In an empty lot next to Cuddy Family Midtown Park on Tuesday afternoon, loaders and dump trucks crisscrossed the willowy park as Parks and Rec staff cleaned up trash and police officers stopped by a handful of tents still standing.
They told campers that they had to leave the area and find a new place to camp for what city officials have said is a threat to public safety before a concert later this month. It’s part of a legally defined process known as abatement.
But some campers said they weren’t leaving.
“It’s like my home,” said Leman Lockwood, who said he’d been staying in the lot for the last year and a half. “You can’t just kick me out of my house.”
Lockwood is one of 13 houseless campers challenging the Municipality of Anchorage’s decision to abate a homeless camp without providing access to shelter, along with the ACLU of Alaska.
Legal experts say the move could be a violation of an appeals court ruling in the 2018 9th District Court Case Martin v. Boise, and could open the city up to lawsuits and large settlements.
“They are definitely vulnerable to a lawsuit,” said Eric Tars, the lead attorney for the National Homelessness Law Center in Martin v. Boise. “The city is not setting itself up for success.”
Abatement is the practice of moving people camping in a public place and clearing out their possessions. Over the past several years, the city has used abatement to keep large camps from being established in parks and other green spaces.
Last month, the city started decommissioning its emergency shelter housed in the Sullivan Arena, as weather had warmed above the city’s threshold to provide shelter. With little option on where to go, many residents of the Sullivan set up camp in the city’s green spaces. Unlike in recent years, the city has not been abating camps, at least partly because the Boise case dictates that in order to do so, the city needs to have open shelter beds to direct campers to.
One popular camping area is Midtown’s Cuddy Park, the site of a three-day music festival running from June 16-18. Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration started posting notices for abatement on May 24, and started clearing the park on Monday to make way for the music festival.
The city’s legal department and a city spokesperson didn’t clarify the city’s reason for abating, but noted that the city can clear homeless camps without indoor shelter space if there is “a serious risk to human life and safety.” Hans Rodvik, a spokesperson, wrote in an email that the city intends to follow the law as it proceeds with clearing the camp.
Bronson’s homeless coordinator, Alexis Johnson, told the Anchorage Daily News that the number of people attending the concert, and the fact that alcohol will be served at the event, creates a public safety hazard for campers and concert-goers.
Since the landmark Boise case, Tars said that the courts have doubled down on their ruling that moving homeless campers is a violation of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Cities have been forced to pay out hefty settlements to homeless campers who were forced to move, which Tars said is a likely outcome if Anchorage continues clearing the park. The city’s shelters are nearly all at or above capacity, according to an interactive dashboard kept by the city.
Advocates from the ACLU of Alaska agree the city does not have solid ground to abate camps without shelter availability.
“The financial benefits the city stands to gain from the permit and from a concert aren’t enough to outweigh people’s civil rights under the U.S. Constitution,” said Mara Kimmel, director of ACLU of Alaska. Concert organizers reportedly paid $25,000 for permits for the festival, including an alcohol license.
ACLU of Alaska said it met with campers on Monday, the day city workers arrived at Cuddy and started clearing camps. Kimmel said the organization informed campers of their rights to appeal, and 13 campers were interested and the organization sent a letter including the notices of intent to appeal to the city attorney on Monday. She said the ACLU of Alaska intends to appeal to the superior court if Anchorage continues clearing the camp.
“The attempt to abate Cuddy Park is unlawful, unconstitutional, and unconscionable,” the letter of intent to appeal reads.
Under city code, camp clearing has to stop for 30 days if campers appeal, or their belongings need to be stored until the appeal is resolved.
If the city continues clearing the camp on the basis of public health risks, critics say the argument might not be persuasive in court. Studies have shown that moving homeless people can cause spikes in overdoses and hospitalizations. The city hasn’t publicly presented evidence that having homeless campers and concert goers would lead to a public health risk.
“Their health and safety is worth less than the concert goers. That just seems like a moral failing on the part of officials,” said Tars.
The overall lack of communication from the Bronson administration about its plan for abatements has frustrated many. They say there was a clear opportunity for the city to provide a place for homeless campers to move to for the duration of the concert. Instead, the city posted notices stapled to trees around the camp stating they had 10 days to move or their belongings would be confiscated.
“It would have been much preferable if there was a really clear plan for where people were gonna go for the weekend where the festival was gonna happen and then transition the people back” said Anchorage Assembly member Felix Rivera. “It doesn’t appear that that has happened.”
Rivera said he requested a copy of the administration’s camp clearing policy multiple times, but hasn’t received any response.
Tars said municipalities around the country made similar moves as large, pandemic-era shelters shuttered. There are alternatives to evicting campers, like having the city pay for additional security during the concert.
But Tars said the best option would be for the city to provide indoor places for homeless people to stay.
“The best outcome here isn’t that people’s ability to be camping all around the music festival is preserved; the best outcome is that everybody is adequately housed,” he said.
