Why razing Telephone Hill won’t fix the housing crisis

They say there's an affordable housing crisis, and perhaps there is, but not for the reasons folks like to say at podiums and in slick development proposals.

We're not out of affordable houses. We've just forgotten how to use the ones we've already built. Walk downtown. Peer up at all the shuttered windows on the second and third stories.

CBJ’s 2019 Upstairs Downtown Housing Inventory identified over 100 downtown upper-story residential units that are underutilized or vacant. It's important to note that this figure excludes properties zoned as Mixed Use, which allows for higher residential density and building heights, so the actual number of potential units could be significantly higher.

These upper-floor units were once homes to teachers, miners, widows and strangers who became neighbors. Reviving them would bring housing online in half the time and at a fraction of the cost of new construction. And here's the kicker: we already have the blueprint to make this work.

Juneau is a designated Main Street America community, part of a national program focused on revitalizing historic downtowns by reactivating the very kinds of underused upper-floor housing we've ignored. It's not a dream. It's a tool we already have. We just haven't used it.

According to the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, bringing these spaces back online can cost between $75,000 and $150,000 per unit, a fraction of the $300,000 to $500,000 it would cost to build each new unit at Telephone Hill (CBJ RFI Response, 2025). And it comes without the cultural loss, displacement, or significant taxpayer subsidies.

Let's not pretend the math is hard. It doesn't cost millions to give someone a place to sleep. For less than $10,000 per household, we could create real homes — the kind that come with conversation and casseroles.

This is not just a dream. A proven program has demonstrated success for over a decade with HomeShare Oregon and Serve Washington. It increases housing access and reduces isolation.

We have elders with extra rooms in their family homes and young workers with two jobs and no lease. Let's bring them together, let them take care of each other, and let them live like people, not like numbers in someone's housing market pitch deck. This is a community effort, and we all have a role to play.

Suppose even one of every 10 Juneau homes has a spare bedroom. In that case, we've already got room for over a thousand people with a bit of civic ingenuity and a dash of old-fashioned hospitality.

A thousand is double the current number of single-bedrooms in the Juneau area, only these are already built, already wired, and already warm. No new streets, infrastructure or maintenance are required.

It keeps elders where they want to be, in their homes longer, while giving considerable cost savings to renters who are able to find housing substantially lower — often less than half of the market rate of an apartment.

The math and the mission are both clear. It's time for policy to catch up with the facts. Juneau needs to act, not just plan. Now is a great time to start.

A downtown landlord wants to fix up the empty units above his shop, but costs and codes prevent him from doing so. A revolving loan fund and temporary exemptions for historic buildings would allow him to move forward.

A retired woman with extra space could share her home if matched with a vetted tenant — add a small tax credit, and it's doable.

And before we lose an irreplaceable historic neighborhood, let's pause demolitions until we've tried every reasonable, lower-impact option we already have.

So, please. Let's stop pretending the only way to move forward is to destroy what's behind us. We don't need more Outside consultants and developers. We need more local smarts and resolve.

Because when you raze a place like Telephone Hill, you're not just bulldozing buildings. You're breaking faith with the people who made Juneau worth calling home in the first place, and a city that forgets where it came from never arrives anywhere worth going.

• Dorene Lorenz is chair of the Alaska Human Rights Commission and a former member of the Alaska Historic Commission.