The Anchorage Assembly, in a special meeting on Monday, voted to approve $2.4 million in funding for the Assembly’s plan to house about 350 homeless people for three months.
That’s a cost of over $6,800 per person for the three months, or $2,285 per homeless person for housing alone, per month beginning on Oct. 1. That only pays for housing the homeless through December through this plan. It does not include services such as free meals and social services.
The ball is now in the mayor’s court. The Assembly majority has blocked his ability to erect a navigation center in time for winter, and he has said that addressing the homeless problem in Anchorage is one of his priorities.
The Assembly majority, after preventing any of Mayor Dave Bronson’s own plans from being implemented, offered its own plan, which includes the controversial Golden Lion Hotel, which was part of former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s expenditures when he bought the hotel for the city to use as a drug treatment facility in 2020, before he left office in disgrace. Many on the Assembly are aligned politically with Berkowitz and continue his left-leaning legacy.
During the debate over the purchase of the Golden Lion in 2020, however, the Assembly passed an ordinance that promised it would not be used to house the homeless.
The Assembly’s new plan also includes reopening the Sullivan Arena for 150 people who are unsheltered but also unsuited to live in a structured hotel environment, and adding funding for nonprofit shelters so they can accommodate a few more people.
The Sullivan Arena was commandeered by Berkowitz during the Covid pandemic to spread homeless people out and slow down the spread of Covid in traditional shelters around town. It was used as a mass shelter for two years, closing at the end of June, when Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration opened up a campground for people to use without having to pay a campground fee.
Centennial Campground has sanitary facilities and social service agencies have provided food trucks with free meals for people camping there this past summer.The campground is set to close on Friday, as snow makes its way down the mountains. Temperatures at night are reaching in the low 40s this week in the Anchorage bowl.
The ball is in the mayor’s court now, as the Assembly has signaled it will not approve any of his plans, and will only fund the plans that come from the Assembly.
The mayor should give them a plan that includes putting homeless in their Neighborhood so the voters can see what’s good for us is not good for them.
Bronson should be consulting DeSantis. The Communists on the Ass do not play ball. They beat you with the ball until they get what they want.
Mayor Bronson should just say no.
Let the cards fall where they may, it is time we homeowners stop paying for the homelessness.
Where are the native corporations in dealing with all of the native homeless that are exiled from their communities?
Mayor, use the commie Assembly 9 tactics, say no. We would have to eT the 9.3 million using the golden lion. The ASSembly have already put us in peril of having to pay the over $80 million for the prior abuse of the Sullivan Arena. They are not accountable for any mess they make, and they make messes everywhere they go.
Meg, she needs to recuse herself from the board or resign from the assembly, talk about conflict of interest!!
Commie ASSy 9 have no shame, no fear, no heart, no soul. They truly hate our city and are out to destroy it, $80million at a time…
This has got to be the most corrupt assembly I have ever seen in my lifetime, I am literally floored at each of their personally motivated decisions and just when I think they cant top it they go ahead and do it again! Using the homeless as pawns in their little political stunts is sickening, these assembly members are NOT public servants and as for Zalatel, I’m sure there’s a special place hell has reserved for you.
Follow the money.
Who benefits from a constant “homeless” problem?
If the government subsidizes it, it will continue and grow.
$2285 a month?! Are they nuts?
Fly them to San Francisco.
Well you can’t get them on a plane and send them down to San Francisco. They have rights. You can’t continually arrest them for vagrancy because most of them have mental illnesses. They’re homeless vets, been shipped to Anchorage by The villages because they were causing problems there, there just isn’t a good solution with this stain on society other than to go ahead and pay the money and put them up. For whatever reason, they are what they are and society has a duty to take care of them and deal with them. Yes it sucks on the taxpayers and watching them screw on the berm outside of the Walmart, and the constant panhandling and on and on and on. It’s here to stay and it is likely to get worse. There is no viable solution rather than to put them somewhere and try to rehabilitate those that you can and help the ones that you can’t. One solution is you don’t see very many elderly homeless people so their longevity is shortened because of their lifestyle. That’s sad but reality.
