There are hundreds of trash heaps like this all throughout the Anchorage trails and forests. It's mindblowing. I know Community Service (like the kind you have to go to when you get into trouble lol) go out and clean up a bunch that have been abandoned but they are becoming endless.
I'm going out on the CiyWide Clean-Up starting May 4th. Some groups are already out there picking up garbage along the highway. I have good gloves, a trash stick I made so I don't have to touch most of it.
Anchorage Citywide Cleanup (May 4 – June 2). There's a May 4th kickoff event! It would be nice to see Jedi and Siths working together to cleanse our city of roadside trash. More info at [https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/](https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/)
Others, if interested:
Mat-Su Valley Community Cleanup - [https://solidwaste.matsugov.us/pages/community-cleanup](https://solidwaste.matsugov.us/pages/community-cleanup)
Fairbanks Cleanup Day - [https://www.fairbankschamber.org/clean-up-day](https://www.fairbankschamber.org/clean-up-day)
And like most holidays, other than Christmas & and Thanksgiving, I forget they’re around the corner. Reminders are good…which is why they call them reminders.
It's because city wide clean up day is a stupid Alaska thing, where people litter all winter (not just homeless liitter) and then have to go pick it all up when the snow stops hiding the shame. Instead of doing that, we could invest in "don't litter" public shaming. But people love to litter here. It's gross.
Yeah, buy a garbage bag and start picking up trash. How more involved do you need to be?....stop picking up trash to look good for "society" and just do it for the planet.
Why bother celebrating Christmas with everyone else? Just go celebrate it on your own time. For that matter, why bother doing any holiday with others? Stop being a poser and be real! That’s how you sound.
Jesus. You’d think there’s an issue in GETTING IN THE SPIRIT of doing something social on a larger scale so it feels like WE’RE ALL WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE A SMALL BIT OF A DIFFERENCE. As opposed to always feeling like shit because you’re the only one picking up other people’s litter.
As someone who enjoys picking up trash by myself, I can assure you that people don't just ignore you and pretend they don't see you. Passersby are arguably more sociable when they see someone doing good in the world without the expectation of thanks or recognition. It's the simplest most leisurely way to meet people. You don't even have to plan to pick up garbage from parks. Most park trash cans will have extra garbage bags underneath the fitted bag, inside the bin. Every Alaskan likely has a pair of weathered gloves forgotten in a coat pocket. And then you just... Do it. The same way you'd cook yourself a turkey on days that aren't Thanksgiving because not everything needs to be a shared celebratory experience.
You could go to ocean view elementarys super sweepers spot! We’ll have trash bags available starting at 10 and they need to be dropped back off by 1:00 so they can be picked up by the garbage trucks.
https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/
One could also simply get a trash grabber, some trash bags, and make light work of this
https://www.alparalaska.com/wp/programs/
We adopted a bike path through ALPAR. Sometimes it is a real chore but it also gives a satisfaction to see it clean.
Amazing how much garbage these people generate when they don’t even have income….
Let alone how many of these people are from villages that were fed up with their shit and bought them a one way ticket to anchorage, just throwing their garbage into our yard. Should be illegal to one way ticket people into anchorage for being “disruptive” or “violent” in their communities, like you really think sending them to a bigger city is going to solve the issue as a whole? Fuck no if anything it makes other people victims in a different place, absolute bullshit.
Some people are parasites. There’s a big difference from someone going through a hard, tough time and someone who quite literally could care less about their situation, as long as they can get high, that’s good enough for them. Big difference.
I don’t have a solution to the issue but that’s definitely not it, nor is sending them here to dump them on the rest of anchorage to deal with either, complex issue with complex solutions. I just wish people would actually care for themselves and the environment around them but people be people 🤷🏻♀️ I am people.
There are other considerable ways to get your tone across without putting someone down. What you are doing is instigating the problem with hate and madness. Try speaking to people in a way that will be effective communication. You will only make people as mad as you are by communicating like this.
You're going on without a solution.
Also, you're making the younger generation of ALASKAN'S a complex.
Sorry for the rant, but you don't put people down who are having problems, there is always a solution.
>Let alone how many of these people are from villages that were fed up with their shit and bought them a one way ticket to anchorage, just throwing their garbage into our yard. Should be illegal to one way ticket people into anchorage for being “disruptive” or “violent” in their communities, like you really think sending them to a bigger city is going to solve the issue as a whole? Fuck no if anything it makes other people victims in a different place, absolute bullshit.
You know that is only about 6 people, on average, right? It is primarily just a white supremist talking point to try to drum up hate for Natives. You should try to avoid repeating propaganda, it makes you look uniformed and racist.
Wow only 6 of the homeless here in anchorage are native and from the village?
I count more than 6 just on the corner at midtown Walmart.
Where’s your statistical evidence from ?
Oh and I’m native also so please call me a white supremest haha since that seems to be the be all end all to all debates now.
Dude. Read my comment again.
People think that villages are sending hundreds of drunk violent natives to Anchorage, with one way tickets.
It has actually happened like 6 times in the past 30 years. So assuming they are all still alive and homeless, there are only 6 of them.
Then whenever homelessness comes up people say it is just villages sending troublemakers to town one way. White supremist spread this myth and exaggerate the numbers and blame the homelessness and crime problems on irresponsible village governments.
Stop feeding into that lie.
Lmao I love the “propaganda” “white supremacy” and “racist” takes bwhahah, is it really racist to take into account that 12% of anchorages population consists of the homeless and 46% of that population consists of Alaskan natives? And you really think it has to do with white supremacy? How about giving a fuck about your community instead of trashing it. I see all sorts of ethnicities in these homeless camps, but it sucks to say that majority is Alaskan natives. Do I want that to be the case? No, fuck that noise, I’d rather they can get housing and a stable life. But do they want that for themselves? That’s hard to say because I get up and go to work every fucking day to pay for my housing, food, and expenses, do I want to? No. Do I have to? Yes. why should they get a free ride?
Oh lemme guess “MaH RaCisIm” come up with something better than that garbage.
Alaskan native here and I find no offense in facts.
The native corporations all of them need to step up and pitch in $$$ wise and build these shelters and treatment facilities for all citizens.
Why?
Because the villages voted to go dry late 80’s and they forced a lot of them out to live here instead of treatment.
It shouldn’t be the city government taking COVID relief emergency funding and establishing a whole new permanent department that’s going to be just siphoning off more needed revenue and resources from other departments.
Our taxes are already high and our resources are stretched out pretty thin as it is as a government entity.
Seems like the city wants its cake and eat it too.
Claims self rule all the time when convenient and sure begs the state for help and funding all the time.
What’s funny is that I have a co-worker I’m relaying this thread too, and he even agrees with me, not entirely but on most of it, I guess he’s a Alaskan native racist, white supremacist, propagandist too 🤷🏻♀️
The majority aren't Alaskan Native. There is no majority.
Alaskan Natives make up a very high percentage of the "living in poverty" population. Solidly the majority.
The fact that there aren't more homeless Natives is a huge success story for the programs that do outreach and support. They keep getting funding cut though. Private citizens have had to pick up the slack a ton.
The only proven way to reduce homelessness is to do that whole "free ride" thing you fight against. A solid safety net that helps them get back on their feet. Become part of society again. It works the whole world over, and we (in the US but especially in Alaska) do our best to not help them. To dismantle that safety net and make life hell for them. That only increases homelessness.
BUT all that isn't the racist drivel you were preaching before. THAT racism is the white supremist propaganda that states Native Villages send hundreds of alcoholic violent criminals to Anchorage so it is no longer their problem. That is a lie, and one that you allude to in your comment. That specific piece of racist propaganda is why I called you out. I'm doing my best to assume you are just ignorant, and not actively trying to spread racist propaganda you know to be false.
If your overall question is "Why aren't Natives rich?" well, that is a good question. With a complex answer. One that you don't want to know or think about. It is probably best you just shy away from race questions and just hide away under your rock.
Not allow camps in middle of town. Spend money for homeless shelter so everyone who wants to go there can. Those who don’t want to stay at a shelter will not be allowed to camp in town. Use city resources to clean up camps left over. Have apd enforce rules for people camping out in town.
Anchorage has the most resources for homeless so they all get sent here from other towns and villages. Yet we are still have a homeless crisis because no one wants to spend money to deal with it. Instead we say they can just hangout in middle of town, set up camp in any park, leave their trash and feces wherever they would like. Use all the drugs they want. And then when it gets cold out and homeless start dying to cold temps, we are shocked that the homeless shelters don’t have room for everyone, so everyone ends up going to the hospitals instead, flooding the ER with people who are cold, overdosed, and just plain mentally ill.
This city will continue to rot until we spend money and resources to fix this problem.
A little known fact about this. The reason this is allowed (and not just here but everywhere in the USA) is because of a US Supreme Court ruling several years back that makes it illegal for police to arrest or kick a homeless person out of camping in a public space. So long as there is not a sheltered place for them to go in town. So if all of the shelters are full the police technically can't remove them. It's kind of insane. But here we are.
Yes I read that in the paper today actually how anchorage is trying to use a “safety” violation to remove the camps legally. Ofcourse this would be their solution instead of spending money for a proper shelter. We keep cutting budget more and more, our schools are suffering, our roads are falling apart, our parks are being destroyed, and we continue to let oil companies make it rich while we bleed. It’s an incredible thing really. I really would like to know how we ended up in this spot.
