Alaska has roughly the population it had in 2013. What little growth the state has seen in the past three years came from residents over 65, while the working-age population shrank. A state that is not growing should not have a housing shortage.
It has one anyway.
Rental vacancy in March was 4.9% in Anchorage, 3.5% in Mat-Su and 4.1% in Juneau, according to the Department of Labor’s spring survey. Affordable housing from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation had a statewide median rent that reached $1,450 a month, up about 30% over the past 7 years, and a two-bedroom in Anchorage, utilities included, now runs $1,720. It took 1.37 average Alaska wage earners to afford a median-value home last year, close to the record high. If population is not driving the squeeze, something else is, and at a Commonwealth North forum on August 27, six practitioners spent an afternoon exploring the causes…