Must Read Alaska revisited a wooded area in South Anchorage this month, where we first reported in April on sprawling, often multi-level vagrant encampments hidden within a greenbelt near Northwood/Strawberry/Raspberry Road residential neighborhoods.
New drone footage taken by a concerned neighbor in late July shows not only that the camps remain, but that they’ve grown:
The footage, shot over the wooded area reveals an alarming accumulation of trash, debris, and makeshift structures — all on public land and all still untouched by municipal intervention.
Must Read Alaska brought this issue to public attention with drone images capturing the magnitude of the problem: multiple large encampments only somewhat concealed beneath the forest canopy. In April the camps already showed signs of long-term settlement, with some featuring stacked structures, extensive tarps, and large amounts of household items and waste. Neighbors are now calling it an occupation.
“Nothing has changed,” said a source who lives nearby. “If anything, there are more structures, more trash, and more activity. It’s a permanent occupation now.”
Despite repeated complaints from nearby homeowners and calls for action to the Anchorage Police Department and city officials, no visible cleanup or abatement has occurred. It’s SLAZ South — the Mayor Suzanne LaFrance Autonomous Zone.
The Campbell Creek Trail, once a beloved path for runners, cyclists, and dog walkers, has become a “no-go zone.” Reports of open drug use, theft, and vandalism have steadily increased on social media, even as city officials speak of compassion and transitional housing strategies. The new law that passed this month prohibiting occupation of public land has not touched this encampment.
The latest drone footage shows dozens of tarps, makeshift shelters, shopping carts, discarded electronics, and household waste scattered across the forest floor. Some structures are clearly long-established and reinforced, indicating the occupants have little fear of being removed.
A work session of the Anchorage Assembly is set for Monday to discuss another $18 million in grant awards for congregate shelter services in Anchorage.
Meanwhile, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance announced last week a “Beyond the Beige” program to award $100,000 in public money to muralists to paint images on buildings around the downtown area.
Must Read Alaska will continue to monitor the occupation and provide updates as the summer progresses.
Whose Assembly District is this? Brawley or Perez-Verdia?
District 3/West Anchorage Assembly Members are Anna Brawley and Kameron Perez-Verdia.
Kameron Perez-Verdia
Featured in travel brochures for the homeless.
Anchorage is considered a top destination. Lots of drugs, alcohol, sex. Local government encourages new developments.
So seriously, Anchorage needs to mirror what Las Vegas does with homeless:
“Recent ordinance in Clark County makes camping in public places illegal, potentially leading to jail time, and a new state law aims to expedite cleanup of encampments along freeways and woods. The area also has various shelters and organizations providing assistance, such as emergency shelters for men, women, and families, As well as:
“The city’s Multi-agency Outreach Resource Engagement (MORE) team conducts daily outreach, working with individuals on health, housing, and employment, and collaborating with the Courtyard Homeless Resource Center for services like medical care, social services, and showers.”
Why is a city like Vegas successful? Because they are not a Liberal run Hovel like Anchorage and their Assembly doing nothing but furthering the problem then throwing their hands up like they don’t know why.
What you ALLOW WILL CONTINUE.
The only way this will change is if the people that live in Anchorage actually get off their duffs and save their town by voting these people out of office that are doing nothing but contributing to the problem!
You cannot allow bums to run rampant. Or you end up with what they have. A serious crime problem with them.
“…….Why is a city like Vegas successful?……..”
If Vegas has been successful, it must have occurred since March. A month earlier, I thought I was going to have to shoot my way out of there.
A dog from that camp attacked a guy on a one wheeler and by the time it was over the guy ended up in the emergency room with 27 stitches all over his legs and arms and hands. Cops did F ALL. The cops called animal control, said they could do nothing. Animal control did nothing. In the 1970s, a dog bit a girl in our neighborhood and the cop shot the dog, as it should be. I haven’t heard a peep on the news about it.
In all honesty, we’re on our own to solve this problem! Don’t be surprised when citizens take matters into their own hands (lawful and unlawful) where Guv’ment has fallen woefully short of reasonable expectations – responsibilities.
You are correct.