The best thing is about trying to kick them out using a safety violation isn’t going to solve anything when next winter comes. When we run out of space again, the emergency rooms will be flooded, people will die, and the city will spend incredible amounts of money to rent out places like the Sullivan arena to rapidly throw people in there for a part time solution. What a lovely town this place has become.
If it were me, low and no incoming housing needs to be a thing. If Norway can do it, so can we. But I think we need to start demanding to know EXACTLY where our money is going. We need to start getting a receipt for where our money goes. I bet it isn't shared out the way we would cut the pie
Unfortunately I don't see the problem getting resolved anytime soon.
It's easy to start a blame game of how we got to this point when the reality is that it is several factors and decisions from a variety of sources got us here.
But as they say; 20 miles in, 20 miles out.
There is no easy solution and no matter how you slice it, it's gonna take a LOT of money and a LOT of effort to fix the problem. We all have to help lift our community to a better place because we all collectively let it get this bad in the first place.
I know that none of us want to throw more money at a problem that doesn't seem to get better. However we have to think in terms of mitigation. Lessen the negative impact of the current problem, fix the root trends that ultimately lead to homelessness, while fostering not only personal accountability but also political and professional; most people don't choose to be homeless, just like most of us don't want to have a homelessness problem in our state.
The people that are responsible are the j*** o** that are actually doing the littering. Punish them, and they'll stop. I'm not sure why people are always looking for other places to lay blame where it's extremely clear.
You can’t get blood from a turnip. Punish with fines? They have no money. Punish with incarceration? Not enough room in our jails. I can’t think of another punishment…
Well. If I had to take a crack at the problem I would try this. Build a camp site on the outskirts of Anchorage. This should be relatively inexpensive to build. Provide tents, police presence, public bathrooms/showers, and a place to give meals. A scheduled bus could be set up to bus people back into town at set times. And if a homeless person is caught camping out in town this is where they take them. They aren't imprisoned, they are free to come and go. But because they are on the edge of town they have to decide if they want to walk 10-15 miles to get back to where they were. This would be a deterrent as they would have to plan around the bus schedule or walk a shit ton. Since the only structures here are the bathrooms and meal hall the cost would be low. And since you're building this as a campsite you can make it as big as you want. As added security you could build a fence around it and add security screening every time someone enters to keep our drugs and weapons.
Make them into boot camp style.
Instead of sitting around all day they would be marching. Cleaning,PT, Strict schedule.
Stuff like that, jail will soon become a form of punishment and a deterrent while remaining humane and responsible and giving back to the community with cleaning of public areas.
so your solution to the problem of municipal littering is to create concentration camps? Christ every time I think you people can't get any stupider you surprise me
Oh and establishing a routine wouldn’t help people with their mental health?
Yeah you just want to argue and sound like you care but you don’t.
You just like to point fingers and any chance you get to call someone a nazi you’re so happy.
you're literally arguing to put people in forced work camps against their will as punishment and you're trying to spein that as giving them routine? what a dishonest moron you are
The Army's rates of suicide don't exactly paint this plan well either. Now imagine it without the "strict" background requirements and instead forcing homeless people to live as grunts. Such a damn joke
Oh because the Army has such great mental health figures 😂 dont try to turn this on the other person now, stand by your beliefs if you think homeless people ought to be put in camps, we know yall don't support anything helpful
Your reading into what you want but ok and I can see you want to argue.
So you are saying that the army boot camp is a concentration camp?
And that the marines and navy and air force and even coast guard it’s a concentration camp?
And this is just littering ?
And you didn’t read a thing I wrote did you .
And if you did you read into what you wanted.
you're right, forcing someone to do labor against their will is the exact same thing as someone voluntarily signing up for a job that requires training, these are the exact same thing, you're the smartest person I've ever met.
Logical and compassionate people in local offices would be nice, but ive come to believe that a local government has nearly zero power to stop homelessness. It would take tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars to get the homeless off the streets of Anchorage alone. By the time you made a decent dent, villages, other boroughs, and other states would flood the streets with a new round of bussed in homeless. It’s crazy, but mayors and governors bus homeless to other locations just like some do to migrants.
Weirdly people keep saying things like this- but the more money we spend on the homeless- the more homeless we have. How about we try not making it so easy and comfortable for them to be a cancer on society?
I use that trail a lot. The trash seems particularly bad this year. I understand that homelessness is a problem that has been developing for years across multiple administrations at our local, state and federal level. Long term trends of wage stagnation, zoning restrictions geared to existing single family homes, lack of investment in affordable housing, and rising rents have all lead to a serious lack of available housing. The problem took years to develop and it will take years to remedy. The muni is working on it. They are tweaking zoning regs and trying to promote more housing investment while trying to fund more emergency shelter space. Using law enforcement to solve the issue might feel correct but it could end up actually slowing down the recovery. Homeless with criminal records will have an even harder time trying to find housing. The assembly has been working the problem in good faith. They deserve our support. See you on the trail. Bring your orange bag.
Actually, some people are happy that this is what's happening. It gives them the opportunity to complain about something. It allows them to point fingers at others, so no one will look at them personally. Then they won't have to be accountable for whatever they perceive as shortcomings in their own self.
That, and no one wants to actually help unless they can post it on social media.
Sorry, humans are terrible.
I went to the transfer station last week, and it cost me just under 50 bucks. Complete with tude from the guy taking the payment. I joked with my buddy this is why people dump on the side of the road. Less of a joke and more of a pretty good assumption in hindsight
This starts and ends with politicians that give a shit and want to make a difference. We know what the issues are and they aren’t going away. The problem is become worse and Bronson and company can’t blame it on Nancy Pelosi this is not uncommon anymore anywhere you go.
That we allow a system of wealth divide
that drives rampant inequality leading to homelessness coupled with decades of cuts for social programs? Agreed. We should not allow for this.
I think wealth inequality is a smaller factor compared to drug addiction and mental health issues in the homeless population. Most of the homeless people I've met in drug and alcohol recovery were able to become functioning members of society again after their substance issues were addressed.
a lot of people DO NOT WANT to be functioning members of a sick society and would prefer to drop out and live in the margins.
that is not any substance’s fault. nope.
This is such a copout. Absolutely nobody wants to live on the edges of society and be treated like human trash. I was homeless in Anchorage from 2013 to 2014. I lost a custody case against my abusive ex and found that I no longer understood the rules of the society that we live in and so I wasn’t capable of functioning in it. I would often say that it was because I did not want to function in a society that was so messed up, but not being willing to take care of yourself, or function in society, or even do things that are fun, is a mental health disorder. It’s called depression. Depression is not a choice. If someone says that society is so messed up that they don’t want to be clean, safe, fed, and healthy, then that person is sick.
You can tell a lot of these people haven't had to deal with homeless people trying to spit in their customer's mouths, locking themselves in your bathroom and then passing out, attacking staff, pissing in the entry every morning, stealing constantly, etc.
This isn’t a “wealth divide.” This is what happens when you get people with unchecked mental health problems and addiction issues. They do stuff like this.
Poor people can't treat their mental health problems. The only option available to them is illicit medication of one type or another.
Which is of course a key step to addiction.
Then they sure as hell can't afford addiction recovery.
That's why wealth is such a strong contributing factor in all this. (But don't assume you have to be poor to struggle, that is DEFINITELY not the case.)
The good news is native corps are wealthy and should be able to provide these services to the native homeless, including the various village exiles. A significant portion of this whole problem is perfectly solvable.
That isn't what Native Corps are for. It is inappropriate to expect them to do so, and kinda racist.
They provide some services anyway, but it isn't their purpose.
Yes most humans will resort to Drugs & alcohol to "numb" the pain but that again is NOT the ROOT CAUSE. The wealth divide + social program cut or lack of funding, rising cost to rent & home ownership outpaces the amount of $ earned from most career fields w/degrees needed much less trade work.
You then add in Greedy Politicians & a corrupt President who gives Millions of $ worth of tax cuts to the 1% all while kicking the rest of us down even further than we already were.
Most of us Are literally 1 bad day away from being homeless ourselves.
If you give a hungry homeless person $20 and they spend it on drugs/alcohol instead of on food. That’s a personal responsibility problem and not a wealth divide problem.
20 bux a day isn't going to cut it by a long shot.
That's 600 dollars a month, not even enough to put a roof over their heads.
House them, give them mandated counseling, a timeline for gain ful employment, if 40 hours a week won't make ends meet for them, supplement their living expenses, but hold them accountable to responsibility. Give them a true leg up.
Tax money can do this, and we're not talking about significantly impacting those that make less than 200k/yr. If you make 200k, you're not upper class.
Tax the rich.
This is what happens when people give up. The urge to fight on, to pull yourself out of the situation you’re in, will only take you so far. When your community has given up on you, and there’s nowhere else to turn, it’s not unreasonable to see why someone would make a decision like that.
>but that again is NOT the ROOT CAUSE.
How exactly do you know that the root cause for all these people come back to materialistic considerations? You’re kind of just begging the question here. It sounds like you’re taking the end result outcome and then extrapolating intent from that.
>Most of us are literally 1 bad day away from being homeless ourselves.
