Anchorage mayor proposes sending homeless people to Los Angeles this winter

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

People experiencing homelessness in Anchorage, Alaska, may be sent to Los Angeles and other U.S. cities with warmer climates this winter amid a shortage of shelters.

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson told reporters during a news conference this week that plane tickets would be purchased for unhoused people to be sent to cities where they have families who can care for them or where the climate is warmer.

“Last year was the most deadly year in history for people who were homeless, and now this coming year with this winter, we’re looking at possibly doubling that,” he said, noting that winters are extremely cold in Anchorage. “I have a moral imperative here and that is to save lives, and if that means giving them a few hundred dollars for an airline ticket to go where they want to go, I’m going to do that.”

No funding has been approved yet for the relocation program, which also operated last year, but Bronson didn’t anticipate any problems locating the funds. He said about 11 people took the offers last year.

“I think a ticket this morning to Los Angeles is 286 bucks, it cost us $100 plus or minus a few dollars every day to house someone, and we don’t have a place to put them in a large shelter this winter,” he said. “And remember, the objective, and it’s sad that we had to get to this, but we’re here to save lives, that’s my job.”

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-28/anchorage-mayor-proposes-sending-homeless-people-to-los-angeles-this-winter

[walkingman]

1. Send them to the Bible Belt where the most important thing on the planet is religion. It will offer

them a chance to show their true family values and compassion for those in need.

[AllyCat]

2. Better yet...HOUSE THEM!

Help them get on their feet. Help them gain employment if they can. Connect people with services. Jeez.

[LuvLoogie]

9. This

I mean seriously.

[NotASurfer]

16. Yeah. It's like the AK Dept of Health and Human Service is admitting incompetency

It's an admission they can't help their own citizens and they need help.

Maybe Newsom should have a task force on Helping States That Can't Solve Their Own Problems and reach out to the incompetent HHS secretaries in places like this to offer advice on, you know, helping people who live in the state they supposedly operate in, instead of fobbing the problem off on somebody else

[GP6971]

27. Welcome to DU.

You're being sarcastic, right?

[jimfields33]

18. Be nice if every state and city did this.

[marble falls]

3. Texas should send all the homeless this summer to Anchorage. Want them off the streets? ...

... house them where they are. There is available housing stock.

[edisdead]

4. What is the fascination with sending homeless to CA?

They already give more to these states than they take in. Like wtf is the matter with the media? They need to point this shit out?

[jimfields33]

19. The weather. That's the bottom line.

[enid602]

5. Phoenix

Using the same logic, maybe Phoenix should send it’s huge homeless population to Anchorage during the summer.

[Thunderbeast]

20. I guess that on average...

everyone would be comfortable.

[sakabatou]

6. Except it does nothing about solving the root of the problem

[former9thward]

11. True.

But no one knows the answer. If there was an answer it would be solved and no one is even close to doing it.

[Blues Heron]

7. Being homeless in SoCal is no picnic either

Why does he think he is saving lives sending them to the mean streets of SoCal?

[2naSalit]

8. +1

[Initech]

12. I take it you haven't been to Compton or Inglewood.

[2naSalit]

14. Used to deliver gas there.

SoCal is no place to be poor or homeless... anywhere.

[Initech]

15. No totally agree there!

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

24. because they die in the cold of Anchorage

[Blues Heron]

25. The mean streets of SoCal are deadly too.

Temps are just one factor. What he is doing is abdicating his responsibility by trying to sweep the problem somewhere else in the false name of saving them from cold temps.

[LoisB]

10. Sounds to me as if he wants to be able to say "we don't have a homeless problem in Anchorage".

[Initech]

13. I get the idea, but we are not the state to send them to.

We have our own homeless crisis here (which is in no way related to the sky rocketing rent around this state, and you'd be a fool and a communist to make that connection ). Send them to a place like Alabama or Mississippi. The Christian fundamentalist community will take care of them.

[thucythucy]

17. How about spending the money on providing housing

and services, instead of on airline tickets?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

21. Another asshole

[Emile]

22. Why not Florida or Texas?

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

23. California is closer so tickets are cheaper, but it's implied they will send homeless where they ask

[GP6971]

29. Have a link

to verify your claim?

[Mopar151]

30. But if you are stranded in a bad place,

A bus ride to a better place is mercy indeed. But dumped off at another hobo camp in a strange town is cruelty.

[Snooper9]

31. They should go for it-

If I was homeless in Alaska book me up to LA!


I imagine ~$1677 per person they will never pay....