Galena Teacher Housing: An Investment in the Community’s Future

Alaska Housing Finance Corporation’s Rural Professional Housing program has been making an impact on communities statewide for more than 20 years.

Between 2004 and 2025, it supported 159 rural housing projects benefiting high-demand professionals, including educators, public safety officers and healthcare professionals in rural communities statewide. By building or rehabilitating units specifically for high-need professionals, the initiative helps rural communities attract and retain essential workers with impacts felt across the community.

In November 2024, Louden Tribe was awarded $700,000 in grant funding through AHFC’s 2025 Rural Professional Housing competitive funding round. The awarded funds will be used for the Galena Collaborative Housing Project, a three-bedroom residential unit to be used for teacher housing. In a complementary project, the Galena City School District and Louden Tribe are partnering to complete a larger teacher housing complex over time, constructing six teacher housing units in close proximity.

Building Housing for Teachers

“Teacher housing has been a problem in Galena since there has been a school. In rural Alaska, it’s complicated,” says Luis Echenique, grants director for the Louden Tribe.

Galena is a hub for education. In addition to traditional pre-K through high school programs, the Galena City School District (GCSD) operates the Galena Interior Learning Academy (GILA), a residential vocational school that educates more than 200 students from across Alaska.

Built by reusing facilities left behind by the Galena Air Force Base that closed in 2008, GILA offers some dormitory-style accommodation for teachers but the housing is not suitable for families, limiting its usefulness for staff who would like to integrate into the community and make a lasting home.

With no available housing units in Galena at the time of the grant application, position vacancies have become increasingly challenging for the District to fill. Drawing on past experience, the school district identified quality and affordable housing as the primary strategy to help recruit and retain educators.

Luis has firsthand experience with the challenges that new school district employees face when relocating. He moved to Galena with his family in 2016 when his wife accepted a role as a counselor for the school district. “Until the very last day before our arrival, we didn’t know where we would be living,” he remembers.

“The District loses a lot of good candidates because there just isn’t enough housing.”

“Anecdotally, we see a correlation between the quality of a teacher's performance and the quality of their housing,” Luis says. “You can’t be a good teacher if you are worried your bathroom will be frozen until spring.”

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The new teacher housing units will utilize the same design plans as this completed house, including the multipoint foundation visible in the photo.

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Working Together Toward Shared Goals

Beyond providing support for teachers, the creation of new housing benefits the community as a whole. It’s for this reason that Louden Tribe is so involved in helping the district find housing solutions, including supporting the application for AHFC’s Rural Professional Housing grant.

“Every house we can provide to teachers represents a household that we are taking out of competition for a limited supply of other homes. We are freeing a unit to be available to our tribal members,” Luis says.

Currently, Louden Tribe and the district are building two units across the street from where the AHFC-funded unit will be located. By Fall 2025, they plan to have three units built.

Tested and Trusted

In Galena, houses are built on elevated foundations due to the risk of flooding from the Yukon River. According to Luis, this piling method was sufficient while permafrost held but in many places the permafrost is giving out, with further degradation expected.

The building plans for the unit funded by AHFC’s Rural Professional Housing feature an elevated foundation suitable for the floodplain area but also, more uniquely, use a Multipoint Triodetic system which the tribe has implemented in several units built since 2021. The foundation type uses a tubular frame that elevates the building while maintaining multiple points of contact with the ground and offering multiple points of adjustment. Luis says the system can be easily leveled by just one worker, making it a more flexible and easily-maintained foundation type over the long term.

“Material wise it is more expensive but the installation can be done by a couple of people with wrenches,” Luis says.

“We hope it is future proof in terms of what is going to happen with the permafrost.”

Energy Efficient Construction

In addition to using an innovative foundation type, the teacher housing unit is expected to achieve a 6-Star BEES rating, reducing living expenses for future tenants. Energy efficient features will include LED lights, a programmable thermostat, insulation, water heater and bathroom fan timers and energy efficient appliances. Water efficiency will be enhanced by installing low-flush toilets, adding aerators to faucets and using shower faucets with flow control.

The property will also benefit from a 5 kilowatt-panel solar array as the result of a concurrent Community Solar Project planned for 2025. It is expected that access to solar energy generation may result in up to $3,690 in annual savings for the unit (based on maximum potential energy generation).

Additionally, the property will benefit from an electric vehicle charging station, available funding permitting.

“This is part of the vision of the Tribe for trailblazing electric mobility in Galena and a way to increase the use of the surplus electricity produced by the panels in the summer,” says Luis. “With gas at $10 per gallon, a plug-in hybrid car is potentially a good deal.”

Investing in the Future

By working together to create a designated hub of housing specifically for teachers, Louden Tribe and Galena City School District aim to attract and retain teachers in Galena who want to bring their families, integrate into the community and make it their home. Utilizing innovative building technologies and incorporating energy efficient features will help to make these units quality homes that can withstand the unique climate and provide safety and affordability over time. As an employee of Louden Tribe, Luis says he sees this not just as an investment in teacher housing but an investment in the community as a whole.

“We are trying to avoid high turnover of staff. Quality housing helps teachers feel part of their community and the results are much better for the school and educational outcomes,” Luis says.

“Directly or indirectly, having housing for teachers will impact the welfare of the community.”

Construction on the Galena Collaborative Housing Project began in June 2025 and is expected to be complete by November 2025, with tenant move-in as early as January 2026.