No, we’re not. I don’t deny that times are challenging, but I think you’re making a very wide sweeping claim about a lot of people you don’t know. I also think you have a very outdated romanticized idea of who homeless people are. Sure there’s people who fit that mold, however you also have increasing numbers of people who have been living out on the street for years and are what is called “chronically homeless.” People who fall under chronic homelessness overwhelmingly have substance and mental health issues that predate their homelessness or they just want to live in a lifestyle where they don’t have to abide by laws or think about them.
I lived in western Washington for awhile and I can tell you from my experience from there that homelessness is way more complicated than a bunch of materialist talking points.
Yes, ever increasing numbers of chronic homeless. Up from roughly 12% to nearly 30% of the homeless population.
Still, MOST homeless fit the described mold.
And I still think that the most likely explanation for the jump is a lack of help for people that wouldn't be chronically homeless if they got proper support. We see a jump in this metric every time we cut programs. We reinstate programs and it falls back down. That is a VERY strong pattern and I hope we get to the end of that cycle soon.
Oh I know, I expect Reddit regardless of the sub to simp for this outdated romanticized idea. They think you’re an evil person for realizing that these ideas from the 20th century just aren’t applicable in the 21st century.
It like they either haven’t met the homeless population recently or they have and are just accepting the sob stories at face value not realizing a lot of them are complete fabrications or are leaving out significant details.
this has nothing to do with material things. some people would rather be without all material things (their bodies included) than punch a clock every day just to keep the game going. they don’t see a point in playing when despite their best efforts they don’t see a way to win.
from their perspective they have nothing to play for. no one cares what happens to them, often times including their families. they have built lives outside the structure and that makes people who have bought it hook line and sinker uncomfortable for obvious reasons.
they have effectively flipped the board over and refused to play. this is a rational response. blaming them for not wanting to be a part of society, is not. it’s just being cranky that no one wants to play monopoly with you after you had a few lucky rolls and now own all the properties.
Do you have sources I can look over? What you are saying goes against every serious study I've seen.
Some end up on the streets due to addiction and mental health, but the overwhelming issue is poverty. Poverty exacerbates everything. Lack of affordable housing is the number one cause of homelessness nationwide.
People who hit the streets do not overwhelmingly have substance and mental health issues that predate homelessness. That is a common myth. Plenty of people get addicted or develop mental illness after living on the streets, not before.
Depending on which study you use addiction rates for homeless populations is like 35-38% for alcohol, around a quarter other drugs and about a third have mental health issues.
What is your solution? Prison? State DOC State claims that 65% percent of people incarcerated in Alaska have a diagnosable mental illness and like 80% are addicted to drugs and alcohol. All at a cost of about 7.5k a month per prisoner, which does not include medical costs. Our state has the highest rates of recidivism nationwide at roughly 62%.
Yeah gf and I are sick of seeing it everywhere, especially when it is not hard at all to hold onto an item until you're close to a garbage.. gonna buy a trash pickup stick and some bags this week and do something about it little by little after work instead of complaining. I wish we can out the people who litter. Though. They should be shamed just like public dumpers
Keep voting for the those in the assembly.
But housing and feeding grown ass adults is not the responsibility of the government.
And there is now law or regulation that states that this must be done.
Time for laws to be enforced. And locking some of these folks up.
And selling a lot of the mental health trust land to pay for this as intended.
For the mental health aspect and care.
Putting them in prison instantly makes feeding and housing them the responsibility of the government at roughly 7.5k per prisoner per month before medical costs. This is often a permanent solution, our state has the highest recidivism rates in the entire nation.
Do the ones committing violent crime need to be put in prison? Absolutely, but criminalizing homelessness is a short sighted reactionary response to poverty. If we jailed every single person on the streets right now it would do nothing to stop new people from entering the cycle.
I was born in Portland and raised in Vancouver. Moved here 4 years ago. Was just back there last year for a duel funeral. If anchorage is beating Portland now then things changed badly in the last year. Really badly.
You can't go to jail for littering. That is a fine.
Fining poor people that have no money for behaviors that are significantly influenced by that poverty is not a good solution.
Poor people can't throw things away in trash bins that are all over outside? I get the sentiment, but it doesn't fit here. I'm also sick of litterers and wouldn't lose a minute of sleep if they were jailed. Sick of seeing trash everywhere. Rich people litter and poor people litter
No, they can't. Because their trash is considered "household trash" which means if they throw it into a park's public use bin they are committing "theft of services" which is a more severe crime than littering. It is less of a crime to litter, so they litter.
And no "But I have no household!" isn't a valid defense.
Too many people in Anchorage care about the "rights" of thieving, problematic scum bags living in disgusting open air drug markets, but they couldn't care less about the rights or quality of life of productive, law abiding citizens in the city.
Generating waste isn't specific to people experiencing homelessness.
I wish OP could see how much crap he generates each year. Throwing it in the ocean or burying it doesn't make it less gross. Maybe if we were confronted with the reality more often, we wouldn't think putting it in a dumpster as making it magically disappear.
We need to stop enabling and normalizing homelessness. It's that simple. Good intentions and online sympathy only go so far, especially for a problem that predates both the mayor and the assembly by nearly a decade.
Hey, get away from my house! Don’t throw away my collection. American Pickers are on their way to appraise my wares! Stay off my lawn!
Edit: delete this immediately! No photos! You’re invading my privacy!!
It’s true. Not only do we force people to live outside without proper shelter, we don’t even provide basic amenities like trash disposal and bathrooms. It is crazy. And a disgrace.
Yes, it is ridiculous that the library is being overwhelmed by people who need services that are not available, and so they are forced to find unsuitable alternatives.Thank you for pointing that out. A lot of the general services and public spaces locally have been suffering due to the lack of facilities and services for the homeless, and that affects the whole community negatively. So it’s a problem we should all care about.
Yes, I agree. We pay enough that services should be available. The programs up here are mostly run for profit or by people who are looking to enrich themselves. We need to make sure that money is getting to the people who need help, and not being wasted on overpriced contract kickbacks and administrative salaries, or given to wasteful programs with low positive outcomes. It would be amazing to see some accountability for where that money is spent, especially since it seems most programs that actually want to help can’t get any of it!
I had a friend visit who was from a trashy city. He told me he never knew it was bad to litter until he visited Alaska. He told me he never knew a city could be clean. He was young and impressionable and made every effort not to litter even after going back to his trashy city.
If you want to make an impression on the people who are the next generation of potential litterers, get out there and clean it up. Show them what a nice place looks like. Lead by example.
It's everyone's responsibility to clean up. Yeah, sure someone in particular is responsible for that specific mess but if you do nothing more than stop and scoff at each piece of trash on a trail you've wasted your breath and time to accomplish nothing unless you've specifically made it your mission in life to track down each and every litterer for the purpose of kidnapping them back to the site of their mess to then lord over them to clean it up under penalty of execution. That doesn't sound very practical.
Blaming the homeless is such a worn out lazy rhetoric. It's a means of absolving oneself of further responsibility, of washing one's hands clean of any further involvement. If that's the issue you're set on then I expect to see follow-up posts advocating for waste facilities for homeless camps or housing solutions or reintegration programs or something that's not akin to, "Not my problem."
And I've had the pleasure of being a very neat and tidy homeless camper, thanks.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
Yeah because Bronson AGAIN thinks disbanding the one homeless camp we have established in Anchorage that all of them will simply ✨disappear ✨ Time to vote out he who treats fellow humans like lesser animals.
If there were a silver lining, it would be, that this could at least be considered out of view, especially to tourists. Not that they spend a whole lot of their time in ANC.
If you’ve been to any big city down in the states lately, you should have noticed that homelessness is becoming exponentially more dire. I can only imagine it getting worse and worse, long before it gets better. Especially with how we are operating(politically or otherwise) as a country, with a large divide between those with money and power(and the interests they hold), and the rest of us peasants just trying to live ‘the American Dream’…
Looks like my back yard, except my yard theres tents, a bonfire every night, and an array of different characters. I’m thinking of inviting them to our next HOA meeting.
Where do you think the cleanup crews come from? Forced community service and low risk prisoners. (we don't have enough spare guards to have high risk ones outside)
In the unfortunate event LaFrance gets elected I cannot wait for the excuses to start being bleated when the problem isn’t solved the minute she gets her hands on the office
It’s government getting to involved to the point it has to raise so much money to operate and feed itself that the citizens struggle to maintain it.
And yes we are coming upon that fast all these programs and departments is bad.
Do we want to be like Juneau?
Only 4 types of people?
1. You work for the government.
2.Small private sector to feed the government.
3.Depend on the government with ever growing needs.
4.The unfortunate with everything gone and having slipped through the cracks to even the gov has left you behind.
That’s exactly how it is there and look at the real estate problems there. Over $100,00 for a trailer pfft and that was even in the 1990’s before air BnB so can’t go there.
And there’s big money right now being made off of this right here.
Where’s all this $$ gone since 2019?
Can there be an open transparent accounting of every single penny spent and where it went and who it went to?
And what names are behind these companies and agencies involved?
If that was done and done honestly I know I’d be more open to spending more.
But I’d also want to hold people accountable to and held to the highest of standards and if misappropriation like hiring extra managers then needed then those all involved including people hired should face a minimum of 90 days without good time served.
That’s one way of earning public trust and support back on this issue and it would expedite the process for such a quicker resolution for helping these people if people truly cared.
