Not having a designated summer campground for people experiencing homelessness meant “a completely different group of people felt the impact” of campers scattered throughout Juneau, but overall this year’s situation was an improvement compared to the rampant illegal activity at an approved campground last year, Deputy City Manager Robert Barr told Juneau Assembly members Monday.
A “dispersed camping” policy was adopted by the Juneau Assembly prior to the city’s cold-weather emergency shelter closing in mid-April, due to what officials called a proliferation of assaults, theft, drug use and other problems at the sanctioned Mill Campground south of downtown Juneau during the summer of 2023.
“There’s a strong internal consensus among CBJ staff that we struggled more with the campground in the Mill Street area and the impacts that we were seeing there than we struggled with this year,” Barr said during an Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting where he provided an update of the city’s homeless situation and the cold-weather shelter that is open for its second winter.
But the lack of a campground meant people often clustered in certain areas — including near Juneau International Airport and on land behind Fred Meyer — resulting in numerous complaints from businesses and agencies in those areas. Airport Manager Patty Wahto described an “epidemic level” of problems in the vicinity in an early October memo — including package thefts from the nearby UPS office — and social services agencies nearby on Teal Street asked city officials to establish a “safety zone” due to threatening behavior from some people.
Barr said one notable problem this summer was the adverse impacts of campsites increased disproportionately to their size, which resulted in intervention at such sites by officials on a couple of occasions on public land.
“The criteria that we were looking at were unmitigated human waste, lots of garbage not being cared for, evidence of increased criminal activity, presence of stolen property, and reports from surrounding neighbors and businesses — primarily of potential criminal activity,” he said.
Some of the city’s decision-making was based on a June 28 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Grants Pass v Johnson, which allows municipalities to ban camping on public property. But he said “our enforcement activity has been pretty limited” in the wake of that decision compared to previous actions by local police and other officials.
“We have been pretty sensitive, I would say, to the changing legal landscape and people becoming familiar with that landscape,” he said. “All of the enforcement activity that has happened over the past couple of months has been pre-approved and conducted by high-level CBJ employees — the police chief, the deputy police chief have actively been in the field doing enforcement themselves. They consult with me before they do it. Same with the Parks and Rec director. It’s not something that we’re doing lightly.”
The cold-weather shelter opened for its second season Oct. 15, with new indoor bathrooms replacing outdoor portable outhouses in the hope of reducing disruptive activity both inside and outside the building. Barr said the shelter was averaging slightly more than 30 people a night during its first days of operation, with that number expected to rise as temperatures drop.
Some early problems have been reported at the shelter so far, with one person banned due to an assault and some reports of vandalism, Barr said. But he said St. Vincent de Paul Juneau, which is operating the shelter, appears to be doing a good job overall working with city officials and surrounding businesses to address concerns that were raised during the shelter’s first year.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
