With encampment settled nearby, an Anchorage church plans city’s 1st small shelter village for homeless

A man lay curled on the pavement in an alcove near the front doors to Anchorage’s Central Lutheran Church, sheltering from a steady rainfall on an early August afternoon.

At the west end of the church’s large property along West 15th Avenue, church member Julie Greene-Graham pointed out the site where she and other volunteers with fledgling nonprofit In Our Backyard plan to soon build six tiny home shelters for adults experiencing homelessness.

Adjacent to the site is a sprawling symbol of why the small project is needed: Clusters of sodden tents and tarp shelters dot the grassy landscape in a stretch of municipal parkland, just behind a row of trees separating the properties.

“People need to be housed, but there’s just a gap between being on the street and living in your car, which isn’t safe, to getting into permanent housing,” said Greene-Graham, who chairs the local nonprofit’s board.

The tiny homes will provide transitional housing for adults, aged 50 or older, on a 60-by-90-foot area the church is dedicating to the shelter village.

As homelessness has surged across the country in recent years, dozens of cities and counties have erected similar villages of tiny homes, “Pallet” shelters and other modular structures in order to temporarily shelter or permanently house their homeless residents.

In Our Backyard is the first project of its kind in Anchorage, and possibly in Alaska, Greene-Graham said.

The encampment next door is one of dozens across the municipality.

At least several hundred people are living outside in Anchorage, unsheltered. Officials say the city is experiencing a housing crisis, while beds in local homeless shelters are full.

“The fact that there are campers nearby, I think, just points to the real necessity of projects like these getting off the ground,” Vicar Zach Manzella of Central Lutheran Church said.

But neighbors and some city officials supporting the efforts of In Our Backyard say the encampment could endanger a project they see as a pilot for the city, one they hope could be replicated by other churches and community groups.

Some residents in the area say they hear gunfire regularly. A bicycle “chop shop” is sometimes seen in the camp. Some neighbors have called for the city to remove the encampment and force the homeless residents out of the park, which runs a few blocks north from 15th along A Street in the Fairview and South Addition neighborhoods.

Assembly member Daniel Volland, who represents the area, and several other residents voiced their concerns during a recent meeting of the Fairview Community Council.

Volland said he’s heartened to see the church’s effort to help shelter unhoused elders in a healthy, controlled environment.

“I think to see a community of faith make that investment, it can be inspiring, but I really worry about the success of that program if, immediately adjacent, you have all of these public safety issues,” he said.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration on Friday said the area is a “priority” for abatement, the city’s official term for removing a homeless camp.

Data shows that people who are living homeless are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than to commit violent crimes.

“One thing that we’ve seen is that larger camps tend to attract more negative activity and people that would try to take advantage of a vulnerable population,” Volland said.

‘Every little bit counts’

In Our Backyard’s name is a play on a common critical term for people accused of having the opposite philosophy: “NIMBYs.” Its goal is to build the shelters by the end of October: four single-occupancy units, sized 8-by-8 feet, and two 8-by-12 double-occupancy units.

“There are only so many little houses that we can put on our property. But if there are other properties that can replicate this... now there’s this momentum, where every little bit counts,” Manzella said. “And for the lives that are dignified with housing, it really makes a difference.”

The project plans to provide the occupants with wraparound support services, including case managers to help them find permanent housing and other resources. Residents will have doors that lock, mini fridges, microwaves, and receive meals from Bean’s Café.

[The city dismantled a Midtown Anchorage homeless camp. Almost immediately, another formed nearby.]

The village will be fenced, largely for the security of the residents, Greene-Graham said. A site manager will stay in one of the small units overnight.

All residents will sign an occupancy agreement and be required to help keep the property clean. It will be a high-barrier, sober facility, meaning no alcohol, marijuana or other drug use is allowed.

But it will allow pets, which is often a barrier for people who need shelter and housing, Greene-Graham said.

Greene-Graham envisions trees, shrubs and flowers around the fence, and a pavilion in the center of the village, with a Solo Stove or similar fire pit for community gatherings. Next year, the group could build raised garden beds for the occupants, she said.

They plan to have a network of volunteers to help occupants with errands, appointments, laundry and upkeep of the village. The idea is to foster a sense of community, to reconnect and to empower the residents, said Manzella.

“The healing that is important isn’t just physical and healing from mental health and addiction issues. It’s a healing from that separation of community,” he said.

All work for the project is volunteer, including an architect, a project manager, electricians, and a civil and a structural engineer, Greene-Graham said. Several other churches, community groups, businesses and homeless service organizations in Anchorage have given monetary donations or offered other support.

“That’s kind of the beauty of this,” she said. “People from all different areas of Anchorage are stepping up and asking what they can do.”

In Our Backyard has raised about $150,000, about half of the total needed, she said. They’ve ordered a shower and restroom trailer and purchased windows and doors for the shelters. A Pacific Northwest company is designing structural insulated panels, which are more heat efficient than prefabricated modular shelters, Greene-Graham said.