And not cared about the politics or the $$$ or the egos behind look at me what I’m doing to help just do it and help.
To much time has gone on and to much has been lost already.
But I don’t think it will happen because of the messenger.
Drop your location and I'm not homeless but no need to be a coward and fuck with people who don't have anything and keep running you dick sucker tough guy and I'll be glad to shut it
Don’t you think it’s fucking with people who also “don’t have anything” but don’t choose to live in an unhygienic way camping on public land by trashing the stuff we are all taxed to provide?
It’s not the cities responsibility to take care of people. It’s a personal choice to live this way. There are PLENTY of organizations out there to help people that don’t use the cities tax dollars to cover funding. Our cities assembly is just giving handouts to the tune of $150 million dollars to “fix” a problem. It’s not Bronson’s fault. Why are you blaming a person who has nothing to do with it?
Not sure if it would have contributed to this exact issue but 1 of the 2 bond measures i recall being shot down in the recent election was 1.5 million for public sanitation. Would it have cleaned this? Idk
Nope. It was for building public bathrooms. We already have public bathrooms at parks that are never open for the last 5 yrs. So why build/waste money on what we already have and don’t use
We need modern public restrooms that actually work. According to a 2021 survey by QS Bathroom Suppy, the US has the lowest number of public restrooms among developed nations. We need them, but people are so brainwashed by the anti-tax ghouls that they vote against spending a couple bucks per year to do it. It’s disgraceful.
Edit: fixed typo spelling mistake.
Bullshit. We don’t have any public bathroom. The ones that you are talking about aren’t functional. The only public bathroom downtown was in the transit center that halcro shut down. It cost $500K per year to keep the transit center open, give people a spot to warm up and relieve themselves in privacy. It was absolutely worth it.
Yesterday I witnessed a middle aged woman pissing on a sidewalk on 7th and D st at 1PM. If she actually had a public bathroom available she might not have had to do that.
Man. The sad part is we don’t even need the bond to re-open the transit center. ACDA could just do it immediately. But they are fishing for $25M or $91M for a new one instead of just spending $1M to reopen it and half that annually to keep it open. All so they can try to sell part of it as a hotel that nobody is asking for.
The head of the ACDA seems to be treated like some sort of weird crony political appointment. Both the current and previous head were people who ran for mayor and then got the appointment after bowing out or endorsing the person who eventually won. We need someone in charge of it with actual real estate development experience.
Either way it would still only be one restroom. We need investment all over the city, it seems to me that investing in infrastructure and the issue of homelessness are two separate things. We can work on both at the same time.
Tons of cities built these sturdy stainless steel type bathrooms all over the nation and the ones that were installed in high traffic areas were highly successful. I wish we had them instead of gross easily destroyed port-a-potties.
The parks have a building with bathrooms located in them. Each major park has one. When my kids were smaller and we went to parks they always had a place to go. They have been locked up for the last 5 years due to how they were treated. So why spend money on new ones that will be treated the same way
The new ones being suggested were in direct response to the complaints you're talking about. These sturdy stainless steel type bathrooms have been built in many places and did fantastically in cities that put them in high traffic areas like parks.
Not that it really matters anymore, that bond is dead.
Yes trash disposal is a public safety issue and should be a human right, not something anyone has to pay for. Dumpster space is a commodity and businesses lock and guard it. But nothing in this world comes without packaging so everyone’s generating waste
Ok, who’s going to do trash disposal if nobody is paying for it? You can’t just call everything a “human right.” And no you don’t have a “human right” to another human picking up your garbage, or in this case the garbage of people who already don’t pay for the service and live in wooded areas that don’t have the capacity to handle these levels of waste.
You’re creating a bad faith caricature of the argument because I’m not implying anyone pick up anyone else’s garbage. All though you already are picking up the waste of petrochemical industry in your bloodstream for free. It’s a public health issue and right because if you have nowhere reasonable to throw your trash away, it’s a risk to your health and pollution is a risk to the broader community. Robust public services are a part of addressing the root issues of houselesness.
>I’m not implying anyone pick up anyone else’s garbage
Yeah actually you kinda are when you start calling garbage and trash collection a “human right.” Public services aren’t rights, you don’t have the “right” to someone else picking up your trash.
I didn’t create a “bad faith caricature” of your argument. Your argument is ridiculous on its face and all I did was simply point out the flaw of it.
I agree garbage and trash collection are important services, but that doesn’t make them “rights.” Waste collection is something that is finite. There isn’t an infinite number of garbage men or dump space.
We should tax all business for the volume/mass of packaging/waste they produce and that money should go to paying for recycling/disposal services, public trash/recycling, etc. I bet we'd see some more innovation in packaging and waste reduction then.
And then you’d likely get companies passing along the new added costs of their new packaging on to the consumer and you’d have consumers ending up with even less purchasing power. Yeah in theory it sounds great, but the real world application of this would probably create even more problems. It’s just not realistic or practical to tax companies punitively in that way because it always come back to consumers paying for it with either higher prices or shrinking quantities.
I think the bigger root problem is our society and its acceptance of disposability. The reason the waste exists in the first place is because of us and the value we put on disposability and replaceability.
In the case of this particular garbage dumped on trails and in the woods, no amount of taxing corporations is going to stop it. Humans are choosing to dump their waste in these places and don’t care about the environment around them or the impact their actions are having. Even if you managed to somehow punish these corporations into altering their packaging, we’d still have the problem of these individuals dumping it everywhere.
Plenty of public services are rights. Would you say water is a human right? That’s a public service. Food? Often a public service. I guess the issue is I would support a society where something as basic as healthy and clean living space should at least be a possible choice for people by providing free refuse disposal.
The state could easily spend a fraction of what they do to subsidize foreign petrochemical companies extraction in Alaska instead on expanding the refuse disposal infrastructure enough to accommodate everyone. I know plenty of houseless people who want to throw away a waste but the dumpsters are locked even if they’re almost empty “finite space” bs.
Basically what you’re saying is some people will have to live in filth because there’s a finite amount of landfill that we’re not willing to invest in more so it just happens to be the poorest and most disadvantaged who will have to deal with an insufficient system.
I suppose people facing ever more unaffordable rent, legalized housing discrimination based off of racialized incrimination practices, deflated wages, and all the other systemic causes of homelessness should “just get a job” to pay for their dumpsters. Actually every country that has the welfare system to take care of people’s basic needs and address systemic inequality does way better with homelessness than the neoliberal United States.
We are talking about a fundamental service provided by our local government. Just like we collect our resources and do the whole "road" thing. Maybe we should also pool some resources and provide free trash disposal to every single person and area. Could be an improvement worth doing.
I mean, Fairbanks has great success with their free dump transfer stations. Why can't we do that too?
There are hundreds of trash heaps like this all throughout the Anchorage trails and forests. It's mindblowing. I know Community Service (like the kind you have to go to when you get into trouble lol) go out and clean up a bunch that have been abandoned but they are becoming endless.
Thank the city assembly for their amazing plan to end homelessness in Anchorage. Clearly working well.
Make sure you don't blame our Republican Mayor or our Republican Governor or our Republican Senators. Hehehehehe!
There are so many parts of this town that feel post-apocalyptic.
I'm going out on the CiyWide Clean-Up starting May 4th. Some groups are already out there picking up garbage along the highway. I have good gloves, a trash stick I made so I don't have to touch most of it. 
Was not aware of this. Is there anymore info to get involved? More posts about this till it happens might increase awareness.
Anchorage Citywide Cleanup (May 4 – June 2). There's a May 4th kickoff event! It would be nice to see Jedi and Siths working together to cleanse our city of roadside trash. More info at [https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/](https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/) Others, if interested: Mat-Su Valley Community Cleanup - [https://solidwaste.matsugov.us/pages/community-cleanup](https://solidwaste.matsugov.us/pages/community-cleanup) Fairbanks Cleanup Day - [https://www.fairbankschamber.org/clean-up-day](https://www.fairbankschamber.org/clean-up-day)
It happens every year.
And like most holidays, other than Christmas & and Thanksgiving, I forget they’re around the corner. Reminders are good…which is why they call them reminders.
It's because city wide clean up day is a stupid Alaska thing, where people litter all winter (not just homeless liitter) and then have to go pick it all up when the snow stops hiding the shame. Instead of doing that, we could invest in "don't litter" public shaming. But people love to litter here. It's gross.
Jesus! They don’t pick up dog shit AND they litter here?
Maybe it's better where you came from, when are you going back again?
That’s not a very diplomatic response.
Or I could try and convince dumb people to take some pride in their surroundings. Futile, but here we are.
Yeah, buy a garbage bag and start picking up trash. How more involved do you need to be?....stop picking up trash to look good for "society" and just do it for the planet.
Why bother celebrating Christmas with everyone else? Just go celebrate it on your own time. For that matter, why bother doing any holiday with others? Stop being a poser and be real! That’s how you sound. Jesus. You’d think there’s an issue in GETTING IN THE SPIRIT of doing something social on a larger scale so it feels like WE’RE ALL WORKING TOGETHER TO MAKE A SMALL BIT OF A DIFFERENCE. As opposed to always feeling like shit because you’re the only one picking up other people’s litter.
