After hearing many radio stories and reading many newspaper articles, I have long sought solutions to the homeless problem in Anchorage. Why, as a non-Anchorage Alaska resident, do I care? Possibly because I worked for years in fisheries in the Bush, and found the people, both Native and white, to be extremely hard-working.
Unfortunately, when some migrate to Anchorage, they go to pieces. For them, it is a hard and expensive world there.
I started thinking in terms of a camp: government and/or private supplying the basics: shelter, heat, food, water, bathrooms. But that conjured images of “concentration camps” in my mind. Would folks be “forced” to stay there? How voluntary would it all be? So I said to myself, “Forget about it. People will not accept it.”
But organized camps were mentioned off and on over the years in the news. Then, lo and behold, the August 2019 issue of National Geographic came out. The article “Walking with Migrants,” by Paul Salopek, with photos by John Stanmeyer, is all about migrants and refugees throughout the world.
The tents are very similar to wall tents as Alaskans know them. Powerlines, street lights, and satellite dishes are present. It is not a luxury tourist camp, but at least people are not dying in the mud. Many unknowns remain: food, policing, security, sewage, public opinion, winter heating, nearby neighborhoods and so on. But if Turkey can do it for 30,000, can’t Anchorage, the state, and private entities do it for 300? I sit writing this while also reading today’s Aug. 15 edition of the ADN. Front page headline: “Vetoes leave gap for homeless services.” Definitely another setback.
I know there are many unknowns and lack of funding, but let’s at least consider some of these concepts.
— Denis Ransy
Talkeetna
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