Mountain View:

Patients who visit the health services center are primarily residents of Mountain View. 8,000 residents live within the 1.5 square miles of Mountain View proper and within 1 mile of the center. With over 5,000 residents per square mile, Mountain View is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Anchorage. It has been known for its working-class population and recently for immigrants from countries spanning the globe.

The Mountain View Census Tract is a designated Medically Underserved Area (MUA) and a Health Professional Shortage Area (HSPA) for Primary Care, Mental Health, and Dental Health. 

The Mountain View census tract is the most diverse neighborhood in the United States, based on research by the University of Alaska Anchorage using 2010 Census data. MVHS is located just across the street from Clark Middle School, ranked as the Most Diverse Middle School in America.  Fifty-seven percent of Anchorage’s Cambodian, 45% of the city’s Hmong and 36% of the Laotian population live in the Mountain View area. 

Many immigrants and refugees, and their families, live in Mountain View because of the abundance of inexpensive housing. Apartment buildings and four-plex’s were built in the 1970s to meet the demand for housing during the construction of the Alaska Oil Pipeline. Over the years, with the outflow of oil workers, and global political conditions creating a inflow of refugees, these units have filled a need for inexpensive housing.

The neighborhood has the distinction of having the lowest household income in Anchorage. According to statistics compiled by Anchorage Neighborhood Land Trust – the local poverty rate climbed steadily from 7.5% in 1970 to 16.2% in 1980 to 23.3% in 1990 to 25.1% in 2000. In 2010, Mountain View had a poverty rate of 24.3%.”  

According to the American Community Survey’s 5-year estimates, in 2013, 90% of Mountain View residents were bringing home an annual income of less than 70 percent of the Anchorage area median income, and 28.9% of the Mountain View population had an income below the poverty level.  Many families with children have only one vehicle and have a need for accessible medical care for urgent conditions.

Mountain View’s population has been slowly growing slightly outpacing Anchorage from 2000 to 2010 at 1.5% annual population growth.

Wonder Park/Russian Jack: 

11,000 residents of the Wonder Park/Russian Jack neighborhood make up a culturally diverse melting pot in east Anchorage just southeast of MVHS. There are twelve different languages are spoken by Wonder Park elementary students. About 34 percent of elementary students are bilingual, speaking Samoan, French, Lao, Tagalog and Spanish. Wonder Park also experiences a transient and mobility rate of more than 30 percent.

Penland Park:

This family mobile home park is located less than a mile south of the center and has a high-density population of families with children.