I have no duty whatsoever to support the addicts. They are there by choice. I have no issue with the mentally ill, but they need different services than the addicts. I also have no issue with anyone who is actively trying to become a member of society instead of a parasite upon it. But to pay MORE than most mortgages per addict to keep them from facing the consequences of their choices is insanity, and just indicates that the “non-profits” who collect government money to “provide services” will get paid, for ever. It is a racket and it needs to end.
Addiction is an illness not a choice. Addiction May derive from hopelessness and depression. I’m pretty sure most addicts don’t choose to be an addict. It’s a consequence. Let’s try to look at it this way. A person was sexually molested as a child in a village. Then that person being emotionally damaged, raped someone or committed some other heinous crime in the village. Say they did a stand in the prison. They get out and come back to the village and it’s a never ending cycle and eventually The village gets tired of them and ships them off to Anchorage with no support. Suddenly they’re faced with having to survive in a cruel and unforgiving environment. Try putting yourself in their place. What would you have done differently? Being an addict is just one chapter of being destitute and homeless. For the addict, it’s just a way of coping with everything that has hurt them in their life. Hurt them to a point that they’re willing to do anything to gain relief even if for just a short period. I pity you.
“Well you can’t get them on a plane and send them down to San Francisco. They have rights………”
I bet if you pay them $2000 and a free plane ticket to go they’ll take it. Then nobody is forced.
Do it the same way DeSantis is doing it. Entice with a free airline ride and a meal. Get their signature on a release form and they are good to go. Cheers –
DeSantis deceived them. Do you care?
They weren’t deceived. Many had just traveled over 2,000 miles seeing death all along the way and being raped as well. They gave up all of their belongings to get here. No I’m not saying what they did was right but they were looking for a better way of life because of desperation. So once they did actually get on our soil, the Santa’s asked them if their plans were to go to Florida and they said yes we would like to go to Florida. They said the wrong thing. Since they willingly showed an intent to come to Florida, that made it DeSantis problem or at the very least it was going to be a future problem so he nipped it in the bud and sent them somewhere else where as advertised, they were welcome with open arms. It sounds like a win-win to me. Now they’re going to go up there and get jobs in sweatshops and wait tables and work in packing houses and making beds in hotels. They won’t live there because they hypocrisy up there won’t allow that. Rather they will put them on what we call the bed sled which is a tour bus and ship them to and from work as far as 30 to 50 miles away each day. Still that might be better than where they came in Venezuela but it’s not listening to CNN about how the governor of Florida tricked these people. They just as much as put themselves on the plane by what they confess to
No.
How much do we spend on not housing the homeless
This town is run by a bunch of losers from Bronson to the illustrious assembly! Put the “aspiring” homeless on DC-6 charters to Seattle and give ‘em each 500 bucks cash to spend when they get there. Seattle has plenty of experience in dealing with this matter, and Washington beats our below-zero winters. If “hopeful” would like they can always hitchhike through Canada in the spring to catch the panhandling season here. Everybody comes out a winner: Seattle gets a nice influx of cash, the “aspiring” get to ride out some time in the heat, and none of us finer folk need worry about finding stiffs laying around dead! How’s this a bad idea?
That’s a great idea so far as they are willing there’s a little thing called The Bill of Rights that you’re forgetting about.
Then give them 5000 and any city they want. Make it as much as it would take so it is their choice no force was used.
They are Alaskan natives. That would kill them.
Unsure I see the logic of that statement Greg.
What would kill them? Living outside of AK? Not likely, there are plenty of AK Natives living around the world. Living outside of their village? They already are.
How will this kill them?
In 2018, Native Alaskans represented 30.24% of the population accessing homeless services.
Residents who identify as African American represented 7.72% of the population accessing homeless services. White Alaskans represented 38.8% of clients seeking homeless services.
Felix Rivera is an example of the “Peter Principle”. This is Lawrence J. Peter’s theory and applies to people in a bureaucracy who rise, or are promoted, to their level of incompetence. Felix’s incompetence is on full display at each assembly (and committee) meeting when he sides with his social and political allies and against constituents and the greater good in the district he was elected to represent. One wonders whether his next level of incompetence will be as Muni mayor? Wake up voters!
