Democrat politicians are sure big on symbolism over substance, aren't they?
Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance is no different. Anchorage, like so many of America's cities, is dealing with a homelessness problem, which is caused in large part by the people "experiencing homelessness" also experiencing mental illness and addiction issues.
So, what is Mayor LaFrance's solution? Build a handful of glorified garden sheds for some of the homeless to live in.
The Municipality of Anchorage is preparing to break ground on what some are calling a step forward in transitional housing, and what others, with a wink, are already calling “The Crampground.”
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, in partnership with the Anchorage Community Development Authority, announced this week that Visser Construction has been tapped to design and build 24 “microunits” on city-owned land near the Elmore Permit Center. This is the approximate location where former Mayor Dave Bronson attempted to construction (sic) a homeless navigation center, to connect homeless people with services appropriate to their needs.
The pilot project, formally known as the “Microunits for Recovery Residences,” aims to offer temporary housing for individuals transitioning out of homelessness and into substance misuse recovery. The 24 units, about 96 square feet each, will cost $1.7 million and will be paid for by the public treasury from opioid settlement funds. It’s a two-year pilot, with the possibility of relocating or scrapping the units if the program is not successful.
24 units. 96 square feet each. $1.7 million. So, a quick number crunch gives us $70,833 for each unit; $737.84, give or take, per square foot. That's a lot of money for what appear to be, as I mentioned above, glorified garden sheds. And we should note that this kind of stupidity has been tried before; in Seattle, for example:
Still, in places like Seattle, where such crawl-in closets have been tried in village settings, there’s been a lot of resistance, and the villages quickly have become shantytowns filled with social problems, crime, and overdosed residents.
Bet on it. As has been the city of Anchorage's habit in dealing with street people, they aren't solving the problem; they're just moving it, and in this case, they're moving it into shelters that don't appear to have any plumbing hookups. Maybe a chemical toilet? But no showers, no sinks, no running water, at least as far as we can see from the photos.
Here, have a look:
Symbolism over substance, and the Anchorage voters are once again stuck with the check.
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I have a couple of better ideas. It would probably be a lot cheaper to amass a bunch of shipping containers; Alaska gets lots of those, as a lot of stuff gets shipped up here and very little is shipped back to the lower 48. The Port of Anchorage has tons of these things stacked up, and periodically, a bunch are sold off. They're very popular as storage containers or even to be converted into cabins, living quarters, or any number of other uses. Almost every rural Alaska homestead has at least one of these sitting around; we have one, currently used for storage. How hard would it be to convert these things into living quarters?
Another idea would be even simpler: look at Alaska's Craigslist and buy a bunch of old travel trailers and RVs. All you'd have to do is park them and run out a power cord.
Of course, the whole "housing first" has been a failure everywhere it's been tried; it just moves the problem, it doesn't solve it. Until Anchorage, and all the other American cities that are having this problem, come around to what's needed - not "housing first" but "sobriety first" - this problem will just keep on growing.
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