Anchorage wants to send its homeless to warmer climates. What could possibly go wrong? (Metlakatla: hotel, homes)

[GotHereQuickAsICould]

Low rent housing is disappearing all across the country, the result of years of new housing not keeping up with population growth, and the pandemic hasn't helped matters any.

https://www.politico.com/interactive...ities/housing/

Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels used to house those who were squeezed out of the affordable housing market. But those old residential hotels have been torn down for decades, replaced by condos and so forth.

There are a several organizations working valiantly to provide a place to live for those at the bottom of the housing market.

https://www.srohousing.org

San Marco Apartments - Center City Housing Corp.

For a lot of folks Housing First works. It gives them a safe place to land for starters.





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETGd2EP4z70

[GotHereQuickAsICould]

Another reason for the homeless crisis is that low-cost mobile home parks are disappearing all across the country.

As the small mom-and-pop operations close down and sell out to developers, the new mobile home parks are aimed at a higher priced market.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesb...h=7eb879c94b64

Often those who own older mobile homes are out of luck when a park closes down. Any park that has a space will only allow far newer models. So when the park closes down, they have a mobile home they can't sell, and nowhere to go.

Certainly, no place to rent for what their space rent was.

[GotHereQuickAsICould]

So, in summary, to get on our high horses about Anchorage not dealing better with a homeless crisis that cities all across the country are struggling with is nonsense.

A lot could go wrong with flying people to places where they believe they can get a better shot at life, or at least not freeze to death over the winter.

A lot could go wrong with leaving them in Anchorage.

[steiconi]

Alaska and Hawaii share a couple of problems for "unmonied persons"; it costs a lot to live there, and it costs a lot to leave.

It's easier to hitch a ride or take a bus on the mainland than to hop a plane from Hawaii or cross international borders from Alaska.

So it kind of makes sense to help them get somewhere more affordable and more accessible.

Here in Tucson, we get snowbird homeless. They spend the mild winters here, and the hot summers elsewhere.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by steiconi

Alaska and Hawaii share a couple of problems for "unmonied persons"; it costs a lot to live there, and it costs a lot to leave.

It's easier to hitch a ride or take a bus on the mainland than to hop a plane from Hawaii or cross international borders from Alaska.

So it kind of makes sense to help them get somewhere more affordable and more accessible.

Here in Tucson, we get snowbird homeless. They spend the mild winters here, and the hot summers elsewhere.

Except they're hiding behind a screen of sending them somewhere warm, and these places are typically more expensive than Alaska. Even Seattle and Portland are more expensive, and they aren't even that much warmer. If the object were to relocate them to less expensive areas, they'd be talking about sending them to Ohio rather than to "warmer places." And again, Alaska Natives make up a disproportionate amount of its homeless. Many are from the villages, and unlike your Tucson snowbirds, their big-city survival skills are marginal at best.

You can't convince me that dropping them off in a strange city with no money, no contacts or supports, and no real job skills is doing them any favor. I'm all for sending "end of the roaders" back to wherever, but that's not really the issue here. Anchorage already has a couple of charities that provide transporation for those in that situation as long as they've got a verifiable someone on the other end who says they'll take them in. The mayor's proposal involves issuing plane tickets without even making a pretense of finding out if they've got anything to go to.

Cities all over the country are overwhelmed with homeless, and the warmer locations are particularly hard hit.

[prospectheightsresident]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

I haven’t followed if the Hawaii legislature approved the plan earlier this year, but it would supposedly be similar to a private plan in place since 2015. Yes, they do verify, obviously, because family has to pay half the fare. Also, individuals get counseling as part of the process.

…”The relocation program was launched in 2015 to address homelessness in Waikiki, where the population is prominent, but it has expanded to the rest of Oahu as well as Maui and Kauai. Those who returned home are a mixture of visitors and people who willingly moved to start a new life in Hawaii.

The Institute for Human Services, which oversees the relocation program, allocated $20,000 to jumpstart it for the first two years while private donations have continued to fund it, according to executive director Connie Mitchell.

