Eric Glatt
Updated: 11 hours ago Published: 11 hours ago
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Hundreds of Anchorage residents are living without adequate shelter, often in tents or cars, often forming collective “encampments” on public land, where conditions can be dire, as they were a week ago before the shooting on Fairbanks Street in Midtown.
Fortunately, Anchorage has made great strides in recent years to meet the needs of these people. Unfortunately, interventions to date have been patchy, sporadic and tentative. As a result, dissatisfaction remains widespread.
Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson appears to give cities like Anchorage broader discretion to remove encampments, but it does not give city officials the tools they need to meet this challenge. How can that be? Removing one encampment while allowing others to grow does not address the root causes and systemic impacts. A meaningful response to this challenge does not depend on whether a constitutional violation has occurred.
Anchorage can do better than that.
Part of the problem is that Anchorage City Code makes it impossible to lose one's home or shelter without committing trespass and public nuisance charges. That means hundreds of residents violate the letter of the law every day, simply by living in Anchorage. It violates basic dignity. And nothing in today's ruling relieves Anchorage from the obligation to remedy this violation and answer the fundamental question that accompanies any remedial action: “If not here, then anywhere?”
As a silver lining, Mayor-elect Suzanne LaFrance seems to agree that this is intolerable, namely that “at the end of the day, people have to have a place to go.” The new administration certainly has challenges, and encampments represent just one facet of the complex challenge that is homelessness. And, of course, it is up to the Legislature to revise the ordinance to better reflect the values ​​of our community. But the LaFrance administration has other options that could help reduce uncertainty, ease pressure, and improve the situation for Anchorage's homeless population. There is no need to accept pressure for a reprieve anytime soon, no matter how much the Supreme Court relieves it.
Eric Glatt is an attorney who represents people experiencing homelessness in Anchorage and is involved in an ongoing lawsuit against the city over its campground ban.
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