I worked at 3rd and Pine McDonalds in downtown Seattle for about a year while at UW, and I went to grad school at the U of U in SLC.
Downtown SLC is quite different in size from Seattle; you could walk the ride-free area in SLC in about 30 minutes, the ride free area in Seattle is much larger, more like 1.5 hours. Also, SLC didn't have many homeless people, while Seattle attracted most of the homeless people from the PNW, including lots from the nearby reservations and even Alaska (Alaska exports their homeless problems to us and LA).
You can walk the length of the Seattle free ride zone (Jackson to Bell) in less than 30 minutes (1.3 miles). 15 minutes from the waterfront to the convention center.
Try walking Bell Town to the International District station. It was longer north/south than east/west.
I worked there in '94 when it was more rundown than it was today. The smell (malt liquor, unwashed clothes, urine) was difficult to handle at first but I got used to it, my coworkers were also pretty cool (mostly filipino/a immigrants) so it wasn't so bad.
Can you give some citations on this Alaska thing? I don't know whether I can consider that bizarre or a good idea. Having people freeze to death on the streets of Anchorage is pretty awful though.
Alaska actually has a huge homeless problem, they are like #5 or something ranked nationally. Life is very expensive there, and you can quickly fall through all the safety nets (especially but not just native American Indians/Alaskans). It makes sense that many would just give up; and its easy enough to get out by plane.
My mom (a Ketchikaner) told me this, but I can't find any references; my experiences are also about 20 years out of date now.
I lived there for 20+ years, headed up again in a couple weeks. The homeless issue is nowhere near as bad as e.g. Portland, where I am now. Nationally the state is ranked 10th for the percent of its population who are homeless. [0] It is not easy to get out by plane, especially if you don't have a job or an apartment lined up before you want to move. What I wanted citations for is this concept of "exporting" homeless persons; I'm still a resident of the state and if you were not being facetious about the concept, I have more than an academic interest in such a program. Mostly I don't think it's true.
Isn't Portland (where I was born) bigger than the entire population of Alaska? For some reason, Oregon and Washington also score badly on homeless problems along with Alaska, probably given...our great weather?
Search for "blue ticket", it might not be practiced anymore, I'm not sure; but I believe there was still something like that going on in the 80s at least, and it was definitely a thing while my mom was growing up.
I remember some of the homeless in Seattle were from Alaska, how they got there...I'm sure if you ask a charity you can get a bus/plane ticket in winter easily enough, even if the gov doesn't do it for you.
Seattle has relatively affordable airfare to Anchorage.
Some part of it must be cultural. The entire west coast seems to score badly. I can't find a lot on "blue tickets" except to suggest that it hasn't been done since the 80s.
To go from ANC to SEA by bus you'd be taking 3 different bus lines, for a total price of ~$425 and probably a week of travel time.
Vancouver BC also has a large homeless population, so I can see it being a part of west coast culture (and of course, California...). There is something to be said about the boom/bust natures of the logging (skid row!) and fishing industries that probably feed into the problem.
Buses out of Alaska aren't cheap, its much cheaper to fly these days. You can get a ticket to Seattle for < $300. "blue tickets" seem to be ingrained in Alaskan culture, its a word that is understood very well up there; people like Palin use it to trash talk others they want to go. You are right the overt practice is probably not acceptable today, but the philosophy still holds.
Downtown SLC is quite different in size from Seattle; you could walk the ride-free area in SLC in about 30 minutes, the ride free area in Seattle is much larger, more like 1.5 hours. Also, SLC didn't have many homeless people, while Seattle attracted most of the homeless people from the PNW, including lots from the nearby reservations and even Alaska (Alaska exports their homeless problems to us and LA).