Outlaw encampments continue to spread across Anchorage, bringing with them a host of public safety concerns, including gunfire, fires, and stolen property, despite weak efforts by an ineffectual mayor to address the crisis. Must Read Alaska readers have dubbed these encampments SLAZ — Suzanne LaFrance Autonomous Zone, after the mayor who promised voters she would clean up the city.
Last week, gunshots rang out at an encampment near Mulcahy Stadium, rattling families and disrupting youth baseball games. Players were sent scrambling into dugouts for cover, and although Anchorage police responded to the incident, the department has yet to provide the public with any detailed information.
The shooting, coupled with encampment fire seen in the same woods this past Tuesday, prompted the Must Read Alaska team to investigate that area and others.
A massive encampment has emerged along Chester Creek Trail south of Kendall Ford, at the intersection of 20th Avenue and the New Seward Highway. The site has grown rapidly and now includes piles of broken-down bicycles, parts, and even what appears to be a pop-up, open-air storefront set up in a tent.
A sign affixed to a large tent advertises prices for items and another sign tells people that if they are not shopping, they should move along.
They are selling everything from Chips Ahoy for $4 to Gillette razors for $1 each. You can buy Tate’s chocolate chip cookies, otter pops, and cigarettes (three for $5).
Here’s the price list for the store:
It’s a jarring sight on what was once a popular urban trail for biking and walking. At least 100 people are encamped there. Many of the tarps and tents appear to be in relatively new condition.
The rapid expansion of this and other camps follows the city’s high-profile removal of the sprawling Davis Park encampment earlier this year. That operation, which came at a cost of thousands of dollars to taxpayers, removed more than 700,000 pounds of debris. As the city moved in to abate that camp, vagrants set it on fire as they exited, complicating the abatement and turning it into a fire and crime scene. No arrests were made.
Encampments have simply reconstituted in other areas of town, often with even less oversight.
The situation near Kendall Ford, Mulcahy Stadium, and other areas has become a flashpoint in the city’s ongoing debate over how to handle transient outlaws, addiction, and public disorder.
As part of an ongoing series, we continue to document these developments with photographs and firsthand accounts from across Anchorage. The summer of 2025 is proving to be yet another test of the city’s political will to restore safety and livability to its public spaces. Note that our photos capture only a small portion of what we saw in the new SLAZ encampment along Chester Creek.
Mayor LaFrance, as part of her campaign in 2024, accused former Mayor Dave Bronson of incompetence.
This is what competence apparently looks like:
These photos and stories need to be on posted all over social media. The only way we will ever clean this up is to pin it on the left and their crazy policies of not enforcing the law we have on the books now.
Remember that TV commercial from the 1970s, where a Native American Indian was looking at litter piling up on once beautiful land? A tear formed on his cheek out of sadness for what the white man has done to his land.
Where is that Indian now?
Passed out and curled up on 4th Avenue next to a puddle of puke and a pile of cigarette butts with a sign claiming he’s a needy vet, reeking of poop, with fleeting memories of a hotel room provided for him by Anchorage taxpayers but no recollection of how to find his way back to it, and waiting for some generous suckers with misplaced pity to come along and fund his next bender.
Good point and that Indian was crying, in part, because of littering If I remember right.
Eight eh-ing
He was an Italian Sicilian actor. He’s no longer with us.
Semper Fi
Ski
You beat me to it, yes, he was an Italian actor.
Downtown Anchorage. Saw him last week. Hammered as Hogan’s goat, he had packed a load in his drawers and was laying immediately adjacent to a fresh barf splat on the Anchorage Town Square concrete, occasionally mumbling profanities into his Obama phone. If I recall correctly he said he had a concall going w/ Putin, Felix and Dunbar. He was laying near a handful of the old monogrammed bricks we all paid for 30 years ago. At the time we had no clue that such a lovely park would eventually crumble under the mismanagement of Ms. LaFrance and the losers on the Anchorage Assembly. I wouldn’t have bought a few bricks had I known they’d be barfed, dueced, whizzed and fornicated on. I could’ve done all that at home and saved myself a c note or two. Shame, really. The indian seemed relaxed though. Like, really relaxed.
He is in one of those tarp enclosures
Where is our Alaskan Native community? Why aren’t they speaking out about their members ruining our quality of life?
