OPINION: Anchorage’s homelessness crisis: a call for Assembly action

The homeless situation in Anchorage affects us all, from the individual homeless walking around our neighborhoods to the encampments that have sprung up around town. Although not all individuals experiencing homelessness engage in problematic behavior, a troubling number do. Disorderly camps, drugs and alcohol, and unsafe environments are all too common. The reality is, we need to do more. What is standing in the way? An uncooperative Assembly.

The Anchorage Assembly has voted against every one of my proposals to address homelessness, while at the same time publicly denouncing that I have not proposed any solutions. At a recent special meeting devoted to the topic, all my solutions were voted down, with members asking for more time to consider them and others outright opposing my efforts. The political reality is they are more interested in opposing me than solving the problem. Anchorage residents should expect and deserve their elected officials to work together to provide solutions to problems that affect our city.

Here are a few of the ideas shot down by the assembly: a proposal to spend no more than $240,000 to ship a custom-built, prefabricated Sprung Structure to Anchorage for a navigation center for our homeless. I’ve identified an investor willing to pay to construct the facility and an operator willing to provide services, yet the assembly won’t spend the funds to ship the building here. I continue to believe the Navigation Center near Elmore and Tudor Roads is the best solution. Assembly chair Chris Constant opposes the plan, in part, because he believes the Sprung Structure is not an adequate structure to house individuals. These buildings are sufficient for use by the United States Department of Defense and developers on Alaska’s North Slope, where some of the harshest and extreme weather conditions in the world exist. Not to mention, any building has to be permitted before it’s occupied.

The next proposal shot down or delayed indefinitely by the Assembly would have given the city the ability to clean up homeless camps. It placed new size limits on homeless encampments to 25 tents and put distance requirements between homeless encampments and shelters, driving down the ability for access to drugs and alcohol and limiting predatory behavior.

Another solution I proposed and was supported by Downtown business owners is a measure that would prohibit camping in certain parks and carve out the downtown business district as a camping-free zone. A similar law was considered and passed by the Sea-Tac city council in October 2020. Why the liberal Sea-Tac city council can pass an ordinance to protect certain parks and retain their use to the general taxpaying population and tourists, but the Anchorage Assembly cannot, is puzzling. We have an economic hub and a wildly energetic tourism season ahead; why are we not protecting that asset and showcasing Anchorage?

Not only is the inaction by the Assembly puzzling, but it’s also dangerous. The New York Times’ bureau chief, Mike Baker, last year wrote an article titled “An ‘Unimaginable Death Toll Among Anchorage’s Homeless Residents.” Shelter gives intervention opportunities and allows for year-round supervision for individuals experiencing homelessness. Our remaining two shelter options, the Alex Hotel, and the Aviator Hotel, where individual rooms are made available to the homeless, are closing their doors to the homeless in preparation for the tourism season. This means hundreds of previously sheltered individuals will be without a place to live beginning next month.

As we grapple with how to address homelessness in Anchorage, we have had some successes. We established a cold weather shelter, and it may become a year-round shelter, thanks to a recent $4 million matching grant from the Alaska Legislature that we are hopeful will remain in the final budget. We know that many deaths occur in summer when homeless individuals are outside and unsupervised. This funding will go a long way to continue to provide a shelter option for our homeless population. There is still so much work to be done, and I ask the community to call upon the Anchorage Assembly to support keeping people off our streets.

Dave Bronson, elected in 2021, is the mayor of Anchorage.

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