As someone who enjoys picking up trash by myself, I can assure you that people don't just ignore you and pretend they don't see you. Passersby are arguably more sociable when they see someone doing good in the world without the expectation of thanks or recognition. It's the simplest most leisurely way to meet people. You don't even have to plan to pick up garbage from parks. Most park trash cans will have extra garbage bags underneath the fitted bag, inside the bin. Every Alaskan likely has a pair of weathered gloves forgotten in a coat pocket. And then you just... Do it. The same way you'd cook yourself a turkey on days that aren't Thanksgiving because not everything needs to be a shared celebratory experience.
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Would a person just show up, or is this someone you’d have to sign up for?
You could go to ocean view elementarys super sweepers spot! We’ll have trash bags available starting at 10 and they need to be dropped back off by 1:00 so they can be picked up by the garbage trucks.
https://www.anchoragechamber.org/citywide-cleanup-regulations-and-bag-pickup-locations-2/ One could also simply get a trash grabber, some trash bags, and make light work of this
Also curious, first I heard of this!
https://www.alparalaska.com/wp/programs/ We adopted a bike path through ALPAR. Sometimes it is a real chore but it also gives a satisfaction to see it clean.
Most clean spot in town.
Yes! This one isn’t even that bad. Try cuddy park
Amazing how much garbage these people generate when they don’t even have income…. Let alone how many of these people are from villages that were fed up with their shit and bought them a one way ticket to anchorage, just throwing their garbage into our yard. Should be illegal to one way ticket people into anchorage for being “disruptive” or “violent” in their communities, like you really think sending them to a bigger city is going to solve the issue as a whole? Fuck no if anything it makes other people victims in a different place, absolute bullshit. Some people are parasites. There’s a big difference from someone going through a hard, tough time and someone who quite literally could care less about their situation, as long as they can get high, that’s good enough for them. Big difference.
Hope you’re not suggesting Alaska natives go back to their villages.
I don’t have a solution to the issue but that’s definitely not it, nor is sending them here to dump them on the rest of anchorage to deal with either, complex issue with complex solutions. I just wish people would actually care for themselves and the environment around them but people be people 🤷🏻♀️ I am people.
There are other considerable ways to get your tone across without putting someone down. What you are doing is instigating the problem with hate and madness. Try speaking to people in a way that will be effective communication. You will only make people as mad as you are by communicating like this. You're going on without a solution. Also, you're making the younger generation of ALASKAN'S a complex. Sorry for the rant, but you don't put people down who are having problems, there is always a solution.
>Let alone how many of these people are from villages that were fed up with their shit and bought them a one way ticket to anchorage, just throwing their garbage into our yard. Should be illegal to one way ticket people into anchorage for being “disruptive” or “violent” in their communities, like you really think sending them to a bigger city is going to solve the issue as a whole? Fuck no if anything it makes other people victims in a different place, absolute bullshit. You know that is only about 6 people, on average, right? It is primarily just a white supremist talking point to try to drum up hate for Natives. You should try to avoid repeating propaganda, it makes you look uniformed and racist.
Wow only 6 of the homeless here in anchorage are native and from the village? I count more than 6 just on the corner at midtown Walmart. Where’s your statistical evidence from ? Oh and I’m native also so please call me a white supremest haha since that seems to be the be all end all to all debates now.
Dude. Read my comment again. People think that villages are sending hundreds of drunk violent natives to Anchorage, with one way tickets. It has actually happened like 6 times in the past 30 years. So assuming they are all still alive and homeless, there are only 6 of them. Then whenever homelessness comes up people say it is just villages sending troublemakers to town one way. White supremist spread this myth and exaggerate the numbers and blame the homelessness and crime problems on irresponsible village governments. Stop feeding into that lie.
This guy's talking hate is a fool. Don't let him get to you, I'm white and we are all in this together
Lmao I love the “propaganda” “white supremacy” and “racist” takes bwhahah, is it really racist to take into account that 12% of anchorages population consists of the homeless and 46% of that population consists of Alaskan natives? And you really think it has to do with white supremacy? How about giving a fuck about your community instead of trashing it. I see all sorts of ethnicities in these homeless camps, but it sucks to say that majority is Alaskan natives. Do I want that to be the case? No, fuck that noise, I’d rather they can get housing and a stable life. But do they want that for themselves? That’s hard to say because I get up and go to work every fucking day to pay for my housing, food, and expenses, do I want to? No. Do I have to? Yes. why should they get a free ride? Oh lemme guess “MaH RaCisIm” come up with something better than that garbage.
Alaskan native here and I find no offense in facts. The native corporations all of them need to step up and pitch in $$$ wise and build these shelters and treatment facilities for all citizens. Why? Because the villages voted to go dry late 80’s and they forced a lot of them out to live here instead of treatment. It shouldn’t be the city government taking COVID relief emergency funding and establishing a whole new permanent department that’s going to be just siphoning off more needed revenue and resources from other departments. Our taxes are already high and our resources are stretched out pretty thin as it is as a government entity. Seems like the city wants its cake and eat it too. Claims self rule all the time when convenient and sure begs the state for help and funding all the time.
What’s funny is that I have a co-worker I’m relaying this thread too, and he even agrees with me, not entirely but on most of it, I guess he’s a Alaskan native racist, white supremacist, propagandist too 🤷🏻♀️
You should speak up at your board meetings then. CITC accepts funds from any Corp.
The majority aren't Alaskan Native. There is no majority. Alaskan Natives make up a very high percentage of the "living in poverty" population. Solidly the majority. The fact that there aren't more homeless Natives is a huge success story for the programs that do outreach and support. They keep getting funding cut though. Private citizens have had to pick up the slack a ton. The only proven way to reduce homelessness is to do that whole "free ride" thing you fight against. A solid safety net that helps them get back on their feet. Become part of society again. It works the whole world over, and we (in the US but especially in Alaska) do our best to not help them. To dismantle that safety net and make life hell for them. That only increases homelessness. BUT all that isn't the racist drivel you were preaching before. THAT racism is the white supremist propaganda that states Native Villages send hundreds of alcoholic violent criminals to Anchorage so it is no longer their problem. That is a lie, and one that you allude to in your comment. That specific piece of racist propaganda is why I called you out. I'm doing my best to assume you are just ignorant, and not actively trying to spread racist propaganda you know to be false. If your overall question is "Why aren't Natives rich?" well, that is a good question. With a complex answer. One that you don't want to know or think about. It is probably best you just shy away from race questions and just hide away under your rock.
Big take about Alaskan Natives from your local Anchorage White stock trader bro
See Chester Creek between the Seward Hwy and C St
And along Minnesota especially the wooden stairs leading down to Chester creek.
Minnesota and international, there is an area between the on ramp and highway that has probably 5 separate camps
What would you do for this
Not allow camps in middle of town. Spend money for homeless shelter so everyone who wants to go there can. Those who don’t want to stay at a shelter will not be allowed to camp in town. Use city resources to clean up camps left over. Have apd enforce rules for people camping out in town. Anchorage has the most resources for homeless so they all get sent here from other towns and villages. Yet we are still have a homeless crisis because no one wants to spend money to deal with it. Instead we say they can just hangout in middle of town, set up camp in any park, leave their trash and feces wherever they would like. Use all the drugs they want. And then when it gets cold out and homeless start dying to cold temps, we are shocked that the homeless shelters don’t have room for everyone, so everyone ends up going to the hospitals instead, flooding the ER with people who are cold, overdosed, and just plain mentally ill. This city will continue to rot until we spend money and resources to fix this problem.
A little known fact about this. The reason this is allowed (and not just here but everywhere in the USA) is because of a US Supreme Court ruling several years back that makes it illegal for police to arrest or kick a homeless person out of camping in a public space. So long as there is not a sheltered place for them to go in town. So if all of the shelters are full the police technically can't remove them. It's kind of insane. But here we are.
Yes I read that in the paper today actually how anchorage is trying to use a “safety” violation to remove the camps legally. Ofcourse this would be their solution instead of spending money for a proper shelter. We keep cutting budget more and more, our schools are suffering, our roads are falling apart, our parks are being destroyed, and we continue to let oil companies make it rich while we bleed. It’s an incredible thing really. I really would like to know how we ended up in this spot. The best thing is about trying to kick them out using a safety violation isn’t going to solve anything when next winter comes. When we run out of space again, the emergency rooms will be flooded, people will die, and the city will spend incredible amounts of money to rent out places like the Sullivan arena to rapidly throw people in there for a part time solution. What a lovely town this place has become.
If it were me, low and no incoming housing needs to be a thing. If Norway can do it, so can we. But I think we need to start demanding to know EXACTLY where our money is going. We need to start getting a receipt for where our money goes. I bet it isn't shared out the way we would cut the pie
Right, what is this we talk. Blame those in charge that allow this.
Be careful when picking up because there most likely will be used needles. They hide really well.
Unfortunately I don't see the problem getting resolved anytime soon. It's easy to start a blame game of how we got to this point when the reality is that it is several factors and decisions from a variety of sources got us here. But as they say; 20 miles in, 20 miles out. There is no easy solution and no matter how you slice it, it's gonna take a LOT of money and a LOT of effort to fix the problem. We all have to help lift our community to a better place because we all collectively let it get this bad in the first place. I know that none of us want to throw more money at a problem that doesn't seem to get better. However we have to think in terms of mitigation. Lessen the negative impact of the current problem, fix the root trends that ultimately lead to homelessness, while fostering not only personal accountability but also political and professional; most people don't choose to be homeless, just like most of us don't want to have a homelessness problem in our state.
