Homeless people are people. There was a recent study that most Americans couldn’t afford to pay an unexpected $200 bill. Our food bank provides services to mostly employed people who are barely making it paycheck to paycheck. One mistake, one crisis, one choice, one death in a family can make many in society already struggling homeless.
Homeless people are as human as the people who have Mayor or Assembly member tacked onto their name. As elected officials, you represent our community and I would think you would understand we need to take care of all the people in our community. Provide safety nets for the most vulnerable. It isn’t just the moral and human thing to do, it is the responsible and fiscally sound thing to do. Moving people “down the sidewalk” doesn’t make the problem go away; ticketing homeless for trying not to die in their sleep isn’t going to make it go away. Our community needs to solve the problem. The City and Borough of Juneau just pledged a million dollars to the University of Alaska Southeast. Why can’t we pledge some funds to providing some type of shelter “down the sidewalk” to allow people a safe place to sleep without the fear of dying?
Michele Morgan
Juneau