Need to start posting pictures with license plates of the supposedly good hearted people giving enabling cash at the intersections
And food. A lot of “good people” bring them food, as opposed to money.
But the food just enables the bums to sit there non-stop & grub money.
I know they mean well, but feeding those drunks …. ya gotta be kidding.
There also back next to Cuddy Park.
A “Keep Out” sign on an illegally sited tent is an ironic illustration of the problem.
It is; but on the other hand, would you even want to enter said tent? Maybe the sign should read “Enter At Your Own Risk”?
No wonder the brown bears are coming closer to town. Scavengers tend to flock together.
This is the Wild West, and it’s the way someone never having been to Alaska might have imagined it to be before WWII. I would bet that women and girls, full-auto guns, any kind of illegal drugs, home brew, and felonious activities for hire are all available. Like all social change and social conditions the reasons for this emerging and being tolerated are multi-faceted and complicated, and unlikely to be agreed by hardly anyone. However, I would expect most everyone would agree that being unarmed in Anchorage would be stupid.
Remember that Mayor Bronson was going to end homelessness, I guess his plan didn’t work. The issue is huge, and people need help. Why does Anchorage draw so many? Cheap alcohol, abundant drugs and plenty of people to beg from. Trickle down economics is driving us back to the great depression era of homelessness.
I don’t believe Bronson ever thought he was going to end it. I think he understood the difference between people who were homeless and those who are vagrants. He wanted to hold the vagrants accountable (not just allow them to break the law because they are homeless). And to make services and resources available at a central location for the homeless people who were willing to accept help. He didn’t want spread the problem throughout every park and trail in Anchorage. The leftist members on the Assembly (including LaFrance) blocked him from doing anything he tried to do. LaFrance had a better plan and we are still waiting to see it.
Bronson was hamstrung at every turn by the liberal dominated assembly. Every single proposal he had was shot down. Even the plan that was originated by many of the sitting members of the assembly was discarded! He appropriated the camp ground to provide SOME semblance of contained control… and he is criticized for that! Libs want care and compassion yet continue to wring their hands and whinge . They want to throw (everyone else’s) money at the problem and feel virtuous. So you might want to watch where you lay blame.
Mayor Bronson’s homeless plan never had a chance to work, because it wasn’t allowed by the leftist Anchorage assembly.
His solution worked for a while when he converted that campground into a homeless refuge. They had restrooms and clean running water. They had police security.
The people of Anchorage deserve this. Do better!
The union members who voted for this deserve it. So do the others who didn’t vote.
Most of the tents look very new, along with the tarps. These are not cheap, who is buying them? I won’t even start with the health hazards as there are no sanitary facilities, just like Seattle.
REI lets them walk out the door. They will not even look at shoplifters (could be racist to eye them suspiciously) Although half of the shoplifters are normally clothed, clean, housed people; I am not kidding about “looking” at the vagrants – true story. It is a Very Politically Correct store.
How about establishing a rehabilitation center on Fire Island where the Muni could provide services?
Does the store have a business license?
If they don’t need one then neither does anyone!
Well people have been telling them to “get a job”; amazingly one of them listened.
4 th amendment .
Look it up.
Says clearly – shall not be infringed. Their homes have full protection against search or seizure without proper warrent.
People down on their luck have equal protection under the law. Not just the monied classes that read these articles.
The definition of home is in effect “shelter”
The legal inclusion of protection of our “effects”
means these camps should not be trespassed in or on except with warrants that describe items to be seized under due legal process. Denying these people a place to live their lives is morally repugnant.
There but for the grace of god go I. When was the last time any of us did anything to greatly improve their living conditions? Are these not humans who deserve our active compassion and help?
It seems that you understand everything but the definition of “trespass”:
“…….Trespass generally refers to the act of entering or remaining on someone else’s property without their permission. It can be a civil wrong (a tort) for which the property owner can sue, and in some cases, it can also be a crime……..”
American, most of these unhoused people have been offered and refused housing as it does not allow the lifestyle they CHOOSE to live! I fully support helping people to get a hand up but that is not the issue with the majority of them.
