OPINION: Anchorage responsible to care for those who need help most

The statement in the Bible that “the poor will always be with you” is often misused as an excuse to do the bare minimum to care for people in need, as if the predictability that poverty will exist is reason to ignore it. To do so one must ignore the second part of the statement: “I therefore command you to open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

The Sullivan Arena is not sheltering people, and it’s fair that many sports fans celebrate the return of the building to its intended use. Similarly, the camps at Cuddy Park are being abated, and it’s understandable that concertgoers and others want park space to be free of encampments.

But the people who have been relocated are still with us, and we still have the command to open our hands to them. They will remain with us, and remain in need, because we have not fixed the issues causing homelessness; we have just temporarily scattered the people in need. And as winter returns, we will again need to provide shelter. Predictably, preventably, we will be back in the exact same situation, because camp abatement and sheltering in the Sullivan don’t address the causes of homelessness, nor do they create ways out of it. They just chase symptoms, ensuring that the poor will not only always be with us, but also that our hands remain only partly and resentfully open.

Unless we have the wisdom and generosity to fully open our hands to fix the systems that cause homelessness, Anchorage will continue to see the same issues at the same or increased levels. More importantly, lives will continue to be traumatized and lost because we lack the will to pay the cost to fix the system.

Fixing the system means paying to provide housing and services. Affordable homes and an array of support services will prevent most people from entering homelessness and will provide ways out of homelessness for the rest. These services include job training, affordable health care including mental health care, educational programs, addiction services, and more.

Lacking the will to pay the price to fix things properly, we instead pay a smaller amount (still in the millions) for temporary, slapdash measures. This perpetuates trauma and costs more in the long run. Succumbing to a strategy of scarcity we slice services, then wonder why our shared social ills feel insurmountable. The answer is obvious: We get what we’ve refused to pay for.

But there is hope: The purchases of hotels as permanent low-income housing is proving to be a winning strategy, lifting and keeping people out of homelessness. Also, there is an increase in public education on these issues as we slowly move beyond the hyper-partisanship of the past few years and into a time when members of both parties recognize the need for increased, dependable funding. Meanwhile, agencies that address these issues are becoming more adept at sharing data, resources, and expertise. Businesses from mom-and-pop shops to major corporations agree that investment in long-term solutions is needed for businesses to not only function on a daily basis, but also if they want to be able to recruit employees to our beloved state.

Alaskans have a passion to be a part of the solution, and with that passion is the growing understanding that this can’t be done on the cheap. Until we fund long-term systemic change, the poor and needy will always be with us. It’s as predictable and lethal as Alaska’s winter.

Rev. Matt Schultz serves as pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Anchorage.

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