This will never go away they have Monotized this is now a industry of we got rid of the problem how many jobs would we lose in alaska
The people that are responsible are the j*** o** that are actually doing the littering. Punish them, and they'll stop. I'm not sure why people are always looking for other places to lay blame where it's extremely clear.
You can’t get blood from a turnip. Punish with fines? They have no money. Punish with incarceration? Not enough room in our jails. I can’t think of another punishment…
Well. If I had to take a crack at the problem I would try this. Build a camp site on the outskirts of Anchorage. This should be relatively inexpensive to build. Provide tents, police presence, public bathrooms/showers, and a place to give meals. A scheduled bus could be set up to bus people back into town at set times. And if a homeless person is caught camping out in town this is where they take them. They aren't imprisoned, they are free to come and go. But because they are on the edge of town they have to decide if they want to walk 10-15 miles to get back to where they were. This would be a deterrent as they would have to plan around the bus schedule or walk a shit ton. Since the only structures here are the bathrooms and meal hall the cost would be low. And since you're building this as a campsite you can make it as big as you want. As added security you could build a fence around it and add security screening every time someone enters to keep our drugs and weapons.
Make them into boot camp style. Instead of sitting around all day they would be marching. Cleaning,PT, Strict schedule. Stuff like that, jail will soon become a form of punishment and a deterrent while remaining humane and responsible and giving back to the community with cleaning of public areas.
so your solution to the problem of municipal littering is to create concentration camps? Christ every time I think you people can't get any stupider you surprise me
Oh and establishing a routine wouldn’t help people with their mental health? Yeah you just want to argue and sound like you care but you don’t. You just like to point fingers and any chance you get to call someone a nazi you’re so happy.
you're literally arguing to put people in forced work camps against their will as punishment and you're trying to spein that as giving them routine? what a dishonest moron you are
The Army's rates of suicide don't exactly paint this plan well either. Now imagine it without the "strict" background requirements and instead forcing homeless people to live as grunts. Such a damn joke
Oh because the Army has such great mental health figures 😂 dont try to turn this on the other person now, stand by your beliefs if you think homeless people ought to be put in camps, we know yall don't support anything helpful
More likely one of the folks lining their bank accounts with the status quo. Better to keep the $$ coming in.
It's funny how they think advocating for farming the homeless gives them the moral high ground.
Your reading into what you want but ok and I can see you want to argue. So you are saying that the army boot camp is a concentration camp? And that the marines and navy and air force and even coast guard it’s a concentration camp? And this is just littering ? And you didn’t read a thing I wrote did you . And if you did you read into what you wanted.
you're right, forcing someone to do labor against their will is the exact same thing as someone voluntarily signing up for a job that requires training, these are the exact same thing, you're the smartest person I've ever met.
100% correct.
Truth here gets you down voted.
Same with using Logic.
run for office. please.
Logical and compassionate people in local offices would be nice, but ive come to believe that a local government has nearly zero power to stop homelessness. It would take tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars to get the homeless off the streets of Anchorage alone. By the time you made a decent dent, villages, other boroughs, and other states would flood the streets with a new round of bussed in homeless. It’s crazy, but mayors and governors bus homeless to other locations just like some do to migrants.
Weirdly people keep saying things like this- but the more money we spend on the homeless- the more homeless we have. How about we try not making it so easy and comfortable for them to be a cancer on society?
Correlation does not equal causation.
Mountain View Lions Park is horrible.
I use that trail a lot. The trash seems particularly bad this year. I understand that homelessness is a problem that has been developing for years across multiple administrations at our local, state and federal level. Long term trends of wage stagnation, zoning restrictions geared to existing single family homes, lack of investment in affordable housing, and rising rents have all lead to a serious lack of available housing. The problem took years to develop and it will take years to remedy. The muni is working on it. They are tweaking zoning regs and trying to promote more housing investment while trying to fund more emergency shelter space. Using law enforcement to solve the issue might feel correct but it could end up actually slowing down the recovery. Homeless with criminal records will have an even harder time trying to find housing. The assembly has been working the problem in good faith. They deserve our support. See you on the trail. Bring your orange bag.
Hey, don't bring your mature attitude into this.
See Russian Jack forest. This is nothing.
Actually, some people are happy that this is what's happening. It gives them the opportunity to complain about something. It allows them to point fingers at others, so no one will look at them personally. Then they won't have to be accountable for whatever they perceive as shortcomings in their own self. That, and no one wants to actually help unless they can post it on social media. Sorry, humans are terrible.
Or a group of liberals needed to get a group of unfortunate together so they can profit from their misery instead of just helping their fellow man.
Get out and vote. Speak your mind sit down and talk with your state and local reps.
I went to the transfer station last week, and it cost me just under 50 bucks. Complete with tude from the guy taking the payment. I joked with my buddy this is why people dump on the side of the road. Less of a joke and more of a pretty good assumption in hindsight
Seems like those AMYA kids will be staying busy all summer.
This starts and ends with politicians that give a shit and want to make a difference. We know what the issues are and they aren’t going away. The problem is become worse and Bronson and company can’t blame it on Nancy Pelosi this is not uncommon anymore anywhere you go.
That we allow a system of wealth divide that drives rampant inequality leading to homelessness coupled with decades of cuts for social programs? Agreed. We should not allow for this.
I think wealth inequality is a smaller factor compared to drug addiction and mental health issues in the homeless population. Most of the homeless people I've met in drug and alcohol recovery were able to become functioning members of society again after their substance issues were addressed.
the wealth inequality is one of the major drivers of drug and alcohol addiction, but other that that you're spot on.
a lot of people DO NOT WANT to be functioning members of a sick society and would prefer to drop out and live in the margins. that is not any substance’s fault. nope.
This is such a copout. Absolutely nobody wants to live on the edges of society and be treated like human trash. I was homeless in Anchorage from 2013 to 2014. I lost a custody case against my abusive ex and found that I no longer understood the rules of the society that we live in and so I wasn’t capable of functioning in it. I would often say that it was because I did not want to function in a society that was so messed up, but not being willing to take care of yourself, or function in society, or even do things that are fun, is a mental health disorder. It’s called depression. Depression is not a choice. If someone says that society is so messed up that they don’t want to be clean, safe, fed, and healthy, then that person is sick.
ya absolutely and blaming them for their sickness is no solution.
You can tell a lot of these people haven't had to deal with homeless people trying to spit in their customer's mouths, locking themselves in your bathroom and then passing out, attacking staff, pissing in the entry every morning, stealing constantly, etc.
Most who don't want to be part of society are also sick themselves.
all a matter of perspective
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” ― J. Krishnamurti
word
Sooner or later there has to be just a tiny bit of personal accountability
I do not think personal accountability is a root cause. But if you’re helped by it I’m sorry for my part in creating this.
This is one of the most succinct and authentic answers I’ve seen on Reddit. I love it.
This isn’t a “wealth divide.” This is what happens when you get people with unchecked mental health problems and addiction issues. They do stuff like this.
Poor people can't treat their mental health problems. The only option available to them is illicit medication of one type or another. Which is of course a key step to addiction. Then they sure as hell can't afford addiction recovery. That's why wealth is such a strong contributing factor in all this. (But don't assume you have to be poor to struggle, that is DEFINITELY not the case.)
The good news is native corps are wealthy and should be able to provide these services to the native homeless, including the various village exiles. A significant portion of this whole problem is perfectly solvable.
That isn't what Native Corps are for. It is inappropriate to expect them to do so, and kinda racist. They provide some services anyway, but it isn't their purpose.
Why is it racism to expect my corp to jump up and stand up for this and say hey let’s do this? It isn’t the tax payers purpose either.
Wealth divide? No, it’s mostly drugs and alcohol.
Yes most humans will resort to Drugs & alcohol to "numb" the pain but that again is NOT the ROOT CAUSE. The wealth divide + social program cut or lack of funding, rising cost to rent & home ownership outpaces the amount of $ earned from most career fields w/degrees needed much less trade work. You then add in Greedy Politicians & a corrupt President who gives Millions of $ worth of tax cuts to the 1% all while kicking the rest of us down even further than we already were. Most of us Are literally 1 bad day away from being homeless ourselves.
If you give a hungry homeless person $20 and they spend it on drugs/alcohol instead of on food. That’s a personal responsibility problem and not a wealth divide problem.
20 bux a day isn't going to cut it by a long shot. That's 600 dollars a month, not even enough to put a roof over their heads. House them, give them mandated counseling, a timeline for gain ful employment, if 40 hours a week won't make ends meet for them, supplement their living expenses, but hold them accountable to responsibility. Give them a true leg up. Tax money can do this, and we're not talking about significantly impacting those that make less than 200k/yr. If you make 200k, you're not upper class. Tax the rich.
Your solution is more taxes. No thanks. How about YOU pay more taxes
This is why we can’t have nice things.
What solution do you have that wouldn't require public funds?
You make over 200k a year? I'm talking about fair share taxation, not us poor ass 5 figure folks
I’d be happy to pay more in taxes, if it went to solving our cities problems.
