OPINION: We need action now on Anchorage homelessness

Last winter in Anchorage, at least 27 people experiencing homelessness were admitted to area hospitals with frostbite severe enough to require inpatient care, according to records maintained by the State of Alaska. This winter, at just one of our three local hospitals, more than 46 persons have so far come to the emergency room suffering from frostbite who do not have a safe place to sleep at night, staying instead in camps, under tarps or in cars.

Frostbite is a terrible injury, causing tremendous pain and often amputation of hands, feet, or ears. A victim can literally watch parts of their body dying, and the pain can be unbearable as the tissue thaws. A short time ago, I had the privilege to care for a young lady who does not have a safe place to stay and had suffered severe frostbite to both her feet. I met her when she came to the operating room for surgery, an operation in which the surgeon removed every single one of her toes. She is young enough to be my daughter.

We can do better for our neighbors and ourselves by doing two simple, and not particularly expensive, things. First, provide a safe place, combined with the services that can help a person become their best self, for everyone who needs it. It is called a navigation center to acknowledge that shelter just isn’t enough, there needs to be a way to exit the system and get back on one’s feet.

The second step, to be done only after providing this navigation center, is to make it unacceptable to sleep out in the cold in our city. It really is that simple.

Now is there more to solving homelessness than these two steps? Absolutely. But this is how it must start, keeping ourselves and our neighbors safe. Care enough to help in a thoughtful intentional way, counting successes in lives changed and not money given.

As our community continues to debate the best path forward let us remind our Assembly members that Alaskans do not leave anyone behind, and the time for action is now. Let us have a professionally designed and compassionately operated navigation center that has room for everyone as part of a system for comprehensively addressing homelessness. Not acting yesterday is no reason to be idle today.

John Morris, MD, served as Mayor Dave Bronson’s homelessness coordinator from July 2021 to late October 2021. He is an anesthesiologist and lives in Anchorage.

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