The Anchorage Assembly will consider a resolution to be introduced during Tuesday’s meeting by Assemblyman George Martinez that would have the city attorney explore the possibility of suing the State of Alaska over its handling of homelessness and behavioral health services.
The resolution highlights a public health and safety crisis in Anchorage, which Martinez blames on the State’s failure to provide adequate behavioral health services, as required by Article VII, Section 4 of the Alaska Constitution. Martinez, formerly with Occupy Wall Street and other leftist activities in New York City, asserts that the State has not maintained an effective behavioral health system, particularly in rural areas, resulting in widespread deficiencies in mental health and substance use treatment.
Anchorage has become a hub for behavioral health crisis response, his resolution says. The city bears a disproportionate burden managing issues such as homelessness and untreated mental illness that stem from statewide service gaps. Rural communities send their misfits to Anchorage, where they line the streets, doorways, and green belts, as they cope with their mental health, criminal habits, and illegal drug issues.
The Martinez resolution outlines some of the economic and social impacts on Anchorage, including strain on public safety resources, increased costs for businesses, reduced tourism and hospitality revenue, and challenges in workforce recruitment. He also notes that Anchorage spends between $6 million and $10 million annually on emergency shelters, encampment abatement, and related services.
Behavioral health concerns account for about 20% of police activity, more than 15,000 EMS calls annually, and over 400 monthly Mobile Crisis Team calls, services that lack consistent state funding, the resolution says.
The resolution formally calls it a crisis and a sustained public health and safety issue caused by State of Alaska failures, and says Anchorage shoulders an unfair share of related costs and burdens. It directs the Municipal Attorney to explore legal remedies against the State, including tort claims, reimbursement for unfunded mandates, public nuisance actions, and claims of constitutional violations. The Municipal Attorney would be required to report findings and legal strategies within 90 days.
Additionally, the resolution encourages collaboration with other municipalities, Tribal governments, and stakeholders to advocate for statewide accountability.
If passed, the resolution will take effect immediately, triggering a potential legal challenge against the State to hold it accountable for its constitutional obligations and to address the city’s disproportionate burden related to homelessness and mental illness.
Martinez and other Marxist members of the Anchorage Assembly sabotaged former Mayor Dave Bronson’s proposed navigation center, where people who were having life crisis issues could get the specific help they needed, whether it was temporary housing, drug rehabilitation, or mental health services. The Assembly, which has been taken over by Democrats and socialists, is now the “dog that caught the car,” but is planning to push the responsibility to the Dunleavy Administration.
Resolution No. AR 2025-191 directs the Municipal Attorney to explore all legal remedies against the State of Alaska and other entities it holds responsible for the Anchorage homelessness and mental health crisis.
Additionally, Resolution No. AR 2025-192 urges the Anchorage Administration and Health Department to create a targeted strategy to support unsheltered individuals with untreated serious mental illness or behavioral health conditions. It emphasizes collaboration with partners to develop health-based interventions and establish stabilization facilities, aiming to provide compassionate, health-focused solutions rather than relying solely on law enforcement or emergency services.
The meeting is in the Assembly Chambers at the Loussac Library, 3600 Denali, Room 108. starting at around 5 pm.
Live Streaming and Archived meetings/Podcasts at http://www.muni.org/watchnow
Live Streaming available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@moameetings
Democrats are the DUMBEST trash on earth Always someone else’s fault
The Assembly will likely retain Scott Kendall to represent them. It’s a jobs program for the politically “correct” people. Maybe Meg Zalatel can get expert witness fees.
The navigation center was not fiscally, or practically viable. The estimated operating cost was more than the current entire MOA budget for homeless services. People have this misconception that sending people to a large fabric tent in the tent would solve the homeless problem. Reality is that the MOA needs more Federal and State services and funding to mitigate the homeless problem. The Federal government is paying the State $233/day to house illegal migrants, that works out to almost $7,000/ mth. Why is there not similar funding for the homeless?
You mean the “homeless” that repeatedly state that they do not want to be housed? There are plenty of options for those who actually want to be helped.
Exactly, the hobos don’t like the “must be sober and make an effort to better themselves” rules that go with receiving help and housing. The citizens who pay the freight aren’t keen on funding a drunk for life life style. They don’t even make an attempt to mitigate public perception by cleaning up their trash and meeting the bare minimum limits for societal acceptance.
Alaskans? These homeless bums and many mentally ill people are given one-way tickets to Alaska from the Lower 48 and dumped on our streets. 😡
Alaska Mental Health Trust is a failure:
“In 1994, after many years of litigation, in a final landmark settlement the Alaska Mental Health Trust was reconstituted with $200 million and one million acres of land.”
Start spending more money on Alaskans.
Blame the state for the problem you created.
I support this suit, not with regard to homelessness, but with regard to mental illness. It was my experience nearly 30 years ago dealing with a mentally ill friend behaving poorly that it was the court, not city government, who let everybody down. The outright statement from the magistrate, which I questioned intensely, was that you can’t force somebody to accept alcohol abuse treatment or mental health treatment. This lesson was repeated for me just last summer with authorities. If the individual refuses to cooperate, everybody is forced to live with the continuing nightmare. The advice I got from EMTs was, “just keep calling 911”.