[You may recall that Felix started as the person who answered the phones for Mayor Berkowitz in 2015.]
No! The state needs to use a currently owned state facility to house the mentally ill in a compassionate, yet secure facility. Staff it with retrained state workers in duplicate sites like Juneau and Anchorage. We owe the bums nothing. Francis Trader is the most expensive Alaskan ever to live.
Not so fast. The City isn’t in the business of accomodating the needs of transients, bums, alcoholics, drug addicts, or the socially impaired. Leave that to Red Cross, Salvation Army, Brother Francis, Catholic Social Services, and the numerous other entities that cater to that segment.
The great blurring came when a demonstrable conflict of interest was introduced to the Anchorage Assembly. I would be willing to bet $1000 that a significant conflict of interest could be proven in a court environment such that the pot bellied homosexual real estate agent and the woman that derives her income excluisively from the bum sector could be proven to have been inappropriately acting in their own best interest. This is a clear and evident conflict that merits discipline.
Ask yourself what this city would be like if there were no one like Bronson to keep them in check. To say this city would be a sewer of misplaced funding would be an insult to sewage. Make no mistake… this is a purposefully obscured issue wherein members of the Anchorage Assembly at promoting an appearance of being compassionate and ‘woke’ individuals only to mask their own seedy self interest.
Expect more of those that represent you and hold them accountable when they’re either too stupid for the post or worse yet, using the seat for personal enrichment.
Yes your right on follow the money.
Do they get free cable as well? That’s rent in a lot of places in Anchorage. Here in Juneau that’s 2-3 bedrooms with a view.
The Politburo is clear. The homeless are the cudgel they intend to beat the mayor and citizens into submission with.
The Politburo doesn’t give a damn about the homeless themselves. If they did the focus would be getting them off drugs, jobs, back home, etc.
The Politburo wants a growing homeless population as a cash cow they can milk.
The people will never get Sullivan back. If by some miracle they do, it will be a ruined toxic mess.
Bronson should hold a press conference and announce he’s having nothing to do with this. Remind people he had a plan and the Politburo sabotaged it.
And that is why elections have consequences. We had the chance to boot some of these assembly peoples recently, and failed to do so. So we, in a way, got what we deserve as a consequence of our laziness, apathy, etc. etc. Mayor Bronson, please communicate to the citizens of Anchorage, in as many ways as you can (social media, press conference, whatever) what your plan was to address homelessness, and how the assembly basically torpedoed it. Maybe people will finally wake up and start taking the time to do something about it, like voting for those who will actually care for all citizens of Anchorage and not for a few that are interested in creating a new industry that will only grow and suck funds our of our pockets.
Strongly worded letters are Dan Sullivan’s approach and have been proven ineffective. Following your logic an Assemblyman should be able to wreak havoc with the city’s funding for as long as it takes to oust them and that’s simply unacceptable. Without consequences there’s no accountability and that needs to change. These idiots that are manipulating input and outcomes to support their own agendas must be held accountable in a manner that suggests to others that irresponsible apportionment of city funds is an actionable matter.
What do you call it when you work, but are not only denied the fruits of you labor, you are forced to see them used on things you do not want, and do not benefit you? Hint, it is considered a blight in US history, and people are demanding repartitions because of it.
.
Over $2,000 per person per month out of my taxes. That is enough reason to toss the assembly into the inlet.
Sorry, poorly phrased statement at the end there. It is out of our taxes.
Earlier I said that transplanting them would kill them. What I meant to say was think of it like this if you dig up a plant and relocate it, and the soil is different, and the lighting is different and it gets more or less rain than there used to, the plant is likely to die. I know some Alaskan native kids that got a full ride scholarship to go to a small college in New York to play basketball and we’re back before Thanksgiving. They just couldn’t stand the culture change. I knew another kid that had a full ride in Oregon and was back after one semester. That is what would kill them if you forcibly move them from their environment and Homeland that they are most comfortable with. That’s one problem with Alaska natives. It is like the trip of a lifetime when they go to Anchorage. The bubble that a lot of them live in is no bigger than two or three miles in diameter. Anchorage is a fantasy trip that happens once a year and PFD time or during tournaments but after just three or four days they are ready to go back to the village. Now I’m native American as well but I wasn’t raised that way and I am well traveled. Because of that I don’t have a home or a place that I call home. Sometimes I wish I did.
in the Bible it say’s no work, no eat.
