The sad truth is, the number of people living on Juneau’s streets is rising. The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly’s move last winter to give homeless people tickets did nothing at all to get people housed. It did create makeshift camps —first at Marine Park, then on the Mental Health Trust’s property.
And now winter is approaching again, as it does every fall, and we have candidates running for the Assembly. That happens every fall, too, and it’s no surprise Juneau residents are asking what they plan to do.
Soon the new Housing First project will open. As a director of Sealaska in 2016, I was proud to support a $25,000 contribution by Sealaska to the project, which will provide permanent supportive housing and a community facility for Juneau’s most vulnerable, chronically-homeless adults. The city also invested some tax dollars in the facility. It’s an excellent project, and it will house more than 30 people who live on our streets today.
But there are many, many more homeless Juneau residents than that, and there seem to be more this year than last. I encourage you to ask the candidates what solutions they’ll pursue. At least one is running to push homeless people out of downtown, although he hasn’t said where.
Other candidates talk about making more housing available to people and getting more addiction treatment to people on the street. Those are important steps. Juneau has invested a lot in making our city beautiful and fun. It’s time to shift the focus to actually addressing these problems. And it makes financial sense, too. Many of our homeless people are veterans who can get the benefits they earned serving our country once they have a place to live. Preventive care means fewer unpaid bills at the emergency room that get covered by raising prices for everyone else.
We certainly don’t need to spend any more money making things worse by pushing people around. When you vote on Oct. 3, please make sure you vote for people who work on solutions.
• Rosita Worl is the president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute.