The assembly is now wasting not only Municipal tax dollars, they are wasting State tax dollars.
Instead of maybe putting money directly a program that could help them.. they want to waste more money that will result in building a mental health system that will cost even more.. and produce zero results.
Way to go, Democrats.
So, Anchorage is going to sue the state for problems they create and perpetuate? What’s the remedy? Do they want money? Is the state expected to come in and clean up their mess?
What would Anchorage expect. Put out the word that “ come to Anchorage “ we’ll provide free of charge 3 hots and a cot AND all the drugs and alcohol you can panhandle
Why not sue the Villages that have illegally banned their own, just to buy them a one way ticket to the hub communities??
It’s a Court sentence that they should have to pay the Bill too carry out the court sentence.
What an ignorant comment. They’re US citizens, they can go anywhere they want in the USA.
It’s the communists in the Anchorage assembly that enabled the destruction of this city.
Gads! When government sues each other we citizens lose! It’s like suing ourselves. Taxpayers pay both sides!
And who will sue the Anchorage Assembly for enabling these bums? I get around town quite a bit and look the homeless in the eyes. Why is no one talking about why the Native and Village Corporations are not helping their own? This is where the true tragedy lies. So much for unity, sobriety and respect.
The natives don’t address any of their problems.
The incest in the villages is horrific.
The domestic violence is crazy.
Drug and alcohol abuse is off the charts.
Illiteracy is a real issue.
Homelessness as a percent of their population, tragic.
Native Corps – silent.
Native response in general – blame the white man.
The irony is that the majority of natives are prospering and taking advantages of the many opportunities that are afforded them.
So assembly person Martinez wants to blame their failure on the state and sue the state for the mishandling of money, resources and a whole host of other stuff regarding the homeless. How about the state press charges on the assembly instead. Someone is making a LOT of money and it is not being used like it should be to help those that need it most. We need treatment centers, counselors, mental health providers and so much more. What we do NOT need is the city buying hotels and blowing the money on useless projects in the homeless industry that is making some people very wealthy. What a failure this assembly has been in truly giving REAL help! ‘https://homelessak.org
We should not blame the assembly for these symptoms; after all, they ran on platforms promoting communist Marxism, which is the root cause. Government bureaucrats (including teachers) love the bloated salaries and benefits they receive with no accountability. Failure to educate, or properly rehabilitate, results in never-ending crops of homeless as a symptom. The voters have chosen the assembly. The voters are the problem. Sadly, many of us hard-working, clean-living, patriots sit across the dinner table from the problem. Let that sink in all you beta-males.
By extension then, individually, I, in Ketchikan am responsible as are all residents of Alaska responsible for ‘Stupid-ignorance-denial’ of a situation allowed to become rampant for the feelings of the Anchorage assembly.
Brilliant, share the blame via the singular representative of all, the Governor. This should prove hysterical were it to be pursued.
Cheers,
Johnson-Ketchikan
I expect the Assembly will object somewhat to how the State might handle this situation. I don’t think they are all in on involuntary confinement, arrests for vagrancy, jail time for trespassing and littering, etc. If they were, they would have done it by now. I expect this is just an excuse to “blame” someone else for what should have been done in the first place.
Just remember, if the city sues the state, they’re suing you, Alaskan resident, tax payer and PFD recipients. It sounds like some sort of separate entity when they say “state”. But it is you. One way or the other it comes right out of your pocket.
Do the assembly members get to have the same treatment?
Fantastic. Democrats wasting Muni and State tax dollars at the same time. This will achieve nothing for the homeless as usual.
Is this the same assembly that tries to make children believe they can change from a boy or a girl to the opposite God “ assigned” them.
And the talk about mental illness
Isn’t there already millions and millions of dollars being spent in Anchorage on the homeless problem? And the problem only gets worse. Where is all that money going? I think the Alaska DOGE committee should take a look into that.
Naw, our politicians, like McCabe would rather talk about Federal waste.
Why?
They are in on it!…
The Anchorage Assembly, Mark Begich, Berkowitz, LaFrance Beans Cafe, Catholic Social Services, Growden and myriad other complicit members of the Anchorage Coalition to Perpetuate the Income from the Homeless are the reason the vagrancy rate in Anchorage is so high. The state has NO dog in the fight started by mining for money under this fraudulent umbrella.
So my interpretation of this proposal is that the assembly’s Marxist Nine want to sue the state of Alaska so that their mental illness(es) can be treated. I might actually support that.
There’s this place called API. But forcing people to be there infringes on their freedom of expression. But the assembly is going to sue the state due to lack of due diligence in this matter. Oh dear assembly, what do you expect the state to do? Oh, just send money to Anchorage to handle the situation. But we all know the money will disappear into your pockets.
“……..There’s this place called API. But forcing people to be there infringes on their freedom of expression………..”
