Homeless people in Alaska? (Anchorage, Hope: for sale, crime, hotel)

[Jdawg8181]

Originally Posted by lonewolf39

i currently am a homeless person not cause of my own reasonings but cause i got layed off and then didnt have the money to continue paying rent and feeding myself. I have applyed to many different jobs in the last few months trying to get a job so i wont have to live in the cold this winter, but from the way the economy is ill be lucky to get something. The worst thing about being homeless is that you know that your dad is also homeless and now his son is also homeless but not for the same reasons. Well enjoy your homes everyone that makes fun of homeless people cause someday you might be out were i am and start wanting help and you wont get it.

I am sorry Lonewolf. You don't have any friends or family you can stay with?

[justNancy]

Originally Posted by megensmom

I feel for those that are truly homeless but I do have a question. They say they can't find work,I know 2 places right now in fairbanks that for as long as you will come to work sober they would hire you and one of them even let a person park their van in the parking area and use the electric hook up just to help the person get on their feet. Granted these places only pay about $9 per hour but wouldn't a job that pays that even if it was fast food or something be better than nothing?

I don't live in Alaska, so I certainly can't debate this, but how does one get from point A to point B without a car or public transportation? I've read it's difficult to travel in Alaska even with a car.

Just a side note: $9 an hour in Florida is pretty average pay. Strange how I forgot that in 1987 I was making over $12 an hour in NH. Where I live now they pay people in drops of sunshine. I can't imagine being poor where you need heat.

[ketchikan2000]

9$ hourly wouldn't cover the cost of my utilities let alone the mortgage or upkeep on my house. I'm considering turning over my house keys to Chase and leaving everything behind. I'm a dedicated professional who has been unemployed since April. I can't begin to tell you how many jobs I've applied for (not just on the web) and I've had two interviews. I'm over 50 with vast experience two negatives I guess in these days and times

[zoomzoom3]

I can't even imagine what homeless is like in Alaska. Here around St. Louis in the winter they find frozen bodies of homeless people on those nights where it gets below 0*F.

[JHypers]

Originally Posted by zoomzoom3

I can't even imagine what homeless is like in Alaska. Here around St. Louis in the winter they find frozen bodies of homeless people on those nights where it gets below 0*F.

It's more common than you think. All you have to do is drive through some part of Anchorage and you're bound to see one. It's sad, but a fact of life. A significant portion of the homeless population are natives, who for one reason or another make their way to the "city" usually because they think life will be better than the bush villages they live in. Too often the skills they have aren't what modern society is looking for, so they remain unemployed, and without homes.

Your sub-zero days in St. Louis are once in a blue moon. Here in Southcentral Alaska, they occur early and often. You can have sub-zero temperatures in October. Combine that with 20 hours of darkness during December and into January...and you have some of the most inhospitable conditions if you don't know how to cope.

I encountered two people who I surmised were homeless just this morning. One even asked me for change, but I don't trust anyone I don't know regardless of their economic status, so I gave him nothing. For all I know he could've just walked into one of the 4th Ave. bars and drank that money away...or he could've made a phone call and gotten himself out of the situation he was in. You just don't know.

[Alaskapat528]

Originally Posted by JHypers

It's more common than you think. All you have to do is drive through some part of Anchorage and you're bound to see one. It's sad, but a fact of life. A significant portion of the homeless population are natives, who for one reason or another make their way to the "city" usually because they think life will be better than the bush villages they live in. Too often the skills they have aren't what modern society is looking for, so they remain unemployed, and without homes.

Your sub-zero days in St. Louis are once in a blue moon. Here in Southcentral Alaska, they occur early and often. You can have sub-zero temperatures in October. Combine that with 20 hours of darkness during December and into January...and you have some of the most inhospitable conditions if you don't know how to cope.

I encountered two people who I surmised were homeless just this morning. One even asked me for change, but I don't trust anyone I don't know regardless of their economic status, so I gave him nothing. For all I know he could've just walked into one of the 4th Ave. bars and drank that money away...or he could've made a phone call and gotten himself out of the situation he was in. You just don't know.

What I put in bold that you posted is true. However, many have been "banned" from their villages for certain crimes, etc., and are not allowed to return.

I will off and on give a homeless person a buck or two, or if they are at a store I'll buy them coffee and some donuts to give to them on my way out. I've even bought a breakfast/coffee at a fast food and given it to one who was counting change just to buy a cup of coffee, and...they have always been very grateful.

I look at it this way: Whether they choose to buy booze and somehow give themselves a couple moments of pleasure (which is certainly not what I consider pleasure for myself), or if they choose to buy coffee.....I gave it with a "good heart" and that's what matters to me.

[Alaskapat528]

I do sincerely hope the OP and his dad have found jobs and a home, or at least entered one of the shelters.

[roadfamily6now]

Originally Posted by justNancy

I don't live in Alaska, so I certainly can't debate this, but how does one get from point A to point B without a car or public transportation? I've read it's difficult to travel in Alaska even with a car.

Just a side note: $9 an hour in Florida is pretty average pay. Strange how I forgot that in 1987 I was making over $12 an hour in NH. Where I live now they pay people in drops of sunshine. I can't imagine being poor where you need heat.

Yeah, trying to feed all those sled dogs really is a pain in the arse.

[starlite9]

The majority of those that are unemployed and on the street are there because they want to be there. They stand at street corners with signs from "Homeless Vet" to "Help me, I'm homeless, God Bless". In a good day if they don't buy a bottle with the first $20.00 and get drunk, they can make a few hundred. But there are some that are truly down and out and there are places for them to stay and get fed if they want to.

There are all sorts of agencies that will help them that want to be helped. There is public vans that will come and pick up the drunks and take them to a dry out tank to keep them from freezing on the streets.

You can't help someone that doesn't' want to be helped.

By the way, while we are letting them freeze to death on the streets here in Alaska, do they let them Tan to death in the states where it is hot, or do they get them off the streets and into an air conditioned shelter?

Just wondering...

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by JHypers

It's more common than you think. All you have to do is drive through some part of Anchorage and you're bound to see one. It's sad, but a fact of life. A significant portion of the homeless population are natives, who for one reason or another make their way to the "city" usually because they think life will be better than the bush villages they live in. Too often the skills they have aren't what modern society is looking for, so they remain unemployed, and without homes.

The really sad part is that all those "Natives" that you see that look down and out are all members of a Native Corporation. They are millionaires in their own right as a shareholder, but you would never know it by looking at them.

The Native Corporations they belong to, in "Most" cases make millions annually and have millions in assets. But very little of their members actually see any of that wealth. Once a year or maybe Quarterly, they will receive a dividend that they will blow in short order. But if you were to take the Corporations, sell all of the assets and dole it out equally to all the shareholders, they would almost all have well in excess of a million dollars each.

But to sit in your car at a stop light and see them, they don't have a penny in their pocket, and it isn't the "White Guys" that are keeping their money, it is their own shareholder Board members that control the Corporations. The Native Lands Claim Act took the "White Guy" excuse out of the loop entirely and it now is their own that feed on them, which is pretty sad.

The Native Corporations can do whatever they wanted to help those of their members on the street, but they don't spend any real amounts to help them get jobs or dry out. The have some help programs, but they are not very well funded for those that need it. For those that want to help themselves, their Corporations will send them to college, trade schools and the like at no cost to the members, but they have to be self starters and coming from a village to the big city is very intimidating on your own.