ANCHORAGE DAILY PLANET
Watching a Seattle television station’s take on homelessness in the Emerald City is shocking and makes us wonder about Anchorage’s future.
The latest in KOMO-TV’s raw, gritty trilogy on homelessness and addiction in the city – “Seattle is Dying” – is sometimes stunning, sometimes sad, sometimes infuriating.
The city is losing its battle with homelessness despite more than a billion dollars being spent on the problem in the Puget Sound area. The more Seattle spends, the worse its problem becomes.
We wonder how Anchorage would fare if a local television station – and we are not holding our breath – invested the time and money to honestly detail and document our city’s homeless problem. That report likely would be stunning, sad and infuriating, too.
From where we sit, in Seattle and Anchorage – and other cities, as well – the old adage certainly is true: If you want more of something, subsidize it.
In Anchorage, the Assembly and Mayor Ethan Berkowitz are hawking Proposition 9, a 5 percent retail alcohol tax they managed to place on the April 2 ballot, along with a charter change to allow its adoption with less than the normally required 60 percent supermajority vote.
Read the rest of the editorial at:
http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/151709/seattle-is-dying-is-anchorage/
