Dore on August 31st 1988; 35 years ago.
In Carmen House's current capacity the housing unit provides homes for six families with a total of 13 beneficiaries served; the average day stay for the six families is 1217 days housed. The dynamics of the current population served at Carmen house consists of six heads of household who were houseless prior to moving into their current housing situation. Households have children who are differently abled and access multiple adaptive services in the Fairbanks community. Carmen House serves multiple cultural backgrounds. Households have members who work in the Fairbanks community as well as households that are working on filing for disability. Each household meets the low income standard determined by HUD and multiple households have rental support from Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s voucher programs.
The low barrier housing provided by IAC allows individuals an opportunity to live in a safe supportive community. Oftentimes survivors of domestic violence and individuals suffering from houselessness have multiple barriers to housing such as difficulty accessing resources, no rental history, poor credit, criminal cases, multiple evictions ect. Carmen House takes applications for tenancy from individuals and works in conjunction with the City of Fairbanks and the Fairbanks coordinated entry system to find tenants. Potential tenants are also found by networking with all emergency shelters in Fairbanks, Fairbanks Native Association, Helping Alaska and Tanana Chiefs Conference. In addition to a secure building tenants have access to voluntary supportive services which assist families with accessing resources and additional support on a voluntary basis. IAC provides all services to these tenants without any state or federal grant funding. All funding for this project comes from rental income and private donations to the agency. Carmen House gives individuals second and third chances when many landlords will not. The goal of IAC in operating this program is to provide safe affordable housing in a manner that optimizes self-sufficiency among those residing there in a collaborative effort to end homelessness in the city of Fairbanks.