That’s why we have the 2nd Amendment.
If the State dies not fulfill their promise of protecting, we the citizenry, we have the ability and duty to protect and defend ourselves.
Alaska has Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws.
Look them up – we are legally enabled to defend our person, family, and property against criminals.
Rob B
How are your proposed illegal actions more just than squatter’s living on public property in legally dubious fashion ?
( note public means its arguably for use by them also)
I said this on another article, but it needs repeating.
The law/police do not exist to protect the people from the criminals.
The law/police exist to protect the criminals from the people.
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We are rapidly approaching the tipping point where the population will no longer try to engage the police and instead take the law into their own hands. Full on war between factions, and even between neighbors will result.
I strongly recommend that the Municipality of Anchorage defund the Code Enforcement department and either fire employees assigned there *or* give them jobs they are qualified to do and will perform appropriately. In my experience, code enforcement personnel generally give “free passes” (like to homeless people living in homeless camps — see photos above) and “go after” property owners who bother them with legitimate concerns.
My first encounter with code enforcement took place after my next-door neighbor died in his home. A few weeks later, a group of homeless people moved in without a rental agreement or lease or anything else. I observed these squatters selling or giving away his washer and dryer and other personal property. Crime escalated in our neighborhood and I saw these people “fence” what looked like stolen property. I took photos of all of this. Unauthorized people lived in this home for around three years without water and electricity. They used the fireplace for cooking and stored urine in milk cartons on the front porch. Finally, after black smoke billowed out the windows, AFD showed up and condemned the property. But despite legitimate code violations at this property, APD and code enforcement personnel refused to be involved.
One code enforcement employee told me during a phone conversation that if I was so concerned about the reported violations and danger, I should just stay away from the house (next door to mine). I emailed and called his supervisor. The supervisor backed up his subordinate.
My second attempt to get code enforcement personnel to do their jobs involved my complaints about people I observed urinating and defecating in and around established homeless camps nearby. One man I observed looked like he was in the midst of a bad drug reaction. Again, code enforcement personnel did nothing and suggested that I stay away from these camps.
Now, code enforcement personnel are “going after” me for having too much beekeeping equipment, that I actually use each season, in my yard. One employee asserted incorrectly that I was hiding active honey bee colonies under a blue tarp! At the time the violations and fines were first levied (this has happened twice), I had four colonies of honey bees in my backyard in compliance with the code’s intent AND extra equipment needed to actively manage these colonies, collect swarms from various locations in the Municipality, and treat my bees for pests and diseases. I am a responsible beekeeper and, unlike code enforcement personnel, know how to manage my colonies for optimal health, local pollination, and honey production. I am enrolled in a highly-acclaimed Master Beekeeping program and know what I am doing! As the language in the code was imprecise and confusing to code enforcement personnel (who really do not know about beekeeping), I asked my assembly representative to improve/correct the language. She arranged for this. However, code enforcement’s harassment, fines, and persecution continue.
Code enforcement personnel routinely decide to take no adverse action against those who reside on public property in homeless camps and display actual violations all the time and everyday. They obviously prefer to “go after” property owners, levy fines, and prosecute. My requests for appointments with the municipal manager and/or mayor, to discuss the myriad problems with their code enforcement department, have not been acknowledged.
What is wrong with this picture?
Yup.
Legal, law abiding citizens are hunted by the police and city “code” enforcers.
Drug addicts, alcoholics, vagrants, trespassers are all given a “pass”.
Go to the ombudsman office at city hall. File a complaint.
More social decay and degradation, brought to you courtesy of the mindlessly misplaced “compassion”, and also the cowardice, of the radical left.
No more “muralists” puleez! The one on the Glenn Highway next to the old ML&P complex seems to be a druggie’s wet dream. The defacing of the Anchorage Timeline on the building next to City Hall is a disgraceful insult to the pioneers who built this state.
Anchorage’s homeless problem can be solved by the current mob of city officials whose incompetence and indifference make it worse?
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Are they motivated to make it worse so they can launder even more taxpayers’ money into their homeless-industrial racket?