It isn’t just mental health, either. You can’t force somebody to accept any medical treatment, even the most obvious. If the individual refuses, you can’t administer care. But with physical medicine, the patient suffers the most pain and motivation to heal. Mental illness distributes the pain to everybody in the vicinity.
This is nothing but a clear deflection away from their own failed policies. They have no solutions. And the Assembly deliberately blocked Bronson from ever seeing the Navigation Center through for political reasons. Despite the administrative hiccups–the Navigation Center has been the most based and sound remedy. It is easier to point the finger at others rather than look at your own failures. That is all this is.
Typical leftists. Do anything other than taking responsibility themselves.
Just like the leftist democrats, always creating problems for the people and blaming others for what they created. The untreated menral illness is in the Anchorage assembly.
This has been ongoing for years without a solution from one government to another, just passing the buck! What’s really needed is a parcel of land fenced in move beans Café up there as they all follow the food and make sure they have availability/transportation to the city of Anchorage where they can get assistance/help. It’s really not that difficult to resolve this and get them off the fast moving streets or several have been killed in the past. We also need to invest in the mental health facilities as some of these people are not able to rehabilitate and are hazard to the public.
Suing someone isn’t going to fix the problem, but, of course, the assembly is too dumb to know that.
Lawsuits are a money grab. All municipalities should try it.
Meanwhile, our failed and dysfunctional public education bureaucracy churns out larger and larger crops of homeless candidates every year. The percentage of them unable add a column of numbers, write a letter, or recite history is growing at a rate only matched by increases in teacher salaries. Its looking more and more like the end times.
Why not cut to the chase, Occupy Guy?
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You want to sue the State because that’s so much more politically correct, more heroic, than suing villages and native corporations for the cost of caring for their castaways?
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Call yourselves a “welcoming city” do you, but that’s only for illegal aliens you can exploit, not homeless bums you can’t …otherwise, remind again what’s the difference?
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Weren’t the Zalatel Zoo, Sulte Sales Tax, and unlimited federal grant money meant to solve this problem?
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What’s the play, Occupy Guy? Get bums formally enrolled in programs, domiciled at physical addresses, registered to vote, helped to vote, signed up for every state and federal dollar they can get, from which your mob’ll get a sizeable rake for “managing” their money?
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Seems to be your style, Occupy Guy. Sue the State instead of reaching out to villages and Native corporations for help.
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Seemed easy enough for your mob to do when you wanted your casino. Got it done literally overnight, didn’t you? Didn’t have to sue the state either. Can’t do that for bums though. Why?
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Could one be forgiven for opining that it’s probably not whether productive residents despise you mob, but how much?
I understand that it’s easy to take pot shots at the ANC Assembly but in all fairness do you really think that this is a matter they could resolve? Setting their obvious grift and shortcomings aside for a moment they have proven themselves incapable of fixing the problem and the next step is to either vacate their seat or be held personally responsible for having obstructed appropriate corrective measures.
Once it was announced that the trash lady (not a pejorative reference) intended to run for governor I asked in response to Suzanne’s article what she as Governor would do to clear up the homeless problem. I asked because it’s not just ANC but prevalent all over Alaska and a problem exacerbated by the inept posing as civic leaders on the Assembly.
We heard crickets in response and you can damn sure bet she read the responses to that article at least 100x. Regardless, it was more important in that article to crow about dead Wally and Nanwalek or wherever it was she claims to be from.
She’ll be asked in a more public forum soon. Be prepared, little one. There’s another form of trash that needs to be cleaned up.
Oh no John Hancock, the assembly knows exactly what they are doing. They will sue the state, steal as much of the money as possible, rinse and repeat, just like the tobacco law suites. Just like in the 70s when they sued the Feds and the States into closing most of the State mental hospitals which is exactly when the “homeless” problem started. Law suites based on the premiss that incarcerating mentally ill folks was a crime. These criminals
have zero intension of fixing anything except their grip on as much power as possible. They own the judicial system in Alaska, and much of the federal system. And that is our own fault. Not that we cant change it, but that we will not. They will most likely win this law suit. I have no longer have any trust in government or the people. Hell is coming, and most will just sit and watch whatever game is on that day. And bitch and make idle threats, and complain. Sound familiar?
The state does need to house and treat Alaska’s mentally ill. After the mentally ill are cared for the ASSEMBLY will have no excuse to coddle the drunks and junkies. The assembly are hardly the upstanding bastion of public safety and it is sad to think that this city government clown show is driving this bus, but it needs to happen.
Frank Rast, 233×365=85045/12=7087.083. Clearly that is not “almost” 7,000 dollars. It was also not a difficult equation. I did it in my head, but I do have the advantage of being a welder. You’re welcome .
I think the Anchorage Council should sue the State for not getting help for the Anchorage Council members.
So they created a problem, made it worse several times over, & now want to blame the state? Typical. This is 100% a muni problem which is 1/1000000 reasons Eagle River/Chugiak & Girdwood want O-U-T!