Campfires burned among more than a dozen campsites still standing at the Mill Campground in Juneau on Monday morning.
The city-run campground – where people can camp free of charge – officially closed for the season at noon. Battling strong winds, people gathered up their things in tarps and plastic totes.
Garrett Derr was one of the campers packing up his belongings. He said this was his first summer at the campground after more than a year of struggling to find stable housing, and he wasn’t sure where he was going next.
“Pretty much just the streets. I’ll try the Glory Hall, I think. We’ll see what happens,” he said. “I’m allowed there today, after a month and a half of being kicked out.”
Unless they can get beds at the Glory Hall, many campers like Derr will spend the next week waiting for the city’s emergency cold weather shelter to open. The city and St. Vincent de Paul aim to open it on Friday. Meteorologists expect temperatures as low as 33 degrees on Saturday night.
But even worse weather could hit before the cold weather shelter opens. Juneau’s forecast calls for the remnants of Typhoon Bolaven to bring heavy rain this week, starting Tuesday.
Glory Hall Executive Director Mariya Lovishchuk said some space may be available there. Their emergency shelter beds were full this summer, but staff have spent the last few weeks trying to find more permanent housing solutions for some of those patrons.
Lovishchuk said that as of Monday, two people were about to move in with family members and a few others were headed to the Glory Hall’s permanent supportive housing units.
“There’s definitely movement, in terms of availability,” she said.
The city’s emergency cold weather shelter will be at a city-owned warehouse in Thane this winter. City leaders at first ruled out the warehouse because of its location and use as a storage facility, but homeless service providers had no other spaces available. Resurrection Lutheran Church ran the shelter for the last two years, but the congregation could not agree to host it again until last week. By then, the city had made other plans.
Matthew Wilson was at the campground Monday morning to help his daughter and her boyfriend pack up. He worried the Thane location could add transportation challenges for those trying to use the warming shelter.
“Downtown is more convenient,” he said. “It’s a long ways down here. They think it’s a little ways because the Assembly members have cars to drive down here. These people are walking.”
Derr said he used the warming shelter last winter, and he said he’s just glad there is one this year.
“Wherever it is, that’s where it is,” he said.
St. Vincent de Paul and the Glory Hall will run a shuttle in the evening from downtown to the warehouse. Lovishchuk said they have a driver ready to operate a 15-passenger van. In the morning, a Capital Transit bus will be there when the shelter closes and take people to the Glory Hall and other stops in between.
A camper named Tom, who said he wasn’t comfortable sharing his last name, also plans to use the warming shelter. He’s lived in Juneau for nearly a decade. He said he likes staying at the campground compared to the other options for unhoused people in Juneau.
“Wish we could stay up here all year round,” Tom said.
He was packing up his things and tending to a campfire Monday morning.
“Some of us are up here, not because we want to be, but because we have to,” Tom said. “The cost of living here in Juneau is way high. Affordable housing? There’s no such thing as that.”
Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said people who’ve been staying at the campground can access services with the help of community navigators at St. Vincent de Paul, the Glory Hall and AWARE.
The Glory Hall’s day shelter is open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.