Your woefully misplaced and completely ignorant compassion is disgusting and insulting.
it is irrational, illogical, bleeding-heart idiots like you you enable and foster this filthy and illegal squatting here, there and everywhere in Anchorage. Subsidize something, and you will always get more of it. Nothing will change until we stop TOLERATING this kind of anti-social and animalistic behavior.
I’m actually doing things to improve my living condition. If we all did that, took care of ourselves, this savagery would stop. You speak as though these people have no abilities or responsibilities for themselves or their neighbors. Why do you expect only some have to abide by “the social contract”? I get up every morning, pack my lunch and get out to help my neighbors (working) by 6:30. I, more often than not, don’t get home until after 6:00 PM. I haven’t seen the bum yet who’s had enough of his condition to anything about it. Stop feeding the animals it destroys their ability to provide for themselves.
It’s public land. It’s not their private property. They are breaking the law. That justifies seizing their personal belongings.
If they are humans, why do they choose to act like animals when shelters are available?
I am sick of it. Anchorage voters, this is on you. you voted for these assemby members.
I cannot wait for Eagle Exit.
We were down in Tucson where, surprise, they also have a bum problem. We stayed in a hotel a few miles north of Tucson in a place called Oro Valley. There were ZERO hobos. I mentioned the paucity of urban survivalists to the receptionist. Her response says it all. “They sometimes make it up to here and we take them back down”.
In essence, don’t tolerate and enable and there isn’t an issue. The same around the University of Arizona campus, no bums.
Eagle River is the only thing keeping Anchorage from going full commie.
Not to worry: Abundant religious groups and NGOs will step in to enable this lifestyle.
There is NO interest among those in power to change or solve the drug and vagrant problem. This is an industry; it is permanent. Pay your taxes and stop complaining. Chris Constant needs money to play games and attention.
– LaFrance couldn’t manage lunch.
– The districts known for having supported her should be the districts these fine bums move to
– Why is there no road repair happening? Lake Otis is a horror and one of many.
– I last saw her w/ a crowd of dykes and soft handed men crowing about something that wasn’t constructive
– We have a week of rain starting this Friday; the harbinger of construction and repair season’s end
– Bums thrive, ignite, steal, defecate, and get hammered as as there are no consequences per LaFrance
– Has she done anything? No, really. Has she done anything?
The Alaska State Fair is in a couple weeks and new projects don’t start when the rain does. What mechanism does Anchorage have to hold LaFrance and the Anchorage Assembly accountable for both not having made tangible effort and stymied progress where possible?
There must be a way to root parasitic candidates out or we’ll wind up w/ a long string of tards in that same office now and for the next several years. Imagine the next decade could have a string of genuine idiots that have taught themselves that they’re worthy of whatever post they can figure out how to get elected to. LaFrance, Constant, Dunbar, Felix, et al. Without consequences there’s no accountability and the question you should be pondering is ‘what are the consequences associated w/ being a horrible mayor… like LaFrance?
1% for Art.
La France is the most incompetent clueless sorry excuse for a mayor I’ve ever seen in this town……and that’s saying something. Berkowitz was bad enough but this lady..pee-yhew, she stinks. This is what happens when the mainstream media puts its hands on the scales and picks a mayor for the dummies. Saddle up anchorage-ites it’s gonna be a long bumpy ride.
You forgot about A.Q.D. – Austin Quinn-Davidson. The COVID tyrant.
“……Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to restore order to American cities and remove vagrant individuals from our streets, redirecting federal resources toward programs that tackle substance abuse and returning to the acute necessity of civil commitment………”https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/07/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-takes-action-to-end-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/
Let’s see if the People’s Republic of Anchorage can take advantage of this development…………..
I love the comments section.
The Homeless turn capitalists!! Rather IRONIC…
There is, as of earlier in the week, a smaller encampment in the woods near Westchester Lagoon – if you are in the left lane, driving into downtown, it is on the left where the road starts to climb up the hill (before the last curve at the top). Looks like they were sunbathing and enjoying the weather. Anchorage is a disaster zone and their mayor and assembly shoulder all the blame for the mess that has been created. Why anyone would want to continue to live there, pay ridiculous taxes, and be subjected to the woke culture is beyond me. I guess that is why so many people are selling their homes in Anchorage and moving to friendlier areas such as the Mat Su Valley and Kenai Peninsula