Exploring the boundaries of public space in the urban north

These photographs, taken on the morning of 30 September 2013, are the product of an exploratory trip through the undeveloped, public green spaces that many homeless people inhabit in Anchorage, Alaska. We were tasked with evaluating a ‘housing first’ program, which provides permanent supportive housing for the homeless without preconditions of sobriety or treatment compliance. In an effort to better understand the population whose housing circumstances we were evaluating, the goal was to explore visually the experience of hundreds of Anchorage residents who live largely out of sight, in tents in the wooded interstices of the city.