By Suzanne Downing 
THE CITY’S ‘SPRUNG’ HOMELESS SHELTER IS WARMING SAND AT THE PORT
As temperatures plunge and the snow settles over downtown Anchorage, a small cluster of makeshift camps has appeared once again in front of the Anchorage Visitor Information Center cabin, the iconic log structure that greets tens of thousands of tourists in the summer.
Now, in mid-November, it’s a different scene: Bundled figures huddled under blankets, sleeping bags buried in snowbanks, a propane heater sputtering in the frigid air. Nearby, other street-dwellers shuffle along Fourth Avenue, pushing carts, dragging belongings, or simply trying to stay awake long enough to stay alive.
These haunting images, people surviving in doorways and on sidewalks in the subfreezing cold, stand in stark contrast to a cold decision made just a year ago by the city’s new mayoral administration.
Former Mayor Dave Bronson had purchased a large Sprung structure in 2021. It was a weather-resistant, ready-to-assemble shelter built specifically to house Anchorage’s hardest-to-house population of street people and was designed to stand up to Alaska winters, provide immediate warmth, and reduce the number of men and women sleeping in camps like the one now outside the Visitor Center.
But the Bronson administration ended before the structure ever went up.
And under Mayor Suzanne LaFrance, the structure didn’t become a shelter at all.
Instead, it was sold to the Port of Alaska — to store sand and gravel.
When Mayor LaFrance announced the sale last October, her administration framed it as a creative “triple win.” In her press release, LaFrance said the Port would use the building for “warm storage of road sand and related equipment… and port maintenance offices,” adding that the sale “accomplishes the original goal of addressing homelessness.”
The Port paid the city the structure’s original cost — $2.39 million — and committed another $11–13 million to move and construct it. LaFrance said the recovered funds would “be invested directly into solutions to homelessness this winter.”
But a year later, those “solutions” are hard to see.
Downtown Anchorage tells a different story. Camps remain scattered through the city center. The Visitor Center’s grounds — usually groomed for tourists — are now a refuge for people who have nowhere else to go.
Several shelters are full. The city has not replaced the cold-weather facility that the Sprung structure was meant to provide. And with winter closing in, some individuals may not make it through the season.
The Sprung structure, originally intended for the men and women now sleeping outside in the snow ,is instead sitting at the Port, protecting sand and equipment from the elements.
For Anchorage’s most vulnerable residents, the message feels painfully clear: This winter, the sand stays warm. People do not.
Anchorage Hobos NEED from the state and municipal to be made to work even picking up litter, shoveling side walks,
The human spirit needs work which the not working just aggravates the person and makes their Depeession, Shame and guilt. Or Anger and frustration worsen for being idle too long
A continued downward spiral in the quality – safety of life in Anchorage, these problems ‘never’ solved and/or mitigated, while the liberal Mayor and Assembly steal more of our property taxes. It is truly ‘gross theft’ without any reasonable effort expended to represent property taxpayers. When the hammer drops to cleanse the filth and cancer on our city, don’t expect an ounce of sympathy – empathy.
For hell’s sake Rob B., for the last 30 years, Anchorage mayors have tried to solve the homeless problem. Apparently the core obstacle is money. Secondary obstacle is the attitude you so succinctly present when you call the homeless “filth and cancer”. You are the shrill, loud, raspy voice at a governmental public meeting pissing on a solution. If you are a Christian, you are a hypocrite (“don’t expect an ounce of sympathy – empathy.”). If you’re not a Christian, you’re just a selfish ass.
Evan, these worthless dregs of, and perpetual drains on, society should be allowed and encouraged to freeze to death. I am sick of the waste of money and resources on those who do not give one damn about their own lives, much less the community and society at large that they drag down and destroy by their sub-human self-imposed existence.
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You typify and personify the clueless, head-in-the-sand “bleeding heart liberal”. For those like you, logic and rationality do not exist — it is ALL about (misplaced) emotions and “feelings”.
Alcohol/cigarette/gas taxes, a 7.5% Port Restoration tax paid for by EVERY Alaskan, 95¢ per landline/cell phone tax, egregious muni property tax appraisals, and now 3% sales tax. The mayor & Assembly are going to make half the population poor & the other half will leave.