Anchorage is removing the remaining homeless encampments in Centennial Park Campground

The city began its scheduled clearing of the several homeless camps left in East Anchorage’s Centennial Park Campground on Thursday afternoon.

In a steady, frigid rain, homeless residents packed up belongings as they prepared to leave. For nearly four months, hundreds of homeless campers lived in the campground.

On Friday morning, the city’s crews were back and continuing to haul large truckloads of debris and left-behind belongings to the dump. By 11 a.m., almost everything had been cleared aside from a dozen or so camps still occupied by homeless residents, and a few abandoned or broken-down vehicles that need to be towed out.

“Abatement will continue until the campground is completely abated,” said Corey Allen Young, a spokesman for the mayor’s office.

A number of residents have lingered in the park since the city officially closed it three weeks ago. Many say they are loathe to move back into another large shelter in Sullivan Arena. It’s the same building where Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration shuttered its former mass homeless shelter at the end of June, moving homeless residents into the campground instead.

Pressed to meet a deadline in city law requiring enough emergency shelter space for all homeless residents when temperatures drop, city officials reversed course and reopened a smaller, 150-person shelter in Sullivan last month.

The city posted abatement notices on Oct. 4 after it closed the campground — part of the official process for clearing homeless camps, which is regulated in city code. In the weeks leading up to Thursday, campers haven’t been sure where they should go, or if the city would be able to legally force them to leave. A federal court ruling holds that homeless camps can’t be cleared unless there is adequate shelter space available. Sullivan Arena had been full for a few days.

The city surged its shelter capacity at Sullivan to 200 beds on Thursday, according to Young.

[Earlier coverage: Uncertainty looms for unhoused people remaining at Anchorage’s Centennial Park Campground who will soon be kicked out]

Also, “the Alex Hotel is anticipated to be brought online today,” Young said by text message Thursday. The city has been slated to open 55 double-occupancy rooms in the Spenard-area hotel for homeless residents to stay.

The homeless coordinator with the Anchorage Health Department, Alexis Johnson, said that as of a census done Tuesday, about 98 people were still at Centennial.

It’s now muddy, soggy and cold, and there is no running water. With the abatement impending, by Thursday many more people had already moved on, either to Sullivan or to stay or camp elsewhere in Anchorage.

Aside from the people still living at Centennial, abandoned vehicles and left-behind trash and tents still dotted the sites along the campground loops when abatement began.

City Parks and Recreation Department staff started with those empty camps Thursday. They loaded and hauled truckloads of stuff to the dump, from abandoned furniture to tents, canopies, tarps and heaps of trash.

On Friday, the remaining campers were preparing to leave, slowly packing the belongings they need and what they could carry with them as they dispersed, and sorting what things they couldn’t carry and would have to leave behind. They tended to small fires, trying to stay warm as they packed in the near-freezing temperature. Their frosted-over tents and tarps slowly thawed in the rays of sunlight that broke through the canopy of trees and the fog and smoke hanging over the campground.

Some said they didn’t want to stay at Sullivan Arena after their experiences staying there at times over the last two years, when the city used it as an emergency COVID-19 mass homeless shelter. There were bedbugs, and theft was frequent, they said. Some said they didn’t know they could access homeless services at Sullivan without having to stay there, or that they could warm up indoors in the arena’s warming area, which is separate from the shelter. A few were looking for bus passes to get to Sullivan Arena, and for water.

Homeless campers said outreach teams have been at Centennial recently, setting up in a nearby pavilion in the adjacent Pena Park to collect campers’ information and get them into the state’s homeless management information system. That helps connect residents with services and helps social workers contact them.

Parks and Rec staff on site said they and police were planning to begin the process to clear out the rest of the campers Friday afternoon.