Homelessness

The city is planning to open 500 winter shelter beds in late October, according to a top administration official.

The administration of Mayor Suzanne LaFrance says an Anchorage Health Department investigation into homeless shelter contractor Henning Inc. completed in the final days of the previous administration was flawed and inadequate — but won’t be redone.

The Next Step initiative has moved 177 people into housing and provides them a year of rent assistance and case management support.

Church leaders say the encampment shows why the shelter village is needed. Neighbors want the city to clear out the encampment, worried it will harm the project.

Homelessness is at the top of the agenda for candidates in mayoral races across the U.S. West. But they differ on whether it’s OK to clear encampments that have spread as the crisis has deepened and how much to rely on temporary housing.

Business owners say the new encampment has brought a surge of problems and crime to the area. Homeless residents say they moved there because they had nowhere else to go.

After mounting pressure from businesses and residents, the city gave notice to several dozen campers Tuesday that they have three days to leave.

Tight on staff, funding and shelter beds, Anchorage officials are wrestling with big questions on how the city should handle homeless camps that pose serious public safety problems.

Members approved a contract extension with Henning, Inc. to continue operating the shelter inside a former Solid Waste Services building.

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.