With our roughly 4,000 homeless, up 20% annually, there are more missing youth because the largest increases are in our most vulnerable ages 16-24 and single women — preyed on by drug dealers, criminals and traffickers who control them by taking away phones, IDs and homes.
Our mayor’s 500 authorized hotel rooms are a small gesture benefiting proprietors and “privileged” homeless. Shelters built by and for men, house single women at such risk for domestic violence and rape, that many are forced to camp and “couple up” — the resulting pregnancies now admit them to filled-up women’s shelters that prioritize women with families. Abating and moving camps fails and brings misery to campers and neighbors. We need safe, sanitary, walking-accessible winter camps with warm-up shelters for the two-thirds of our homeless population who, with mental health and addiction issues, are not welcomed in shelters. Shelters also “kick out” residents during the day — businesses face “survival crime” issues as the homeless try to stay warm and fed by stealing and lighting fires.
The 2,500 addicted or mentally ill homeless need bona fide comprehensive treatment programs, which do not exist here due to long waiting lists. We cannot waitlist our sick. Instead, the patients need to move immediately from hospitalization/detox to knowledgeable treatment.
Wake up, Anchorage. Prioritize helping end homelessness over downtown bike trails — or we, like other cities, will lose our tourism and continue down the path of unnecessary deaths.
— Marty Margeson
Anchorage
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