![]() ![]() ![]() “I’m trying to get people to a solution where they don’t freeze to death.”ĭuring the pandemic, Anchorage configured the roughly 6,000-seat Sullivan Arena to be a mass-care facility. “I’m not trying to get rid of people to get rid of them,” Bronson said in an interview this week. The unfunded proposal drew angry rebukes from mayors in California and Hawaii and skepticism from many in Anchorage’s own unsheltered community. With Alaska’s extra-short summer construction season, “there must be a lot of progress made between now and April 1” to avoid a repeat of the rush for emergency housing next winter, Rivera said.īronson in July suggested it would be cheaper to fly homeless people to other states or elsewhere in Alaska than to house them for the winter. The city wants to use a recently vacated administration building as a makeshift low-barrier shelter, Johnson said. The city recently brought four more housing facilities, which could create space for another 310 people, but is still seeking winter housing for an estimated 400 to 450 people.īy renting hotel rooms, Johnson hopes to limit the capacity of a mass winter homeless shelter to no more than 150 people - one of the Assembly’s stipulations when releasing the emergency funds. The city began keeping records in 2017.Īlaska’s biggest city has an estimated 3,150 homeless individuals and enough room in shelters for all but about 775 people, Johnson said. “I have nothing,” he said, as he tried to make some money repairing an old car at a homeless encampment across from the city library.Ĭold snaps can plunge temperatures to minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 29 degrees Celsius) for days in Anchorage, where winds whip off Cook Inlet.Īnchorage last winter had a record 24 deaths outdoors among the homeless population, with 11 fatalities occurring in the winter months between October 2022 and April 2023, said Alexis Johnson, the city’s homeless director. Now everything he owns fits in a backpack. Someone recently destroyed Gibson’s tent and stole most of what was inside. “A lot of people are going to freeze,” said Scott Gibson, who is preparing to spend his second Alaska winter outside.
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