Opinion: Anchorage’s Homeless Crisis: A Call for Congressional Action

Has been updated: 6 by the time release date: 7 by the time

The homeless situation in Anchorage affects all of us, from the individual homeless walking through our neighborhoods to the encampments that have sprung up across the city. While not everyone experiencing homelessness develops behavioral problems, a significant number do. Disorganized camping, drugs and alcohol, and dangerous environments are all too common. The reality is we need to do more. What’s getting in the way? Uncooperative Congress.

The Anchorage Assembly voted against all of my proposals to address homelessness, while publicly criticizing me for not proposing any solutions. At a recent special meeting dedicated to this topic, all of my solutions were rejected, members asked for more time to consider them, and other members directly opposed my efforts. The political reality is that they are more interested in opposing me than in solving problems. Anchorage residents should expect and deserve that their elected officials will work together to provide solutions to the problems affecting our city.

Here are some of the ideas rejected by Congress. It’s a proposal to spend no more than $240,000 to transport a custom-made, prefabricated spring structure to Anchorage as a navigation center for the homeless. I’ve identified investors who are willing to pay to build a facility and operators who are willing to provide services, but Congress is not going to spend the money to transport the building here. I continue to believe that a navigation center near Elmore Road and Tudor Road is the best solution. Council President Chris Constant opposes the plan, in part because he believes the spring structure is not an appropriate structure for private occupancy. These buildings are sufficient for use by the U.S. Department of Defense and developers on Alaska’s North Slope, where some of the world’s harshest and most extreme weather conditions exist. Needless to say, the building must be cleared prior to occupancy.

The next proposal, rejected by the Legislature or postponed indefinitely, would give the city the ability to clean up homeless encampments. It imposed new size limits on homeless encampments to 25 tents, established distance requirements between homeless encampments and shelters, restricted access to drugs and alcohol, and limited predatory behavior.

Another solution that I proposed and that was supported by downtown business owners is to ban camping in certain parks and carve out a no-camping zone in the downtown business district. Similar legislation was considered and passed by the SeaTac City Council in October 2020. It is puzzling why the liberal SeaTac City Council can pass ordinances that protect certain parks and keep them accessible to the taxpayers and tourists, while the Anchorage Council can. We are an economic hub and have a very energetic tourist season ahead. Why don’t we protect that asset and introduce Anchorage?

Congress’ inaction is not only puzzling, but dangerous. Last year, New York Times bureau chief Mike Baker wrote an article titled, “The ‘unimaginable death toll’ of Anchorage’s homeless population.” Shelters provide opportunities for intervention and allow year-round supervision for individuals experiencing homelessness. Her two remaining shelters, the Alex Hotel and the Aviator Hotel, where homeless people are provided with private rooms, have closed their doors to the homeless in preparation for the tourist season. This means that hundreds of people who have been protected so far will be left without a place to live from next month.

We are working on how to address homelessness in Anchorage and have had some successes. We established a cold weather shelter, but thanks to his recent $4 million matching grant from the Alaska State Legislature, it could become a year-round shelter and remain in the final budget. I’m looking forward to it. We know that many fatalities occur during the summer when homeless people are outdoors and unsupervised. This funding will go a long way toward continuing to provide shelter options for homeless people. There is still much work to be done. I urge the community to assist the Anchorage Council in keeping people off the streets.

dave bronsonthe 2021 elected mayor of Anchorage.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Anchorage Daily News, which welcomes a wide range of viewpoints.To submit your work for consideration, please send an email Commentary(at)adn.com. Submissions of less than 200 words should be sent to: Letters@adn.com or Click here to submit from any web browser.Read all guidelines for letters and comments here.