A homeless encampment across the street from the Glory Hall that has grown to nearly 20 tents is set to be cleared after occupants at noon Friday received a 48-hour vacate notice from the Juneau Police Department, with people living at the site saying they don’t know where they’ll go next.
The notices and pending removal are a continuation of an ongoing struggle between people living on the street, property owners concerned about their residences and businesses, and city officials and police to cope with Juneau’s homeless situation.
Concerns about safety and health are being expressed by both unhoused residents and property owners. City leaders and police acknowledge there isn’t a simple fix to a problem that has become more severe the past couple of years.
People in the tents said Saturday morning they weren’t sure if the order would be enforced Sunday when the 48-hour period expires or on Monday when City and Borough of Juneau employees can assist with cleanup during their usual workdays. Deputy Police Chief Krag Campbell, in an email to the Empire on Saturday, stated there are “no plans for Sunday” by JPD.
”Early next week, JPD will work to assist CBJ Streets with the clean up,” he wrote. “Campers who have not left the area may be cited.”
However, Campbell added, “I would also say that our hope is that people will use that time to clean up and move. Rather than waiting until Monday.”
Douglas Ebey Worthington IV (left), Nathaniel Hensley-Williams (center) and Jason Williams discuss on Saturday, May 14, 2025, getting a notice Friday from police to vacate tent they share on Teal Street. They said they are unsure when they can and will move to next. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
A multitude of people have been camping along streets and in wooded areas near the Glory Hall for more than a year due to the Juneau Assembly implementing a “dispersed camping” policy in the spring of 2024 because of rampant illegal activity occurring at an officially sanctioned homeless campsite.
However, leaving people on their own is also resulting in a multitude of problems now occurring in areas throughout town. The neighborhood around the Glory Hall is a particularly popular site because the shelter offers meals and other assistance to people even if there is no bed space for them at the shelter.
Occupying a large improvised tent shelter across from the Glory Hall on Saturday — and thus facing yet another move — was Jason Williams, who has been bed-ridden for months with multiple medical ailments. He was staying on a tent platform further down the street that was constructed by a fellow camper until police dismantled that site earlier this month.
“I really don’t want to move anywhere because I need to be close to here,” he said. “I need to be close enough to somewhere where I can use the phone because I have a brain malformation — I ’m a high risk for seizures, aneurysms and strokes.”
Staying with Williams in the shelter were Nathaniel Hensley-Williams and Douglas Ebey Worthington IV, who said they essentially constructed a shelter around Williams’ tent to offer him more protection when they saw the difficulties he was experiencing.
“It wasn’t even planned because he had the tent already in… we just kind of set up around him,” Hensley-Williams said.
Worthington said while he doesn’t know where he will go when the police force them to move, his plan is “mostly is to try and stay around (Williams) so I can help in some sort of way.”
But while the prospect of moving again is upsetting to many of the people living in tents, property owners in the vicinity are also making their unhappiness known to city leaders. A multitude of residents have attended the past two Assembly meetings to complain about the adverse impacts of dispersed camping, and implored officials to take whatever combination of enforcement and assistance is necessary to resolve the situation.
“Myself and my neighbors experience issues with their shop being broken into as well as having individuals tending to camp under their deck on a daily basis,” said Ron Peterson, owner of a property several blocks from the Glory Hall near a creek area where campers also frequent, during the most recent Assembly meeting Monday.
“Thank you for all the people who helped clean up that portion of the camp and the debris that was left. However, this just meant that they moved a little further down the road or to another location. It’s not our police or city workers’ responsibility to clean up that waste. I’m here tonight to request the Assembly create a committee or task force to address this growing problem.”
People can legally camp on public land in Alaska, but CBJ’s current policy excludes municipal government property. JPD enacted the 48-hour vacate notice policy this year, which applied if encampments get too large or otherwise problematic.
“The campers in this area were given 48 hours to vacate due to the repeated trash problem, the size of their campsite, and on going theft issues at the surrounding business,” Campbell stated about the notices given Friday. Prior to that “JPD has contacted campers at this site regularly to provide guidance on how not to become a problem campsite. As well as handing out trash bags, and collecting trash.”
Local officials have said it’s not practically or legally feasible to simply lock everyone up sleeping on the streets locally and, while there are nonprofit and other agencies offering assistance, they aren’t always available or sought out by people experiencing homelessness.
A day after the notices went out one of Juneau’s social services agencies, JAMHI Health and Wellness, hosted a neighborhood cleanup for the blocks surrounding its facility — which happen to be the area where the Glory Hall and encampment are located.
JAMHI CEO Will Jemison, a participant in Saturday morning’s cleanup, said some of the people living on the streets in the neighborhood are getting mental health, addiction and other treatment from his nonprofit organization. But resolving problems such as where such residents can move to each time they’re displaced will require a far more expansive effort.
“We oftentimes find out about these notices that folks need to move at the same time that they’re finding out,” he said. “And so it doesn’t give us a whole lot of leeway in terms of planning in advance to really put something together. I think it’s going to take a lot more collaboration between our nonprofit community and the city, and how we can coordinate that. Because at the end of the day we can move folks from Teal Street today, but what street are they going to go to next? They’re just still going to go from one street to the next until we find a permanent solution to house folks.”
“And that’s where we’re beginning now, as nonprofit organizations here, to kind of figure out what properties we could collaborate on and what areas we can develop in order to provide more sustainable housing so that people are not season-to-season, having to move from one place to the other.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