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Solving the city’s homeless problem might be as simple as solving the city’s education problem:
(1) Replace the current mob running the show.
(2) Invite an outside group with a successful track record to come in and help do it.
(3) Do it.
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(1) This might be hardest, officials who perpetuate and profit from the problem can’t be trusted to solve it. Solving the problem needs the return of an honest, transparent, traditional election system to work, or ballots in numbers making elections way too big to rig.
(2) Good news is community leaders who replace the current mob don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
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Check this out: “Built for Zero is a movement, a methodology, and proof of what is possible. Over 100 cities and counties have committed to measurably ending homelessness for entire populations. Using data, these communities have changed how local homeless response systems work and the impact they can achieve.” (‘https://community.solutions/built-for-zero/the-movement/)
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Read their stuff, you get the sense we aren’t alone; decent, honest people all over the place are working the problem with good results, what they’re doing could work here. The “proof” part’s nice too.
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(3) Doing it may have to happen in spite of resistance from officials and non-profits who should give a damn but don’t …forget them, what do we –and homeless folk– have to lose?
So funny how some conservatives just can’t comprehend ranked choice voting. You can vote >exactly< the way you used to. Vote for one candidate in each race. Period. No one's forcing you to rank any other candidate! That's optional. If the results aren't what you wanted, it's not because of the voting system.
Is the old Palmer Correctional Center running at capacity? The idiots on the Anchorage Assembly pass laws we already have and then hinder their enforcement as with the prior laws.
Forced detox, max penalties, etc. and for God’s sake get rid of Obama phones and all the other free stuff that allows bums to live a coordinated piratical resistance.
Now it’s “Obama phones,” haha! 😆
The recent passing of the ordinance that criminalizes public camping happened ironically after the abatement of Davis Park which saw large increases of homeless in downtown. This infuriated the mayor’s most enthusiastic supporters and tamped down their “compassion”.
With camps being spread more equitably around town, there may be a silver lining.
The problem is the camps are not showing up close enough to where the Assembly and Mayor live.
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Personally, if I ever see a vagrant within one mile of my house, I am going to give them a ride to Suzanne LaFrance’s street. If the homeless are so fantastic and worthy of millions of taxpayer dollars, she can start with them in her neighborhood first.
Great, now we are going to financially subsidize people to scrawl graffiti around town. It will not end well. At best we will get “art” that looks like it was made by folks on psilocybin.
Move all to girdwood. Lisa murkowski has home there for starters. Force all registered girdwood democrats to adopt and provide food shelter medical plan payments and pay for gender changes feee propane refills and of course pay for all illegal drugs needles free booze and ski passes
LaSanFrancisco – next it’ll be “We have tomeet them where they’re at” & free needles & shite EVERYWHERE.
The left always complains about pollution and climate change. I see no sanitary facilities, no receptacles for garbage, open burning, littering, and plastic everywhere. So, will any action in the name of climate be taken??
It is beyond time for an uprising in Anchorage. This leadership is going to be responsible for burning the city down and killing people in the process. Then maybe the Anchorage voter will finally rise up! Until all the articles about it in the world will not make a difference!
How about spending money in our awful roads. They have never ever been this bad!
Elections have consequences. Maybe things will change when Anchorage runs out of the ability to pay them.
Doesn’t look any different than any other lot in Alaska… Can’t imagine why anyone would trash their own lots… I’m sure it has nothing to do with valuations going up 10k for every flower that gets planted outside… ***
Stop enabling. Giving the homeless the means to survive their homelessness is not compassion, period, for anyone. Pull the plug – yes, some will die – so will you someday. Winter will kill a few and drive more away – and after a few years, no more problem.
In reply to Kate Petosky’s comment on July 27, District 3/West Anchorage Assembly members are Anna Brawley and Kameron Perez-Verdia.
Wonder if the authorities will fly their new, shiny drones to find these places? Nah, that would be to much to hope for.
Soon all depts here will undergo a strict screening by no other than the JOD for Trump and then DODE will go over all the accounts to see where the fraud and waste is! I guess more complaints per people than we have including the voting lmao!
Liberals just don’t have the answer to this problem.
FYI – the answer is jail.