By WIN GRUENING
June 11, 2026 – Juneau Capital City Fire and Rescue (CCFR) released its May 2026 response statistics earlier this week. During the month of May, CCFR personnel completed a total of 860 responses and service activities across emergency response, Mobile Integrated Health, CARES operations, crisis response, the Sobering Center, fire prevention, training, and community outreach programs.
Among those calls were seven fire incidents, 381 EMS (Emergency Medical Services) and rescue incidents, three hazardous condition calls, 23 service calls, 44 good intent calls and 20 false alarm or false call responses.
This is an increase over the month of April, when CCFR responded to a total of 793 calls.
In April, CCFR also reported that their CARES and Mobile Integrated Health teams were “… heavily engaged throughout the month supporting vulnerable members of our community through crisis response, transports, mental health outreach, and sobering center operations, accounting for an additional 377 responses, contacts, and transports.”
$8-$9 million of CCFR’s budget is funded by local taxpayers and supplemented by other fees and taxes totaling approximately $7 million. Included in supplemental funding is almost $1 million in Marine Passenger Fees (“head taxes”) to help pay for ambulance and EMS support for cruise passengers. It should be noted that cruise passengers generally carry good insurance that provides additional compensation to CCFR to offset the cost of emergency services.
If nearly half of the call activity to CCFR was for “vulnerable members of our community,” it calls into question the efficacy of policies, programs and strategies employed by the Assembly’s grant-funded partners paid to attend to Juneau’s vulnerable population.
Are other City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) departments – such as the Juneau Police Department – also disproportionately impacted?
Several years ago, generous Juneau residents contributed to moving the Glory Hall from downtown to new quarters in the valley and to help fund construction of the adjacent Teal Street Center to serve as a hub for community social service agencies.
The point was to provide a convenient and purpose-built social services campus where core social problems could be properly and professionally addressed and not perpetuated.
A news story about a year later announced that Kaia Quinto had been hired as the director of the Glory Hall. She told the Juneau Empire that, “A goal of mine is that the shelter becomes underutilized.”
Ms. Quinto’s stated desire to be so successful at solving the problems of our unhoused population that she’d essentially eliminate the need for her job was refreshing. (Why didn’t someone nominate this woman for “Citizen of the Year” or draft her to run for the Assembly?)
The goal of every non-governmental organization or non-profit agency whose mission is to tackle a societal problem – be it domestic violence, drug addiction, homelessness, or suicide prevention should reflect that mindset – embracing the best practices possible to help people solve their problems, become productive members of the community and no longer require the services their organizations provide.
Are we implementing programs that get us to that goal? Or have we adopted the same failed strategies of cities like Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco where billions have been spent, yet homelessness and funds directed to it continue to rise unabated?
Social service agencies provide critical assistance, but mission creep is real and unchecked compassion dependent on taxpayer dollars is not sustainable. Nor should “success” be equated with an expanding mission and additional programs.
The Juneau Assembly, and its social service providers, are all people of goodwill. But no government nor any of its “partners” should be judged on their good intentions. They should be judged on results.
Juneau is an exceedingly generous community, and a large piece of the Assembly budget is directed toward social service grants. While the Assembly has been devoting an inordinate amount of time deciding on whether to cut back on pools, libraries, the museum, and recreational programs, perhaps a broader look at Juneau’s municipal budget is in order.
If a significant and growing portion of Juneau’s fire department budget (and, most likely, the Juneau Police Department’s and Barlett Hospital’s budget) is being directed towards Juneau’s most vulnerable, it should be evident that social service-related strategies and programs should be re-evaluated.
Win Gruening retired as senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank for the State of Alaska in 2012. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1970. After serving as a pilot in the US Air Force flying in the Pacific and Vietnam, Win began his banking career with Rainier Bank in Seattle and moved home to Juneau in 1980. Win has been involved extensively in various local and statewide organizations such as United Way, Junior Achievement, and the Alaska Committee.
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One thought on “Win Gruening: Is the Juneau Assembly buying solutions, or just bigger social service budgets?”
If Juneau people had a growing relationship with God, Juneau people wouldn’t be leaning dependently on social services; and there be a decline in funding those organizations and programs. Churches used to be a community’s social services provider, the place people in crisis would go. The collection plate would go around to help a person or family in crisis and in need. Then the teaching of the Word of God (in its entirely) taught the generation family members are to take care of one another.
A real example story i share is about an Alaskan man who was born with a mental disability that while his and sister’s mom was still alive. He lived with their mom until she died. After that this vulnerable Alaskan man drifted into Homelessness and was met with the most unfortunate demise that shouldn’t had happened he being murdered in a jail cell all for something he couldn’t help Snoring too loudly. If Alaskan families had a growing relationship with God, there be more families members who’d have helped their own vulnerable members who was very sweet and gentle and there be less Alaskans leaning on government. His sister should had recognized that she born without a severe handicap make herself ready in job and money before the mother’s death to have her own place and extra room prepared so her brother can come and live with her prepared to help her brother. If Alaskan families family members had a growing relationship with God they’d know how to take better care of one another while churches knowing the Word of God take care of those who literally physically have no family relatives. When parents don’t raise their children up in the Lord and parents aren’t modeling their dependency on God, then we get grown up adult children living their lives dependent on the things and people of this world costing us more than it costs us to open up God’s Word.
It’s not just Juneau. It’s the rest of Alaska depending on social services programs instead of a churches while Taxpayers are getting fed up, churches tithes were not used to pay 75% of building and salary costs, Church people, family members were God’s hands and feet to be the place where the vulnerable can go to not only have physical needs met but also spiritual needs met.