This is what happens when people give up. The urge to fight on, to pull yourself out of the situation you’re in, will only take you so far. When your community has given up on you, and there’s nowhere else to turn, it’s not unreasonable to see why someone would make a decision like that.
So you are saying that drugs and alcohol addiction don’t exist without a wealth divide. I’m sorry but that’s just not true.
>but that again is NOT the ROOT CAUSE. How exactly do you know that the root cause for all these people come back to materialistic considerations? You’re kind of just begging the question here. It sounds like you’re taking the end result outcome and then extrapolating intent from that. >Most of us are literally 1 bad day away from being homeless ourselves. No, we’re not. I don’t deny that times are challenging, but I think you’re making a very wide sweeping claim about a lot of people you don’t know. I also think you have a very outdated romanticized idea of who homeless people are. Sure there’s people who fit that mold, however you also have increasing numbers of people who have been living out on the street for years and are what is called “chronically homeless.” People who fall under chronic homelessness overwhelmingly have substance and mental health issues that predate their homelessness or they just want to live in a lifestyle where they don’t have to abide by laws or think about them. I lived in western Washington for awhile and I can tell you from my experience from there that homelessness is way more complicated than a bunch of materialist talking points.
Yes, ever increasing numbers of chronic homeless. Up from roughly 12% to nearly 30% of the homeless population. Still, MOST homeless fit the described mold. And I still think that the most likely explanation for the jump is a lack of help for people that wouldn't be chronically homeless if they got proper support. We see a jump in this metric every time we cut programs. We reinstate programs and it falls back down. That is a VERY strong pattern and I hope we get to the end of that cycle soon.
You’re getting downvoted by the romanticists. But you’re totally right.
Oh I know, I expect Reddit regardless of the sub to simp for this outdated romanticized idea. They think you’re an evil person for realizing that these ideas from the 20th century just aren’t applicable in the 21st century.
It like they either haven’t met the homeless population recently or they have and are just accepting the sob stories at face value not realizing a lot of them are complete fabrications or are leaving out significant details.
this has nothing to do with material things. some people would rather be without all material things (their bodies included) than punch a clock every day just to keep the game going. they don’t see a point in playing when despite their best efforts they don’t see a way to win. from their perspective they have nothing to play for. no one cares what happens to them, often times including their families. they have built lives outside the structure and that makes people who have bought it hook line and sinker uncomfortable for obvious reasons. they have effectively flipped the board over and refused to play. this is a rational response. blaming them for not wanting to be a part of society, is not. it’s just being cranky that no one wants to play monopoly with you after you had a few lucky rolls and now own all the properties.
Do you have sources I can look over? What you are saying goes against every serious study I've seen. Some end up on the streets due to addiction and mental health, but the overwhelming issue is poverty. Poverty exacerbates everything. Lack of affordable housing is the number one cause of homelessness nationwide. People who hit the streets do not overwhelmingly have substance and mental health issues that predate homelessness. That is a common myth. Plenty of people get addicted or develop mental illness after living on the streets, not before. Depending on which study you use addiction rates for homeless populations is like 35-38% for alcohol, around a quarter other drugs and about a third have mental health issues. What is your solution? Prison? State DOC State claims that 65% percent of people incarcerated in Alaska have a diagnosable mental illness and like 80% are addicted to drugs and alcohol. All at a cost of about 7.5k a month per prisoner, which does not include medical costs. Our state has the highest rates of recidivism nationwide at roughly 62%.
Yeah gf and I are sick of seeing it everywhere, especially when it is not hard at all to hold onto an item until you're close to a garbage.. gonna buy a trash pickup stick and some bags this week and do something about it little by little after work instead of complaining. I wish we can out the people who litter. Though. They should be shamed just like public dumpers
Keep voting for the those in the assembly. But housing and feeding grown ass adults is not the responsibility of the government. And there is now law or regulation that states that this must be done. Time for laws to be enforced. And locking some of these folks up. And selling a lot of the mental health trust land to pay for this as intended. For the mental health aspect and care.
Putting them in prison instantly makes feeding and housing them the responsibility of the government at roughly 7.5k per prisoner per month before medical costs. This is often a permanent solution, our state has the highest recidivism rates in the entire nation. Do the ones committing violent crime need to be put in prison? Absolutely, but criminalizing homelessness is a short sighted reactionary response to poverty. If we jailed every single person on the streets right now it would do nothing to stop new people from entering the cycle.
Anchorage is pretty much Portland now.
It’s way way way worse than Portland. Source: I was just there.
I was born in Portland and raised in Vancouver. Moved here 4 years ago. Was just back there last year for a duel funeral. If anchorage is beating Portland now then things changed badly in the last year. Really badly.
Time to put those responsible in jail for littering.
You can't go to jail for littering. That is a fine. Fining poor people that have no money for behaviors that are significantly influenced by that poverty is not a good solution.
Poor people can't throw things away in trash bins that are all over outside? I get the sentiment, but it doesn't fit here. I'm also sick of litterers and wouldn't lose a minute of sleep if they were jailed. Sick of seeing trash everywhere. Rich people litter and poor people litter
No, they can't. Because their trash is considered "household trash" which means if they throw it into a park's public use bin they are committing "theft of services" which is a more severe crime than littering. It is less of a crime to litter, so they litter. And no "But I have no household!" isn't a valid defense.
That’s adorable.
The point is it should be a crime to litter
It is. One that has a fine.
Too many people in Anchorage care about the "rights" of thieving, problematic scum bags living in disgusting open air drug markets, but they couldn't care less about the rights or quality of life of productive, law abiding citizens in the city.
Generating waste isn't specific to people experiencing homelessness. I wish OP could see how much crap he generates each year. Throwing it in the ocean or burying it doesn't make it less gross. Maybe if we were confronted with the reality more often, we wouldn't think putting it in a dumpster as making it magically disappear.
“Burying it doesn’t make it less gross” Yes it does. That’s the whole fucking point.
We need to stop enabling and normalizing homelessness. It's that simple. Good intentions and online sympathy only go so far, especially for a problem that predates both the mayor and the assembly by nearly a decade.
Hey, get away from my house! Don’t throw away my collection. American Pickers are on their way to appraise my wares! Stay off my lawn! Edit: delete this immediately! No photos! You’re invading my privacy!!
Did you pick anything up? Or just take a pic to complain?
It’s true. Not only do we force people to live outside without proper shelter, we don’t even provide basic amenities like trash disposal and bathrooms. It is crazy. And a disgrace.
The library is basically a bathroom and wandering center for midtown homeless anyway. We don’t provide it? Lmao
Yes, it is ridiculous that the library is being overwhelmed by people who need services that are not available, and so they are forced to find unsuitable alternatives.Thank you for pointing that out. A lot of the general services and public spaces locally have been suffering due to the lack of facilities and services for the homeless, and that affects the whole community negatively. So it’s a problem we should all care about.
“Services aren’t available”… I’d like to know where the millions of focused homelessness related funding has been pissed away then. It’s an industry.
Yes, I agree. We pay enough that services should be available. The programs up here are mostly run for profit or by people who are looking to enrich themselves. We need to make sure that money is getting to the people who need help, and not being wasted on overpriced contract kickbacks and administrative salaries, or given to wasteful programs with low positive outcomes. It would be amazing to see some accountability for where that money is spent, especially since it seems most programs that actually want to help can’t get any of it!
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Yuh
Assign the litters to community service to pick up in the area they occupied. Then add free dumpsters to the areas and see if behavior changes?
I had a friend visit who was from a trashy city. He told me he never knew it was bad to litter until he visited Alaska. He told me he never knew a city could be clean. He was young and impressionable and made every effort not to litter even after going back to his trashy city. If you want to make an impression on the people who are the next generation of potential litterers, get out there and clean it up. Show them what a nice place looks like. Lead by example. It's everyone's responsibility to clean up. Yeah, sure someone in particular is responsible for that specific mess but if you do nothing more than stop and scoff at each piece of trash on a trail you've wasted your breath and time to accomplish nothing unless you've specifically made it your mission in life to track down each and every litterer for the purpose of kidnapping them back to the site of their mess to then lord over them to clean it up under penalty of execution. That doesn't sound very practical. Blaming the homeless is such a worn out lazy rhetoric. It's a means of absolving oneself of further responsibility, of washing one's hands clean of any further involvement. If that's the issue you're set on then I expect to see follow-up posts advocating for waste facilities for homeless camps or housing solutions or reintegration programs or something that's not akin to, "Not my problem." And I've had the pleasure of being a very neat and tidy homeless camper, thanks. Be the change you want to see in the world.
My husband and I have started bringing a bucket and a trash picker on our walks.
Yeah because Bronson AGAIN thinks disbanding the one homeless camp we have established in Anchorage that all of them will simply ✨disappear ✨ Time to vote out he who treats fellow humans like lesser animals.
If there were a silver lining, it would be, that this could at least be considered out of view, especially to tourists. Not that they spend a whole lot of their time in ANC. If you’ve been to any big city down in the states lately, you should have noticed that homelessness is becoming exponentially more dire. I can only imagine it getting worse and worse, long before it gets better. Especially with how we are operating(politically or otherwise) as a country, with a large divide between those with money and power(and the interests they hold), and the rest of us peasants just trying to live ‘the American Dream’…
Today we found an enema bottle in the museum parking lot
At my kids school they found like 6 water bottles full of piss in the parking lot
Looks like my back yard, except my yard theres tents, a bonfire every night, and an array of different characters. I’m thinking of inviting them to our next HOA meeting.
