Henry Sam sat in the Sullivan Arena, counting down the two hours until he would learn whether or not he had shelter that night, or if he’d be sleeping on the streets. If it was the latter, he had a trick for surviving the cold.
“I let my heart die,” he says.
A few years ago, Sam was camping in the woods midwinter in single-digit temperatures. He was on the verge of freezing when he decided to let go, to sever his emotional attachments to the world, the love for his brother the 49-year-old had cared for as long as he could remember, his family in Southeast Alaska, and the three cats he’d brought along with him. He says “letting his heart die” somehow warmed his body enough to get through the night in just a windbreaker.
“I wasn’t even cold,” he says.
Sam is one of hundreds caught in the abrupt and uncertain transition of the city’s transition from the temporary mass shelter at the Sullivan Arena. At noon on Monday, all but the most vulnerable 90 people were pushed out, without any short- or long-term plan in place to address homelessness.
Sam is soft spoken and polite. He dotes on his brother Christopher, who is recovering from a recent bout of scabies. He visits his cats — Thunderpaws, Marshall and Stormy — in kennels in a room on the ground floor every chance he can get. He’s given up a chance at housing before in order to keep them and scrapes together what cash he can to buy canned food to supplement the dry food offered at the Sullivan.
Sam has arthritis in his ankles. He’s lost 50 pounds since becoming homeless, but is still 305 pounds.
“We can’t really walk that far,” he says about his prospects of camping outside. “Plus we don’t got a tent.”
In January, he was forced out of his apartment. He lost his job at Fred Meyer in February — he says wrongfully — after asking for light-duty work.
As the clock ticks toward noon, he’s still not on the list of the 90 people who get to stay, but he’s hopeful something will come through. Monica Gross, one of the people overseeing the shelter operations, walks from bunk to bunk reminding people of the deadline.
“What do you need to get ready to go?” she asks a man moaning under a blanket on an army green cot in the middle.
She’s been hounding people for weeks to remind them the shelter would be closing. Sullivan staff hosted “town halls” twice in the last week to standing-room-only crowds who wondered what they were supposed to do next.
Questions abound as the group tries to reckon with what their life will be like in the coming months. Will there be food service after the Sullivan closes? Is the city going to open up a new shelter, perhaps at the Northway Mall? Where are they allowed to camp? Answers are harder to come by: Legally, they can’t camp anywhere, though the city says it won’t clear camps the way it has in past years.
Gross offered the little advice she could: Apply for housing and don’t be shy about hounding service organizations.
While there are opportunities, it’s a lot to keep track of: Alaska Housing Finance Corporation vouchers, sober living and workforce training at Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission, Bean’s Cafe’s Streets to Success. Many don’t know where they are on the lists for the various programs, and have little faith in them after months or years of trying.
Still, people at the Sullivan held out hope until the last minute. Some were lucky, but others were forced to go on Monday.
Sam’s neighbor, a middle-aged man with gray hair, packs up next to him. He doesn’t want to be kicked out, he’d rather leave on his own. He gets sentimental.
“You’re the best neighbor I could ever wish for,” he tells Sam.
Nearby, a guy who gives his name as Dave asks what shelter he can go to. He’s sober and ready to work, but he says the DMV mistakenly didn’t certify his Commercial Drivers License. He’s waiting for a Permanent Fund Dividend payment so he can get a new one, and hopes to drive trucks up to Prudhoe Bay.
Keith Jackson and his wife Jena Callahan knew they had little chance of staying at the Sullivan another night and decided to leave Sunday. They’re both able-bodied, though they struggle with alcoholism.
“I don’t like being kicked out,” Jackson says from his new home — a tent camp in Cuddy Park in Midtown. “I’ve been kicked out before and I don’t like that feeling.”
Jackson and Callahan have lived the rollercoaster of Anchorage’s homelessness response over the past two years. Last year, they were bussed to Centennial Campground when the Sullivan closed. They were subject to never-ending theft and bear encounters. Getting back into the Sullivan last fall was a blessing, but not enough for Jackson, who has worked as a cook in restaurants around town, to get back on his feet.
“Every time we get close to something, something stupid happens,” he says. He’s been stabbed in the abdomen while grocery shopping and been in a car wreck that left a scar on the side of his face.
Camping is nothing new. To get through the night, he and Callahan relied on a donated tent and blanket he picked up at the Sullivan. Still, he says it was cold.
“We had to huddle up,” he says. The north wind is biting at Cuddy on Monday. With a few friends, Jackson and Callahan picked out a spot away from the marshy grass and piles of slushy snow. It’s in front of the Ahtna Corporation building, the regional native corporation Jackson belongs to. It raked in $238 million in profit last year, according to its website.
“It’s supposed to be my people,” Jackson scoffs.
Still, he’s happy to be there with friends. They look out for one another. They say they’ll have a good time tonight, and pass around some weed and a bottle of vodka.
At the Sullivan, there’s just an hour left before noon. Henry Sam and his brother still don’t know whether they’ll be allowed to stay.
Sam walks to a line where workers are handing out donated items to people — women first — getting ready to leave: umbrellas, boots, rice krispies, narcan, sleeping bags, condoms, and new socks.
“Make sure you have good shoes on your feet,” calls the woman organizing the donations “When it’s cold out like this, your feet will be the first thing to go.”
Sam grabs a few pairs of socks and a charging block, after his was stolen. He and his brother walk upstairs. He microwaves two burritos, and hands one to Christopher, who’s wearing glasses and a Super Mario Brothers t-shirt.
“You okay?” he asks. “Those socks fit?”
Sam says he filled out an application for housing last week, but hasn’t seen any progress. He missed a meeting about housing after he fainted when his blood pressure dropped. He suspects his dose of blood pressure medication was too high after he lost weight.
“Things are moving really slow,” he says.
A staff worker approaches them. “Come downstairs when you’re done,” he tells Sam.
Sam’s face lightens. He walks downstairs to visit a housing specialist. They tell him he can stay because of his brother’s scabies. Sam and his brother are two of the lucky 90.
“It’s a small load off my shoulders,” he says.
Nearby, Monica Gross has already marked 89 of the 90 people who can stay at the Sullivan. She says each decision is made after consulting with Sullivan staff who know people’s situation personally.
This year’s Sullivan closure is at least more orderly than last year’s, when guests were hastily bussed across town to camp at Centennial.
This year has been better planned. But closing the state’s largest shelter is painful. A triage report in mid-April found that there were more than 170 people who live with significant health or mental health challenges, or those who are “continually in survival mode.” A consultant recommended the Sullivan stay open for 190 people through the end of May.
Still, the Anchorage Assembly only let 90 people stay.
“These are big decisions,” Gross said. “Who’s gonna die outside?”
