Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson's new proposal would pay for plane tickets to ship homeless people to warmer climates. “My job is to make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets,' he said.
Last year, eight people — a record for the city — died of exposure in Anchorage and the closure of a large arena earlier this year that served as a makeshift city shelter is sure to exacerbate the crisis in a place where winter temperatures regularly dip below zero.
With the pandemic, officials configured the roughly 6,000-seat Sullivan Arena to be a mass-care facility. It has served more than 500 homeless people in the winters until city officials decided to return it to its original purpose hosting concerts and hockey games. "I have a moral imperative here, and that’s to save lives," Bronson said. "And if that means giving them a few hundred dollars for an airline ticket to go where they want to go, I’m going to do that."
Bronson said a funding source has not been identified, and he’s put Alexis Johnson, the city’s homeless director, in charge of coming up with a plan for the program. She didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment. Bronson said it won’t be difficult to administer the program.or San Diego or Seattle or Kansas,’ it’s not our business," he said of their intended destination. "My job is to make sure they don’t die on Anchorage streets.
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