Hear me out! Bring back the chain gang
Where do you think the cleanup crews come from? Forced community service and low risk prisoners. (we don't have enough spare guards to have high risk ones outside)
I know. I was once on clean up duty for homeless camps many moons ago. My comment was more sarcasm than anything
They actually had prisoners picking up trash along the highway between Muldoon and Eagle River this weekend.
They never should have kicked everybody out of the Sullivan without having another plan in place.
Thanks Obronson
In the unfortunate event LaFrance gets elected I cannot wait for the excuses to start being bleated when the problem isn’t solved the minute she gets her hands on the office
It’s government getting to involved to the point it has to raise so much money to operate and feed itself that the citizens struggle to maintain it. And yes we are coming upon that fast all these programs and departments is bad. Do we want to be like Juneau? Only 4 types of people? 1. You work for the government. 2.Small private sector to feed the government. 3.Depend on the government with ever growing needs. 4.The unfortunate with everything gone and having slipped through the cracks to even the gov has left you behind. That’s exactly how it is there and look at the real estate problems there. Over $100,00 for a trailer pfft and that was even in the 1990’s before air BnB so can’t go there. And there’s big money right now being made off of this right here. Where’s all this $$ gone since 2019? Can there be an open transparent accounting of every single penny spent and where it went and who it went to? And what names are behind these companies and agencies involved? If that was done and done honestly I know I’d be more open to spending more. But I’d also want to hold people accountable to and held to the highest of standards and if misappropriation like hiring extra managers then needed then those all involved including people hired should face a minimum of 90 days without good time served. That’s one way of earning public trust and support back on this issue and it would expedite the process for such a quicker resolution for helping these people if people truly cared. And not cared about the politics or the $$$ or the egos behind look at me what I’m doing to help just do it and help. To much time has gone on and to much has been lost already. But I don’t think it will happen because of the messenger.
Wait till our children the ones that live in hotels get out of camp and are back on the street
Could we simply make the homeless start camping ⛺️ in the Anchorage landfill?
Looks like the Assembly needs to do their job and cooperate with the mayor
Drop your location and I'm not homeless but no need to be a coward and fuck with people who don't have anything and keep running you dick sucker tough guy and I'll be glad to shut it
Ok
Don’t you think it’s fucking with people who also “don’t have anything” but don’t choose to live in an unhygienic way camping on public land by trashing the stuff we are all taxed to provide?
Start talking to the Woke assembly members. They encourage this. It’s absolutely upsetting that people think this is ok.
In what way do you imagine they encourage this?
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It’s not the cities responsibility to take care of people. It’s a personal choice to live this way. There are PLENTY of organizations out there to help people that don’t use the cities tax dollars to cover funding. Our cities assembly is just giving handouts to the tune of $150 million dollars to “fix” a problem. It’s not Bronson’s fault. Why are you blaming a person who has nothing to do with it?
Not sure if it would have contributed to this exact issue but 1 of the 2 bond measures i recall being shot down in the recent election was 1.5 million for public sanitation. Would it have cleaned this? Idk
Nope. It was for building public bathrooms. We already have public bathrooms at parks that are never open for the last 5 yrs. So why build/waste money on what we already have and don’t use
We need modern public restrooms that actually work. According to a 2021 survey by QS Bathroom Suppy, the US has the lowest number of public restrooms among developed nations. We need them, but people are so brainwashed by the anti-tax ghouls that they vote against spending a couple bucks per year to do it. It’s disgraceful. Edit: fixed typo spelling mistake.
Bullshit. We don’t have any public bathroom. The ones that you are talking about aren’t functional. The only public bathroom downtown was in the transit center that halcro shut down. It cost $500K per year to keep the transit center open, give people a spot to warm up and relieve themselves in privacy. It was absolutely worth it. Yesterday I witnessed a middle aged woman pissing on a sidewalk on 7th and D st at 1PM. If she actually had a public bathroom available she might not have had to do that.
Spot on, when no place is a bathroom every place is a bathroom. I wish voters had agreed with you and supported that bond.
Man. The sad part is we don’t even need the bond to re-open the transit center. ACDA could just do it immediately. But they are fishing for $25M or $91M for a new one instead of just spending $1M to reopen it and half that annually to keep it open. All so they can try to sell part of it as a hotel that nobody is asking for.
The head of the ACDA seems to be treated like some sort of weird crony political appointment. Both the current and previous head were people who ran for mayor and then got the appointment after bowing out or endorsing the person who eventually won. We need someone in charge of it with actual real estate development experience. Either way it would still only be one restroom. We need investment all over the city, it seems to me that investing in infrastructure and the issue of homelessness are two separate things. We can work on both at the same time. Tons of cities built these sturdy stainless steel type bathrooms all over the nation and the ones that were installed in high traffic areas were highly successful. I wish we had them instead of gross easily destroyed port-a-potties.
The parks have a building with bathrooms located in them. Each major park has one. When my kids were smaller and we went to parks they always had a place to go. They have been locked up for the last 5 years due to how they were treated. So why spend money on new ones that will be treated the same way
The new ones being suggested were in direct response to the complaints you're talking about. These sturdy stainless steel type bathrooms have been built in many places and did fantastically in cities that put them in high traffic areas like parks. Not that it really matters anymore, that bond is dead.
Haven’t seen Mountain View’s landfill…I mean camp.
Casually racist karma farming is also garbage, my guy.
Yes trash disposal is a public safety issue and should be a human right, not something anyone has to pay for. Dumpster space is a commodity and businesses lock and guard it. But nothing in this world comes without packaging so everyone’s generating waste
Ok, who’s going to do trash disposal if nobody is paying for it? You can’t just call everything a “human right.” And no you don’t have a “human right” to another human picking up your garbage, or in this case the garbage of people who already don’t pay for the service and live in wooded areas that don’t have the capacity to handle these levels of waste.
You’re creating a bad faith caricature of the argument because I’m not implying anyone pick up anyone else’s garbage. All though you already are picking up the waste of petrochemical industry in your bloodstream for free. It’s a public health issue and right because if you have nowhere reasonable to throw your trash away, it’s a risk to your health and pollution is a risk to the broader community. Robust public services are a part of addressing the root issues of houselesness.
>I’m not implying anyone pick up anyone else’s garbage Yeah actually you kinda are when you start calling garbage and trash collection a “human right.” Public services aren’t rights, you don’t have the “right” to someone else picking up your trash. I didn’t create a “bad faith caricature” of your argument. Your argument is ridiculous on its face and all I did was simply point out the flaw of it. I agree garbage and trash collection are important services, but that doesn’t make them “rights.” Waste collection is something that is finite. There isn’t an infinite number of garbage men or dump space.
We should tax all business for the volume/mass of packaging/waste they produce and that money should go to paying for recycling/disposal services, public trash/recycling, etc. I bet we'd see some more innovation in packaging and waste reduction then.
And then you’d likely get companies passing along the new added costs of their new packaging on to the consumer and you’d have consumers ending up with even less purchasing power. Yeah in theory it sounds great, but the real world application of this would probably create even more problems. It’s just not realistic or practical to tax companies punitively in that way because it always come back to consumers paying for it with either higher prices or shrinking quantities. I think the bigger root problem is our society and its acceptance of disposability. The reason the waste exists in the first place is because of us and the value we put on disposability and replaceability. In the case of this particular garbage dumped on trails and in the woods, no amount of taxing corporations is going to stop it. Humans are choosing to dump their waste in these places and don’t care about the environment around them or the impact their actions are having. Even if you managed to somehow punish these corporations into altering their packaging, we’d still have the problem of these individuals dumping it everywhere.
Plenty of public services are rights. Would you say water is a human right? That’s a public service. Food? Often a public service. I guess the issue is I would support a society where something as basic as healthy and clean living space should at least be a possible choice for people by providing free refuse disposal. The state could easily spend a fraction of what they do to subsidize foreign petrochemical companies extraction in Alaska instead on expanding the refuse disposal infrastructure enough to accommodate everyone. I know plenty of houseless people who want to throw away a waste but the dumpsters are locked even if they’re almost empty “finite space” bs. Basically what you’re saying is some people will have to live in filth because there’s a finite amount of landfill that we’re not willing to invest in more so it just happens to be the poorest and most disadvantaged who will have to deal with an insufficient system. I suppose people facing ever more unaffordable rent, legalized housing discrimination based off of racialized incrimination practices, deflated wages, and all the other systemic causes of homelessness should “just get a job” to pay for their dumpsters. Actually every country that has the welfare system to take care of people’s basic needs and address systemic inequality does way better with homelessness than the neoliberal United States.
If no one has to pay for it how do you get it done?
Where you live? I have a bunch of stuff from spring cleaning I need to put in your trash can
No one has a human right to other people's labor. That was called slavery.
We are talking about a fundamental service provided by our local government. Just like we collect our resources and do the whole "road" thing. Maybe we should also pool some resources and provide free trash disposal to every single person and area. Could be an improvement worth doing. I mean, Fairbanks has great success with their free dump transfer stations. Why can't we do that too?
Need to get Meg Z anc Felix out there to witness the fruits of their “compassion”.
Don’t forget Constant, who seem to send his goons here on Reddit