Officials say Anchorage likely now has more latitude to clear any encampments that it deems problematic and unsafe, even without shelter beds to offer homeless campers.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has through Friday to issue any vetoes of state budget items, including $4 million the Legislature included to keep Anchorage’s 200-bed homeless shelter open.
The dense sidewalk camp on Fairbanks Street exposes an ill-defined policy on homeless vehicle camps. Community leaders and business owners say they don’t understand why the city hasn’t taken action.
The city hopes to receive about $4 million for sheltering from the state, but “it’s not guaranteed until the governor signs the budget,” said Assembly member Felix Rivera.
Anchorage Assembly members said the texts raise serious concerns about how Henning Inc. is managing shelters. The city’s homeless coordinator and Henning officials said the texts were taken out of context.
Officials, trail users and unhoused people themselves say they’re seeing more camps, more ecological damage and more destruction.
Most of the deaths happened in clusters: In April, four people were found dead in a three day period. And on May 2, three homeless men were declared dead in different parts of the city — in less than an hour and a half.
Abatement of a large camp near Cuddy Park enters its second week.
Front-end loaders began clearing portions of the homeless camp around Anchorage’s Cuddy Park on Tuesday. It may take up to three weeks to clean the camp, an official said.
A decision in the case will have implications for how cities across the Western U.S., including Anchorage, regulate homeless camps.
The rural city of Grants Pass in southern Oregon has become the unlikely face of the nation’s homelessness crisis as its case over anti-camping laws goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bronson also called for the Assembly to immediately pass a measure that would pay for shipping the city’s prefabricated Sprung Structure tent to Anchorage from out of state. The Assembly rejected the request to consider it Tuesday, asking the mayor to put it on an upcoming agenda.
The funding could provide shelter to 200 people through the summer.
Broadly, the latest version of the ordinance proposes limiting the size of encampments to 50 tents and makeshift shelter structures. It also would ban camping within 10 blocks or 1 mile of any licensed homeless shelter.
The municipality wants to rezone and sell a Midtown lot where a sprawling homeless camp has taken root in recent years.
The House Finance Committee narrowly rejected the funding request, which is supported by both the mayor and the assembly.
Last year 52 unhoused people died on the streets of Anchorage. Three and a half months into this year, just one death.
While the city’s problems with homelessness have persisted for years, they’ve been the source of some of the most acrimonious disagreements and biggest controversies under the current mayor.
The ordinance would add a 50-person size limit on encampments and ban camping altogether in some areas. It also would ensconce in city code a criminal misdemeanor charge for prohibited camping violations.
The yearly tally is required by the federal government to help determine how much funding for homelessness communities receive.
The city has stood up three warming centers as temperatures continued to fall, creating dangerous situations for unhoused residents.
After a week of subzero temperatures, Mayor Dave Bronson issued an emergency proclamation, endorsed by the Assembly on Sunday, to allow the city to keep the warming centers open continuously through Feb. 13.
Destructive fires happen commonly in the city’s largest homeless encampments, according to the Anchorage Fire Department.
Service providers say more than 160 people have used the new warming shelter since October.
Missouri in 2022 adopted legislation from the Cicero Institute that outlawed camping on state property, among other things. Cities felt the effects soon after.