Lucille Williams has a full-length mirror in her tent, propped up against a clothing rack.
“I always try and keep myself up, like trying to do my hair, do my nails,” she said.
That didn’t change when she became homeless. Other things have changed though.
“I used to be really freaking bitter and angry all the time,” she said.
She said she has softened over the years. She slowly discovered she’s a people person. She credits the change to the friends she has made since becoming homeless.
On a recent afternoon, one of those friends, Brian Vaughan, sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor of her tent, trying to remember how long they’ve known each other.
“God, what's it been, seven years? Eight years?” he said and laughed. “Holy crap!”
For the past three years, the friends have lived in a cluster of tents at the Mountain View snow dump, one of the largest camps in Anchorage. They’ve formed a community and they rely on one another. But they’ll have to leave soon. The city is clearing the camp next Tuesday.
Williams and Vaughan say they don’t know where they’ll go next. While Mayor Suzanne LaFrance says the city is doing lots of outreach to get people at the camps into shelters and housing, Vaughan and Williams say they don’t want to get split up from their group. Their relationships, they say, are more important than housing.
“It's comfortable here,” Williams said. “It makes me feel like I'm okay, like — I'm actually a lot more okay now.”
‘This is my family’
The city estimated, as of last month, that about 100 people live at the snow dump, and the adjoining Davis Park.
Vaughan's and Williams’ tents are about 30 feet apart. There’s a well-worn path between them and dozens of other tents surrounding them. On a sunny day this week, the area was bustling. Dogs tumbled over each other and were corralled into good behavior. Someone wanted a hug. Someone else was looking for a drink. People stopped by to ask about the upcoming abatement. Williams and a friend helped each other wash their hair as a neighbor played music on his portable speaker. Across from them, a tent sat empty. They said that’s the guest tent, set aside for anyone who unexpectedly needs a place to stay.
People call Vaughan “The Mayor.” He’s the unofficial leader of the crew.
He’s 55 and has been homeless since he got out of jail a decade ago. Williams, who’s 48, didn’t want to talk about the details of what happened with her — she just said she was “trying to be stubborn” at the time.
Inside of her yellow tent, she sat on her twin bed and leaned over to the nightstand. She picked up a framed pencil sketch of an older man. Her dad, she said. He died of cancer three years ago this October. He’d come out to the snow dump to visit her, and bring food and propane. Williams said she managed to make it to all of his medical appointments — that was Vaughan’s doing.
“He was on top of it,” she said. “Before I was even trying to figure it out, he already had it figured out.”
And she said Vaughan was there for her after her dad died, too.
“The hardest thing that ever happened, and he always made sure that everything was good,” she said. She started to cry. “And always made sure everything was gonna be okay.”
Williams said those close friendships make life easier — sometimes better than before she lost her housing. She said she still struggles with depression, and she likes to drink. But for the first time in her life she feels like people understand her. Everyone around her has gone through something similar, she doesn’t feel judged.
“I mean, I got a crap load of family in town, but this is my family here. And I wouldn't trade nobody in,” she said and paused. “Well, maybe a couple people. No, I'm joking! But this is my family.”
Keeping the peace
Vaughan said he never planned for a community like this.
“This group just grew and grew and grew,” he said.
He said the size of the current camp does make for some unruliness. But he said he doesn’t think there’s more violent crime at the camp than in some other neighborhoods in the city. This year two people were killed in the camp, but Vaughan said outsiders were responsible for both deaths.
“We try to take care of our own issues amongst ourselves,” he said. “The two unfortunate deaths, I mean, it was two beautiful young ladies that still had a lifetime ahead of them.”
He said he puts in a lot of work keeping the peace.
Vaughan and Williams remembered a time when it was 15-degrees below. Twenty people were crammed into a tent, trying to stay warm.
“Three of them just hate each other, and it's like you got to convince them that, ‘Hey, if you don't like each other, you just don't have to talk to each other,’” Vaughan said. “It's that simple.”
Williams started laughing.
“And then they grow on you,” she said. “You can’t live without them after that.”
A tough decision
The LaFrance administration said they’re prioritizing getting campers into shelters and housing in groups, so that they don’t have to leave their friends and family. But Williams said their group is too big.
“We talked about like, if we had a choice, who would we bring? But we can't just leave anybody out,” she said. “So we're trying to figure out what to do.”
People are looking to Vaughan to decide what comes next.
“I've got a lot of people just counting on me to make the right decision,” he said. “I'm scared I'm making, gonna make the wrong one.”
Williams looked over at him.
“I don't think he can make the wrong one,” she said. “Because everybody looks up to him, and even if it were the wrong one, we'd still freaking have his back, and we'd still freaking be right there with him.”
She said no matter what, the group will stick together.