The program has paid for half of the airfare to send 599 homeless people from Oahu to the mainland while families pay for the rest…”

https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/11/ho...-the-mainland/

That's another intentionally misleading point made by Hawaii officials (in this case, state tourism association officials), IMO. When you listen to them actually discuss the program, things seem less squared away. For instance:

“We only pay half the fare and expect family and friends to pay the other half,” Hannemann said. “I just know that it works. … We’ve got to try everything.”

What does that even mean? Understanding that the tourism agency is only funding half of the fare (by their own statements), I'd wager that homeless individuals (and homeless doesn't mean completely broke) are also allowed to cough up the dough themselves without any help from family members (if they even have any family members to turn to).

And then you have folks like this HI state senator who paid out of their own pocket to get homeless out of the state.

State Rep. John Mizuno (D, Kamehameha Heights- Kalihi Valley) separately has paid for airfares out of his own pocket to send more than 50 homeless people back to the mainland and their families.

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/...ckto-mainland/

Not to mention that the same article I cite to mentions the following concerning the pilot program recently signed into law (more on below as well):

In addition, the latest version of the bill says, “The return-to-home pilot program shall actively seek the participation of local airlines, cruise lines, charter companies, homeless programs, travel agencies, and the visitor industry to coordinate and implement the pilot program.”

Wouldn't shock me in the least if other organizations are often footing the other half of the bill to get the homeless off island, which goes back to my point about Hawaii officials saying the right things despite my skepticism of them actually following through with such.

Note, the actual legislation that was signed into law this year that sets up an official state pilot program to send the homeless seems to make the point about family unification aspirational, but the actual text of the law as cited to above as well doesn't seem to actually require the state to pay for only half of the funds or otherwise mandate familial contact/payment to make things work, though it does require the state actively seek to partner with outside organizations. Source: https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessi...ls/GM1195_.PDF

To close, this reminds me of deceptive language that Hawaii officials used during the pandemic that made it seem like they were able to require that people who weren't quarantining leave the state. In reality, Hawaii couldn't do any such thing, but what was really happening was people were being offered reduced or no charges to their pandemic restriction violation related charges if they voluntarily left the state (often with police escort to the airport).

[Metlakatla]

Seventeen states are currently under heat advisory warnings.

Looks like the homeless have it pretty rough in Phoenix and are dying by the hundreds due to the heat. Maybe they should all be sent up to Anchorage to make their own way on the streets for their own good.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2...ciless-killer/

And even before the global average temperature set a new record high on July 4 and a massive heat dome over the entire Southwest sent temperatures soaring from California to Texas, extreme heat was already killing more Americans annually than any other natural disaster.

[Arktikos]

Originally Posted by Metlakatla

Seventeen states are currently under heat advisory warnings.

Looks like the homeless have it pretty rough in Phoenix and are dying by the hundreds due to the heat. Maybe they should all be sent up to Anchorage to make their own way on the streets for their own good.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2...ciless-killer/

There you go. Send them to Anchorage in the summer and Phoenix in the winter. Not snowbirds, snow bums.

This has me wondering, what happens with the homeless in Fairbanks during winter? They're the ones facing some extreme cold.

[Metlakatla]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

There you go. Send them to Anchorage in the summer and Phoenix in the winter. Not snowbirds, snow bums.

This has me wondering, what happens with the homeless in Fairbanks during winter? They're the ones facing some extreme cold.

https://apnews.com/article/weather-a...a%20warm%20cot.

[riceme]

Originally Posted by Arktikos

There you go. Send them to Anchorage in the summer and Phoenix in the winter. Not snowbirds, snow bums.

This has me wondering, what happens with the homeless in Fairbanks during winter? They're the ones facing some extreme cold.

They freeze.

Charles Ahkiviana freezing to death in a snow drift outside Fred Meyer last winter brought a momentary glimpse of attention to the issue in Fairbanks, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. I am unable to dig it up now, but it was acknowledged in the news at the time that it is not uncommon for homeless folks to freeze to death in Fairbanks and we never read or hear about it because it's not a story. And that is such a deeply tragic commentary on our society.

We don't spend money to ensure that the homeless don't freeze to death because so long as the homeless are uncomfortable, maybe they won't stay here, where we live and raise our families.

I mean, I'm kind of being sarcastic, but also kind of not. Because so long as we can keep ignoring something it's not our problem. Right?