Uprooting without roots
Homeless campers still dispersed after eviction from 'The Hill'
Homeless Vietnam veteran Keith Fuller just wants to be left the hell alone.
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Fuller's life was uprooted last month when the makeshift shelter he lived in for three years in the homeless enclave known as "The Hill" located above South Franklin Street was razed. The 58-year-old Marine veteran spent a couple of weeks at the Glory Hole homeless shelter before setting up his new residence at the Thane Campground on Friday.
"I don't ask for no help," Fuller said Friday. "Certainly I could go up to the V.A. and jump through their hoops again. It hurts. I don't bother no one. I keep my camp clean. I hate to be bothered by people and it's very devastating to have yourself uprooted."
Fuller moved to Juneau in 1995 and has been camping in the woods above South Franklin Street ever since, with little stints inbetween in other communities such as Petersburg and Sitka.
"It's a way of life. Some people, they enjoy living outdoors," he said.
Fuller believes that he would still be comfortable living at his campsite set up on The Hill had it not been for the man that cut down a tree that fell on a power line causing an outage in early November. Alaska Electric Light & Power Co., which owns the land where the illegal camping was taking place, posted signs shortly thereafter ordering people to vacate the area within a week and warned that those who did not comply would be arrested for trespassing.
Fuller lost the majority of his meager belongings when the illegal campsites were razed on Nov. 12. He is starting over from scratch with donated camping supplies distributed by the Glory Hole.
"I was set up for winter and I had everything there," Fuller said. "It's totally degrading. You start from square one. It made me mad."
The city had originally planned to shut down the Thane Campground for the winter, as it has done on an annual basis, but decided to keep it open this year given the circumstances of the dozens of homeless people living on The Hill being relocated. The city also halved the campground fee from $100 to $50 a month. Fewer people than expected have decided to relocate to the Thane Campground.
"So far we got about nine to 10 people that showed up so far," said Daniel Bartlett, 48, who has lived at the Thane Campground with his dog, Shakira, since the summer.
The campground is a close-knit group of people and there have not been any significant problems since the newcomers have arrived, he said.
"It's all been pretty mellow here," Bartlett said. "We don't put up with it here. They cause any trouble, they're gone."
Glory Hole executive director Mariya Lovishchuk isn't quite sure where everybody from The Hill has gone.
"We were really full so we couldn't see an increase. We haven't gotten any fuller," she said. "I think they just moved to different spots on The Hill - a little bit over, a little bit higher and a little bit to the left."
Lovishchuk estimates the Glory Hole has given away about 60 sleeping bags and 20 tents in the past couple of weeks to help people during the transition. The shelter has a limit on how long it allows people to stay there.
"We have been getting a lot more people asking for camping supplies and we have been distributing them and we have been getting a lot of donations of camping supplies from the community," she said.
Gayle Wood, the spokeswoman for AEL&P, said the company still has more cleanup work to do in the area and has hired Goldbelt Security to periodically patrol The Hill. Anyone caught camping on AEL&P property faces possible trespassing charges, she said.
"No one is on that property as far as we know," Wood said.
Lovishchuk said she has some concerns about the people camping outdoors this winter that were uprooted from The Hill. However, she believes the community has really come together to lend a helping hand.
"We'll just do the best we can and see what happens until we build more affordable housing," she said. "I think it's kind of a sad and unsolvable situation but I think everybody has been dealing with it in the short term as well as we can."
Fuller, who has a college degree in architectural engineering and presently works at the Salvation Army, said he is frustrated with people meddling in the affairs of the homeless people that thought they had a comfortable place to stay through the winter.
"I've had to start from square one again," he said. "Leave us alone. Leave me alone, I mean."
• Contact reporter Eric Morrison at 523-2269 or eric.morrison@juneauempire.com.