Anchorage Mayor Suzanne LaFrance wants to criminalize homeless camping in some places, including near streets, trails, playgrounds and schools.
Eva Gardner, the city’s municipal attorney, worked on the proposal.
“The purpose of criminal law isn't necessarily to try to lock up a lot of people and arrest them,” she said. “It is to send a clear message about what kind of conduct is really inappropriate, and so the primary goal is deterrence. You don't want people engaging in the conduct.”
Assembly members Zac Johnson, Yarrow Silvers and Daniel Volland co-sponsored the mayor’s proposal. The Assembly will hold a public hearing on it during a special meeting Friday afternoon. The Assembly is also still considering a broader, controversial proposal from member Keith McCormick to criminalize all camping.
Right now, while it’s against city code to camp in public spaces, it’s not a criminal offense. The city uses a process called “abatement” to clear out encampments and it usually takes about 10 days. But Gardner said allowing Anchorage Police Department officers to go in and disperse camps would take fewer resources and less time.
Thea Agnew Bemben, a special assistant to the mayor, said camps get entrenched and more dangerous the longer they’re around.
“If we had the ability for APD to go in at the beginning and say, ‘I'm sorry you can't be here,’ that then wouldn't progress to that point,” she said. “It then wouldn't require the level of resources for us to go and remove it.”
The mayor's proposal would criminalize camping on, among other things, streets, sidewalks, railroad tracks and bridges, and within 200 feet of major trail systems like the Coastal Trail or Campbell Creek Trail. It would criminalize camping within 500 feet of schools, playgrounds, child care centers and homeless shelters.
The proposal would also make it a criminal offense to build a “hard-walled, hard-roofed, or hard-floored structure” on any public land.
The offenses would be a mix of class A and class B misdemeanors. In Anchorage, the maximum penalty for a Class A misdemeanor is one year in jail and a $10,000 fine. Municipal prosecution adopted a policy in late 2024 making all categories of offenses eligible for therapeutic courts, where various organizations work together to create a treatment plan as an alternative to jail.
The public can give input on the mayor’s proposal at the Assembly’s special meeting Friday in the Loussac Library Assembly Chambers. It starts at 1 p.m.
In late June, the Assembly held a public hearing on McCormick’s proposed blanket criminalization of homeless camping. More than 60 people testified, a majority were against the idea.