There’s very few who honestly can’t do some kind of work.
Doesn’t your bible say something about the least of us?
It says they get really skinny and then they go away.
The Lord loves and elegant solution
I think of the phrase from the old Field of Dreams movie…”build it and they will come.” When Seattle, Portland, or SF catch wind of this a lot of one way airline tickets to Anchorage will be purchased. The shelters will fill up and they’ll still have a homeless problem.
THAT is absurd! Anchorage? Ever been without money in Anchorage in January? Geez Jim, use some common sense.
If we’re just going to blow that money away anyways, why not just give it back to Anchorage Residents? Ah right…we don’t have a say in how our tax dollars are spent…got it.
This homeless problem needs to be solved. As I see it the only way to solve it is to put the mentally ill in a facility to get them off the streets so they can get the help they need. The ones that are breaking law should be put in jail. The ones that are just living in our parks and our wooded areas because they have no desire to pay rent like the rest of us do should be forced out of the parks and given an option either go to jail or find a place to live. The drug attics should be put in a facility to help them with their drug addictions or alcohol addictions and helped to get back on the in society and become productive people again. But no one and I mean no one should be allowed to live on the streets anymore in our wooded areas or parks. We must put our foot down and stop this or it will never stop. I agree they have rights but so do we the community have rights and we have a right not to have them destroying our shared areas.
We did away with the poor farms 100 years ago. But many do need assistance.
IS the word BUM the lefts new Pronoun?
Makes as much sense as the rest of their invented pronouns. My lord. Where is my rosery.
Our bums give a good
challenges to the church, the real one, growing their faith, patience, and love to develop effective ways teaching the bible and discipling anyone wanting a change including bums, dead
beat dads, addicts, prisoners, and mentally and behaviorally challenged(including politicians) hahaha. The real church in anchorage they don’t want to see the beautiful churches turned into cold weather shelters like juneau did, they’d get out there displaying the gospel w/o enabling efforts. Cause to display and teach
the gospal cost nothing. Warning! Within
the homeless crowd are
individuals possessed by unseen satanic influence-demons- because of drug, alcohol, and trauma. So be prayed up and armored up.
There aren’t any demons good grief! Just severely mentally ill folks that have done damage because of chemical dependency and abuse boost psychological and physical. Your church needs to do more and just preach to these people because that is going to do very little given what they need. First of all they need food and shelter and a stable surroundings. Secondly you can’t force religion down anybody’s throat. Just because you feel strongly about some cause, doesn’t mean that you can forcibly cause someone else to think the same way. No matter how much you try to brainwash them. I’m starting to see a picture of you Jenny that is kind of ugly and self-centering.
The Assembly Democrats are no different that any of the other Democrat morons that destroy everything they touch. Some examples:
1. The demented, corrupt, evil, Democrat president is destroying the US economy. He’s caused over 10 trillion dollars to be wiped off the wealth of the stock market. He’s also devalued the US Dollar- making every American poorer. He’s opened the US border and flooded US cities with illegals, some who have serious criminal records. Those who traffic in humans love Biden, so do the drug dealers who import so many drugs that hundreds of Americans are killed daily.
2. In every city run by Democrats crime is out of control. 800 murders in Chicago last year. Seattle, San Francisco, Portland all are being destroyed by crime and homelessness. Quality of life is being destroyed.
So, the abject morons that control the majority of the Assembly are dedicating themselves to wasting millions, and destroying the quality of life for the decent people who pay the taxes.
FTA.
So why not just spend $2000 per month renting nice apartments for each of these very special people and save money? We could rent the Sullivan Arena out for events (gee, what a novel idea!) to help pay for the apartments.
I’m sure that renting these fine folks apartments wouldn’t cause other special folks to demand like services.
