Homeless encampment on Teal Street dismantled by police and city officials, forcing occupants to make yet another move
- Mark Sabbatini
- Jun 18
- 4 min read
Complaints from nearby property owners about filth, safety add to "dispersed camping" tensions
Jennifer Harris says she knew police and city officials were coming early Tuesday morning to dismantle the encampment of about 20 tents she and others were living in across from the Glory Hall. So when officials showed up shortly before 8 a.m. with a crane and started dismantling sites at the far end of the street she and a companion were already packing up.
But she said she didn’t know how much time she had until the crane reached her site and where she’s going to go next.
“I’m a little bit irritated this is happening, but it is what it is,” she said resignedly as the crane scooped up aluminum siding and scattered belongings and dropped them into a dump truck.
Occupants of the tents were given a 48-hour vacate notice at noon Friday, with Juneau Police Department officials saying they initially planned to wait until Monday when city parks staff could help with the cleanup. But a severe storm Monday afternoon resulted in another delay, with officers telling campers they would need to depart by 8 a.m. Tuesday.
“If they're actively removing their stuff we'll let them, we'll help them,” Police Chief Derek Bos said while supervising the dismantling. “We’ve already talked to a couple of people who have said ‘I need a ride somewhere. Can you can you help me?’ Absolutely, we'll help them with a ride.”
Sitting in a chair, unable to assist with packing efforts by two companions, was Jason Williams (known to his neighbors as Willow), who has been bedridden with various medical ailments for months. He didn’t know where he was going next or how he would get there.
“I can’t feel anything,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to walk.”
His companions, Douglas Ebey Worthington IV and Nathaniel Hensley-Williams, said they spent the night sleeping on the sidewalk outside Williams’ tent after their own shelter was damaged beyond repair in Monday afternoon’s storm.
“Most of our stuff is packed up,” Worthington said. “It’s just Willow that we’re worried about.”
Angry complaints about the encampment, and others nearby, have been voiced to city leaders in recent weeks by residential and business property owners in the area. People testifying during the past two Juneau Assembly meetings have described problems such as debris and waste, open drug dealing, and physical threats to employees and residents.
People experiencing homelessness have been camping in various locations in Juneau for more than a year under a “dispersed camping” policy approved by the Assembly due to rampant reports of illegal activity at an officially sanctioned homeless campground near downtown. But both the housed and unhoused say the new policy isn’t working either.
“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, June 9.
“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.”
Bos said JPD’s vacate notices were issued at the direction of city leaders or because of the specific complaints at the Assembly meetings. Rather, a policy in effect as of this year states the notices will be issued if encampments get too large or disruptive, among other reasons.
“We've had lots of complaints over time so I couldn't say ‘this person did this and that's why we're cleaning it up,’” he said. “But just monitoring, it's gotten much bigger. Just in the last 10 days it's more than doubled in size. We've had a lot more trash issues. We’ve had them blocking the sidewalk on a far more regular basis. We've had more theft issues. We've had complaints of other crimes that we haven't substantiated yet. So all of that has kind of culminated to it's time to clean it up.”
Many residents at the encampments have said the city should again provide an officially designated campsite for people without housing, with a security person on duty at all times if needed to ensure order. But Deputy City Manager Robert Barr, who during the past couple of years has taken a lead role in evaluating homeless policy options, said that’s not a feasible option either because of a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that make the city liable for incidents at sanctioned sites.
“The amount of liability that the community, through the city, would be taking on if we had a city supervised campground would be astronomically high,” he said.
Officials have regularly dismantled other encampments during the past year, with the city specifying people given a vacate notice must move at least half a mile away, Bos said. They must remain away from the vacated site for at least 48 hours — meaning in theory they could return to their just cleared spots on Teal Street in a couple of days.
“Theoretically, yes,” he said. “We hope not.”
Bos said he is aware of the difficulty those being forced from their campsites are facing as well as the people who are complaining about them.
“That's the hard part for all of us — where do they go?” he said, adding there is an effort to let people stay at sites until impacts are too great “because eventually we're just chasing them from place to place.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at editor@juneauindependent.com or (907) 957-2306.
