Ruth Adolf, an Anchorage police officer, recently checked in on an unhoused veteran. She found him in his truck, while she was doing her rounds. She has gotten to know him over the past few weeks.
“He has no heat in his car right now,” Adolf said. “It’s very cold at night. He’s gone to shelter a couple of times. He has a dog, and he’s gone into shelter a couple of times when it’s been really cold. So he took advantage of it, which was nice.”
As Adolf spoke with the veteran, her partner, social worker Tanya Vandenbos was on the phone trying to track down some other people who are on the city’s housing list.
The two make up the Anchorage Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Prevention and Engagement, or HOPE, team that has been operating in the city since July. Vandenbos said they have been reaching out to people living at homeless camps around Anchorage and monitoring where new camps pop up.
“As we’re driving down the road,” Vandenbos said, “if there’s one that hasn’t had outreach, we’ll stop in there just to go, ‘Hey. What do you need? Are you on housing lists? Are you interested in cold weather shelter? How can we help connect you to those things?’”
On this day, in late October, the city had just opened 200 non-congregate emergency shelter beds, using local hotel rooms, with plans to open another 200. Still, people are living in tents outside, or sleeping in cars — even with inches of snow on the ground and single-digit temperatures overnight.
Adolf said the start of winter and the opening of shelters has changed the team’s priorities a little, but they mostly try to focus on the needs and wants of each individual.
“They might not be ready to go to shelter today, but maybe in a week from now, they may change their mind,” Adolf said. “And we continue checking in with people to see if we can get them to shelter or how we can help them get there so they can transition.”
On this shift, the two start at Davis Park in Mountain View, handing out snacks and letting people know about an upcoming veterinary clinic. Then they went to a new camp off Tudor Road to check on people living in a couple tents and hand out cold weather items like hand warmers.
Adolf said she tries not to judge people for the situation they’re in.
“At one point, they made maybe a crappy decision and it got them where they are today,” Adolf said. “Or they had a traumatic experience, and now it ended up where they’re without a house. There’s a lot of good people out there that just need a little bit of assistance. And if that’s something I can help with, I would love to be part of that journey.”
And while the HOPE team is more focused on outreach than arrests, the team does aid the rest of the police department in addressing crime in camps.
“We know that the campers are victimized,” said Lt. Brian Fuchs, who oversees the HOPE team. “They are usually targets of criminal activity in the camp itself.”
Fuchs said officers would often run into problems investigating crimes at camps, because the people living there didn’t trust them. He said the HOPE team has created a constant police presence in camps, more focused on building and sustaining that kind of trust.
“I think that people feel comfortable talking with Ruth when it comes to criminal aspects of camp activity,” Fuchs said. “I think that, you know, she's building that relationship, Tanya is building that relationship.”
The team ends its shift working with a couple they’ve been in contact with for a few weeks named Scott and Virginia. Scott has an injury that needs medical attention. He and Virginia live in their van.
The goal is to get the couple a hotel for the week so they have somewhere to recuperate.
“We’re gonna go figure it out and see how we can get it reserved, and then we’ll text you or call you and let you know,” Vandenbos told Scott. “But I’m going to leave two bus passes just in case. That way even if that’s not running, you guys can check in tonight.”
Ultimately, the HOPE team gets the couple a week-long stay at a Midtown hotel, using some donated gift cards to cover the stay. Adolf gave Virginia a call, to let her know.
“She was very excited,” Adolf said. “So she's like, ‘Thank you. Thank you.’ She said it over and over. So it's pretty cool. It's a good feeling to know that they're going to be in a, you know, they can lay down and take a shower and just take a breather for a minute.”
Adolf said it’s a satisfying end to the day, but she knows there are others who need assistance.
“And I know there’s a thousand other people that also want to have a little bit of help,” Adolf said. “Or need a little bit of help. But we just… one person at a time. That’s all we can do right now. And if we have somebody that’s willing to work with us, and we can help them in any way that we can with what we have, the resources, then that’s what we’re going to do.”
Fuchs said the HOPE team is currently a pilot project, but the department want to get a second team on the road in the near future.
Alaska Public Media’s James Oh contributed to this report.
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