That was my initial thought, they could use the 2,285 rent out rooms, this way the housekeepers have
rooms to clean now that visitors are gone, and contracts aren’t being made because biden closed alaska for business and leases. But also! No respectable hotel would do such action
, it would put employees health at risk. that’s IF the homeless stayed at a rental or hotel room. More likely the homeless will use
the allotment at holiday food mart, on taxis, bus, and
addictions and still sleeping outside. Giving a card or voucher for designated purpose doesn’t work like when that person, recipient, attempts selling/trading quest card money in exchange for the
other buying
ciggy’s, they’ll
find someone to make an exchange. The homeless are devious just like our politicians, the two groups aren’t very different.
Your Christian piety just went down the toilet Jen.
You say the homeless or devious just like our politicians. Wow. That statement speaks volumes. Thank you for sharing.
That might work. What people want is out of sight out of mind. They don’t want to look at the ugly part of society. They want a Glass menagerie. During any society and even in ancient times, there have always been the destitute, the sick and the beggars. If we were an ant colony, we would call them out chop them up by body parts and throw them all on the trash heap pile for further processing. We’re supposed to be more intelligent and civilized than ants but sometimes I wonder.
So if I say that I’m homeless – I get a raise?
Ya gotta put those Persian-speaking Venezuelans somewhere.
It’s not like there’s a lack of land available.
Clusters of tent cabins with a central space heater for each cluster.
“Clusters of tent cabins …….”
This is precisely what they want in summer, as long as there are liquor, pop, and convenience shopping nearby and free staple food is delivered, but winter temps will start the bleeding hearts in the community to lament. Bottom line, they want a warm place to sleep after getting inebriated, and facilities like Brother Francis Shelter won’t allow drug and alcohol use, so they get wasted elsewhere, then lay in the street and wait for the Community Service van to come around, pick their cold, wet carcass up out of the snow, and deliver them to the bed at the BFS.
That the WORKING poor should live so well…
This is the PRECISE reason government has no business within the homeless industrial complex.
Defund COMPLETELY the governmental involvement within the homeless issue and allow the multitude of already defined PRIVATE entities to provide all needed services through VOLUNTARY contributions from the COMMUNITY at large, to support those that VOLUNARILY subscribe to said services.
The rest are left unto their own VOLUNTARY decisions to not ascribe unto the AVAILABLE resources given unto them, without GOVERNMENTAL support, and as such, are left unto their own devices, freedom, and survival as THEY see fit, for that is their individual right, and reap the consequences in whatever reality that so determines, be it incarceration, isolation, or even death, as it is their freedom to choose their fate without force of being decided by those other than them.
That is how individualism and freedom works, is it not?
The free individual makes choices unto their own existence and the repercussions therein.
The responsibility unto their own existence belongs to they, and they alone. No one else.
I don’t watch the local news, so wondering if anyone saw any journalists interviewing our homeless to see how they are spending their biggest ever PFD?
$2,285? isn’t that the balance of what they owe me for my PFD?
Our family lives on 500 dollars less than that…we do not use food stamps, or welfare, and we donate 50 dollars a month. We forgo pot, booze and live simple. It is really their choice not to improve and be independent… The assembly is using tax money from hardworking people to own homeless people …not to help them but to maintain a needy population to justify non profits funding to as much as they can Grab ….so that the non profits will support the politicians.
The solution lies in a criminal purge.
The next time one of these miscreants commits an actionable offense (the Loussac Stabber comes to mind first) run him through the court system, apply the greatest possible penalty along w/ an offer.
The offer is a ticket to SFO or Los Angeles’ skid row and a couple hundred bucks. If they ever come back their sentence starts immediately.
That would have to be voted on and passed. I know back in the 50s and 60s, if young man committed a multitude of misdemeanor crimes they were given the choice of going to jail or being put into the armed forces. That’s how we got a lot of people in the Vietnam war. Many were drafted but some were there by their own doing. I’m pretty sure that would violate somebody’s individual rights if they were forced to go on the plane. But if it was past and legislation and found to be legal, then that would work for Alaska but not so much for the individual or the other states. Now if there was an agreement with the other states and they publicly said send all your homeless down to us we’ll take care of them like New York and Chicago and California and other places did with the illegal immigrants, then they pretty much opened the door and put down the welcome mat.
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