So many, in fact, that a considerable tent city grew up to house the workers. Conditions were rough. Sanitation was poor. But the people living in those tents were hardworking people, and their efforts were key in making Alaska what it is today.

Anchorage is, today, 110 years later, home to tent cities once more. But these tent cities couldn't be more different than those of 1915.

Anchorage started out as a tent city, and is devolving back into one. But there's a difference in the dwellers of these shanties. In the past, the people wanted to work. https://t.co/4CTuM6Wp3K

— Must Read Alaska (@MustReadAlaska) March 9, 2025

As is so often the case, Must Read Alaska's Suzanne Downing has some details.

In the spring of 1915, a tent and shanty community grew along the banks of Ship Creek, as workers headed north to work on the Alaska Railroad. The conditions were rough and unsanitary, but the workers were there to be part of something and make a living. There was no safety net for the people who set up the tent city.

In 2025, Anchorage still sees tent communities popping up along roadways, trails, and sometimes on the streets themselves. The difference is that those in the tent communities are drug- and alcohol-addicted mentally ill people who are not looking for work, but looking for a fix.

Between 2020 and 2024, Anchorage appropriated nearly $190 million toward fighting homelessness, with no success. The Assembly is now focused on making Anchorage more affordable, in hopes that the street people will find a place to live.

Hint: Many, likely most, of them won't find a place to live. Many of these people are obviously in the throes of addiction and mental health issues. They aren't innocent moms and kids who are down on their luck, nor are they hardworking husbands and fathers desperately seeking jobs. I've been through Anchorage and seen this for myself. We tend to avoid Anchorage, not because of this issue but because we rarely have reason to make the 90-minute drive to the city unless it's to or from the airport. But in the last few years, when we have had cause to drive through the city, the homeless problem has grown noticeably worse.

In February, a major fire broke out in an empty former hotel in Spenard, a neighborhood in Anchorage. The fire was attributed to "vagrants" - the homeless - and homeless people were seen fleeing the building after the fire broke out.

A good portion of the rooms were haphazardly and dangerously occupied despite most of the openings and exits being boarded up, according to Asst. Chief Brian Dean, Fire Marshal for the Anchorage Fire Department. 

“Witnesses reported 30 to 40 people fleeing from the hotel before our firefighters arrived. Thankfully, they were able to rescue the last four individuals that couldn’t escape.”

The cause of the fire was likely due to the unsafe use of propane heaters and oil lamps.

Numerous “buddy heaters, propane tanks, oil lamps, makeshift cooking arrangements and smoking materials were found throughout the ‘unoccupied’ building,” the department said. These apparently were used by the dozens of vagrants that had taken over the building, all without being discovered by police.

What's changed since 1915?

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Simply this: In 1915, in Anchorage and elsewhere, if one did not work, one did not eat. In 2025, 110 years later, if one does not work, there is a safety net that has morphed into a hammock.

This isn't a problem unique to Alaska, although the homeless encampments in Alaska do come with the added bonus of attracting bears. It's a nationwide problem. In 1915, though, it wasn't the same kind of problem, and the examples of these two tent cities can give us some hints as to why. The people who came to Alaska and Anchorage came to work. They came for an opportunity. Rough housing was seen as only a means to an end, the end being a good-paying job. Many of the railroad workers stayed in Alaska, built homes, and started businesses, and some of their families remain in Alaska today. 

The homeless in Anchorage today aren't there to work. But, as Suzanne Downing notes, Anchorage has appropriated $190 million towards "fighting homelessness," and no progress has been made. Anchorage is following the path Democrats so often follow, of trying to solve a problem by drowning it in money. It's not working, mostly because the city is unaware of the economic law that what you subsidize, you get more of. 

In 1915, Anchorage was booming, and there were opportunities for hard-working people, but there was also no safety net. Only the strong and capable could succeed in Alaska in those early years of the 20th century. Now, there are a plethora of "services" for the homeless, and they are increasing in number. The encampments are there, all over the country, and unlike in 1915, nothing positive comes from them.

The situation in Anchorage, indeed in the nation, isn't sustainable. Throwing money at it isn't working. It's time to try something else. The Spenard fire has shown very plainly that these street people can present a risk to public safety and private property. Their presence on the streets, as seen in the gallery Must Read Alaska presents in the linked story above, is not only unsightly but can be dangerous. In some of the nation's homeless encampments, there have already been disease outbreaks. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the people on the street need not blankets and cardboard boxes but treatment for addiction and mental health. 

Anchorage is, though, beginning to see the light, to some degree. At least one local judge sided with the city on the necessity of reducing one camp. Maybe we're turning the corner.