The project hasn’t broken ground yet, but plans to begin work to level the site in the coming days, she said.

The ‘balancing act’

Central Lutheran is located just up a hill from the Sullivan Arena, where the city sheltered hundreds of homeless residents starting during the pandemic. The area was inundated with public safety and health problems surrounding the mass shelter.

That’s when Greene-Graham, a local artist and a retired longtime Anchorage School District teacher, got involved with homelessness efforts. She joined a former city emergency shelter task force, and her role was to talk with people staying in local shelters.

“I would go back to my car and cry, because you hear really heart-wrenching stories, but then you see the strength and resiliency of people. And I thought, ‘I am a person that can do something,’” Greene-Graham said.

The concept of using tiny homes as transitional housing has been floated by city officials and local service providers several times over the last few years.

Last year, city officials considered using modular shelters for transitional sheltering but later balked. Then, the Assembly in January set aside $500,000 in grant money for private organizations to pilot a program. In Our Backyard is in the process of applying for city funding, Greene-Graham said.

[Transition documents expose big staffing, financial problems across Anchorage city government, threatening core services]

The church is in an area of town where there are people experiencing homelessness “all the time,” Manzella said. That’s why he believes the church’s campus is appropriate for the project, he said.

The current encampment nearby formed early this summer in the Johnny Ellis Rainbow Bridge Park, which spans about two blocks along A Street, between Fairview and South Addition. But people have frequently camped there in recent years, Manzella said.

“It’s been a disaster,” said Tiffany Boitnott, who lives across the street from Central Lutheran and the encampment.

The area has always had a few campers, usually the same four to five people, with some others coming and going, she said. They were quiet. Sometimes Boitnott would stop in and say hello, check on them and see if they needed help, she said.

This summer “it’s just completely different,” she said. ”It’s such an issue for the kids. We can’t even walk around the neighborhood at this point without getting verbally assaulted. I have to carry weapons when I walk my dog, and kids are going to be walking to school starting on Thursday, and there’s no security on that road. There’s nothing,” she said.

She is hoping the city will abate the camp. But with the church’s large and empty parking lot, “I don’t think that people are going to stay gone.”

Boitnott said she met with Manzella and others from the church and voiced concerns about the encampment and the project. “A lot of our concerns were, ‘How are you going to keep it secure? What safety measures are you going to do? How can you stop people from hanging out around here that shouldn’t be here?’ ” she said.

Manzella, Greene-Graham and other church volunteers have been trying to meet the basic needs of their unsheltered neighbors — as well as trying their best to help the area stay safe.

A port-a-potty donated by a local company stands on the edge of the church property, next to the encampment. It’s serviced every other day. Greene-Graham and other volunteers deliver meals from Bean’s Café and drinking water to the campers six nights a week. They also work with the homeless campers to keep it clean, organizing trash service and group cleanups.

“Giving people food and water and an outhouse, I mean, that’s just showing humanity, dignity, that we care about you,” Greene-Graham said.

Because of their efforts, the camp is cleaner than others of its size, Manzella said. They’ve built relationships with campers, which helps the church address problems when they arise. For example, Manzella has been able to work with campers to move vehicles out of the area, he said.

“We’re supportive of people needing to stay safe and calling the police if they see something inappropriate or illegal or criminal,” Manzella said. “And at the same time, I think the balancing act for the church is still to feed those who are hungry and those who are thirsty and try to make life a little better for people who are living in that land.”

Just after Greene-Graham and Manzella left the church property on Aug. 6, loud sounds like gunfire rang through the neighborhood. Manzella said he received a text alerting him from someone in the church.

A caller reported to police that they heard shots and vehicles speeding away from the encampment, according to the mayor’s office. Anchorage police responded, searched the camp area, and found no evidence of gunshots, according to a police department spokeswoman.

Later that day, someone from the camp sought out Manzella and told him they were afraid of violence, and asked whether the church could do more to protect them, Manzella said.

The encampment is just a few blocks from a middle school, and the school is back in session next week, Volland said, adding that he believes the administration should consider expediting abatement of the area.

“Public safety is the government’s No. 1 job… it means keeping all Anchorage residents safe, housed or unhoused,” Volland said. “It means keeping businesses safe. It means keeping people’s private property safe. It means that everyone feels safe to be able to use our public assets, our parks, our trails with dignity and to do so feeling safe. And I think Anchorage doesn’t feel that way right now.”

On abatement, Manzella said he’s “neutral” — it’s a public safety decision that’s up to the municipality, he said.

“The balancing act for me, too, is, I do not want to lean into fear, and at the same time, I do not want to diminish (community) concerns about safety. It’s totally legitimate,” Manzella said. “But at the same time, I think too often, our responses to things that we don’t fully understand is to lean into fear. And instead of trying to bridge the gap, we create a wider gap.”

Greene-Graham and Manzella hope In Our Backyard will help close that gap, a few homeless residents at a time.