Anchorage unhoused residents struggle to access public drinking water

On the streets of Anchorage, fresh drinking water can be hard to come by. For the city’s unhoused population, finding an accessible tap or a public fountain often requires navigating a maze of locked doors, closed businesses, and missing infrastructure.

Mickey Toorak and Chris Leonard, who are both homeless, talked near a bus stop along West Benson Boulevard in Spenard on Monday, Oct. 26, adn.com reported. For Leonard, a self-described former halibut fisherman and father of four who frequently camps on a grassy patch of sidewalk near Tommy’s Burger Stop and the Captain Sparrow liquor store, securing clean water is a daily hurdle. Banned from stores and private establishments with bathrooms, Leonard relies on a fortunate connection with Spenard apartment dwellers who leave their outdoor taps running.

Toorak, an Utqiagvik-based baleen artist currently unhoused in Anchorage, uses a similar approach. “We go to spigots,” Toorak said while standing next to Leonard with a sleeping bag under his arm and a new winter jacket on his back, provided by Project Homeless Connect.

The Structural Shortage of Public Infrastructure

The annual Project Homeless Connect event, sponsored by the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, drew more than 1,000 attendees to the William A. Egan Civic & Convention Center on Monday, Oct. 26. Behind the makeshift service booths and distribution tables, civic leaders point to a deeper structural deficit across Alaska’s largest city.

Jessica Parks, interim executive director of the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, noted that the lack of drinking water is a persistent crisis for Anchorage residents living without shelter. “We don’t have public drinking water fountains,” Parks said. Other municipalities, including Seattle, have expanded public drinking water stations where people can fill reusable bottles, a model Parks would like to see adopted locally.

Private commercial establishments frequently bar non-customers from using restrooms, cutting off access to the sinks inside. Duke Russell, an artist and homeless activist volunteering at the Egan Center, explained the compounding effect of these commercial policies. “Most stores aren’t going to let you in or they won’t give you the code to the bathroom,” Russell said. “If you’re an unsheltered person living in your clothes for a month, a lot of businesses won’t let you in to fill up your water container.”

To help bridge the gap, Russell recently posted a message on Facebook asking for clean, empty juice containers. The appeal generated enough donations for Russell and a group of volunteers to distribute filled jugs during twice-weekly food distributions in front of Anchorage City Hall on Sunday afternoons and at Lutheran Social Services on Wednesday afternoons.

Daily Strategies and the Weight of Survival

Carrying water presents its own physical toll. Because clean water is heavy, unhoused residents must balance hydration against the limits of what they can physically carry on their backs.

“Everything you have is on your back. If you have to make a choice between a blanket and a water bottle, some people will choose the blanket,” Parks said.

Vivian Changsak, who has lived on the streets of Anchorage for six years, relies on public buildings during the day. “I go to City Hall or the transit center,” said Vivian Changsak, who described herself as a former wildland firefighter, a mother of five and a grandmother of eight, while at the Egan Center on Monday, Oct. 26, to wait for a temporary state identification card. While daytime hours offer options, nighttime brings a different reality. “I’m thirsty during the night,” she said.

Other residents have developed distinct supply lines. Near Benson Boulevard, a silver-haired elder who declined to be interviewed arranged five unwieldy 5-gallon water jugs outside the front flap of his tent. At the Downtown Hope Center, manager Janice Ridgeway noted that the 80-bed women’s shelter always provides water in paper cups to anyone who asks, regardless of whether they are staying at the facility. “We always tell people — water is essential,” Ridgeway said.

Municipal officials state they are working to address the shortfall. The administration under Mayor Suzanne LaFrance has prioritized ensuring municipal buildings advertise that restrooms and water fountains are open to the public, according to Thea Agnew Bemben, the mayor’s homelessness and public safety special assistant. Bemben also pointed to the city-funded homeless resource and navigation center on Third Avenue, which provides drinking water, restrooms, and showers.