One paragraph in a 1975 survey of housing in Bristol Bay spoke volumes about the state of private housing in the region:

“Nothing written here can begin to convey the reality of a home with less than 500 square feet of living space, without running water or toilet, inhabited by 10 persons.”

Conducted by the Bristol Bay Native Association, the village-by-village survey lead to an inescapable conclusion: housing in the region was “overcrowded, deeply deteriorated and substandard.” Homes pictured in the report were like those of third world countries, without plumbing, without sanitation, without electricity — some literally without doors or windows.

Because such conditions existed to varying degrees throughout much of rural Alaska is the reason the state’s 16 regional housing authorities were established in the years following passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. The nonprofit arms of ANSCA corporations took the lead in incorporating the housing authorities, guided by the village leaders in each region.

Since that time, Alaska housing authorities have built more than 7,000 single family homes and low income apartments, and brought affordable, safe and sanitary housing to tens of thousands of rural Alaskans. BBHA has built more than 500 of those homes and apartments.

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