Clearing out a homeless encampment with no other action means the homeless will move to camp somewhere else, which means that the problem moves but isn’t solved. This includes the solution of busing them to Fairbanks or elsewhere. To get shelter and food, they will buy it, steal it or someone will give it to them. The homeless, by and large, are not buying what they need to survive, so the solution is donations. Who is going to donate? Nonprofit organizations like churches and Bean’s Cafe, or the Municipality of Anchorage.
Any gap between the need and what is filled by the nonprofits will be filled by all of us (higher spending on homeless services) or the entities enduring the forced donations (theft).
Morally, the gap is filled by the Muni. I’d vastly prefer that these donations are not gifts, but payment for some kind of work. I think the federal government programs in the 1930s would provide a template of how this might work.
— Mark Desinger
Anchorage
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