Can we all please stop quoting Ron Alleva? Particularly, I’m referring to the numerous times Alleva has alleged that the downtown area home to Bean’s Cafe, Brother Francis Shelter, and his business property, Grubstake Auction, is covered in human feces. Most recently, on May 22, the ADN, Alaska Public Media and KTVA ran stories about Alleva’s sentencing for pouring chemical powder along Karluk Street, endangering the health of people who do frequent that area. In all these articles and at his recent trial, he is quoted as saying that area is dirtied by human feces.
But look at Alleva’s history, just in local media alone. He has complained about human feces downtown in articles from 2018 and 2017. As long ago as 2015, I remember him showing up to a meeting about homelessness, yelling about the feces he thinks is everywhere near his property. How much poop are we really talking here, over all these years that he’s been saying it’s a problem? We can’t take this seriously. The poop is in his head. This is how he sees the poor and the homeless, and it is more of a derangement or a metaphor that he has fooled himself into believing is real.
How do I know this? Because I spent 2014-2016 volunteering regularly for Bean’s Cafe. As I don’t own a vehicle, I have walked and biked all around the exact area Alleva professes to be polluted, and the area on Karluk Street where he poured those chemicals. Have I ever seen human feces in this area? No.
I implore the local media to stop quoting Alleva about the human feces. This is bad journalism, especially because it has been repeated so many times but never confirmed. And this is harmful. It further perpetuates prejudice against the poor and homeless, painting them as both morally and literally filthy, as less than human.
— Sally Carraher
Anchorage
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