The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska is suing the Anchorage municipality over its plan to dismantle a homeless encampment in the North Star neighborhood next week and calling for a court to intervene.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Anchorage Superior Court on behalf of three homeless residents, ACLU attorneys asked the court to quickly issue a temporary restraining order to stop the city from tearing down the camp.
In the complaint, attorneys said the planned abatement is “cruel and unusual” and violates the rights of homeless residents under the Alaska Constitution. They argued that camp abatements amount to “unreasonable seizure” of homeless persons’ belongings and that the city’s policies violate rights to due process.
Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s administration swiftly opposed the claims in a statement Friday, saying the encampment near Arctic Boulevard and Fireweed Lane is “located within a few hundred feet of an elementary school” and has caused “significant problems in the surrounding neighborhood.”
“We take public safety seriously, and we are following the law,” LaFrance said in the statement.
The city on Jan. 31 posted 10-day zone abatement notices at three encampments in or near the North Star neighborhood, including the one by Arctic and Fireweed, one near Valley of the Moon Park and another by the C Street Gardens. Since LaFrance took office in July, the city has cleared out 17 homeless camps, according to the mayor’s office.
The camps are scheduled to be dismantled Tuesday, according to the mayor’s office. A spokeswoman on Friday said the city plans to proceed with all three abatements.
In the complaint filed this week, ACLU attorneys argued that the city’s laws and prohibition on camping essentially make it “illegal for Plaintiffs to exist and survive anywhere in the city by virtue of their indigency.”
“The Municipality is abating encampments regardless of whether there is anywhere else for the inhabitants to go. Anchorage’s shelters and warming center are consistently at capacity this winter. As a result, at least 475 Anchorage residents have no choice but to self-shelter outdoors each night. Despite this reality, the Municipality has continued to abate,” the complaint says.
During abatements, the city seizes and disposes of the personal property of unhoused people, which deprives them of belongings they need to survive outdoors, attorneys said in the complaint.
In a response filed Friday, attorneys for the municipality said that the city’s laws do not criminalize sheltering on public property because the prohibition doesn’t carry a direct criminal penalty. Because the residents have appealed, their property will be stored, the response said.
The homeless residents “are not being abated from all municipal owned land, just this one zone as noticed,” city attorneys said in the response.
They also said an expedited decision by the court would “prejudice the Municipality by interfering with its ability to efficiently and effectively enforce its laws for the protection of the community.”
In the filing, city attorneys said occupants of the camp “demonstrated a disregard for the surrounding community” and had produced more than 8,500 pounds of garbage since Nov. 6, “including over 1,000 pounds that slid down the hill into the sidewalk.”
“The municipality has a duty to safeguard its neighborhoods and schools, and it needs to be able to abate encampments when they become significant health and safety hazards,” the attorneys for the municipality said.
Eric Glatt, a local attorney working with the ACLU on the case, said that the court had not issued a ruling on Friday, despite the city’s plans to tear down the camp early next week.
The U.S. Supreme Court last summer overturned a lower court ruling that had held that homeless people could camp outside on public properties when no alternative indoor shelter was available. The Supreme Court’s decision marked a drastic shift in the legal landscape, giving cities more latitude to enforce anti-camping laws, and many U.S. cities have engaged in more forceful encampment sweeps.
The ACLU first sued the city in 2023 over a homeless encampment sweep at a former Midtown camp and a sweep the city had planned, but later rescinded, in Mountain View. That case is ongoing.
In a statement Friday, ACLU of Alaska legal director Ruth Botstein said the city’s policies are “being used to shuffle unhoused people from different corners of our city.”
“We have a legal obligation to protect Alaskans against cruel and unusual punishment and unreasonable seizures of property, and to preserve the due process rights of every person in this city, regardless of their housing status. We have a moral obligation to treat people with humanity and to not further their suffering by taking what little materials they use to survive Alaska in the winter and displacing them,” Botstein said.