Things are looking different at Campbell Creek Park after years of litter from homeless people camping and in effort from the community to clean things up.
In 2008, Campbell Creek Park community member Jeff Wooden , with the help of local assembly member Elvi Grey- Jackson, created Take Back Our Parks or T.B.O.P., a community group with the mission to take action to provide safe, clean and enjoyable park conditions.
"It's nowhere near what it used to be," said Wooden. "We've made a big difference; people come here and actually enjoy the park nowadays."
Wooden says just a few years ago Campbell Creek Park was home to dozens of homeless who partied, drank and camped, creating an environment that kept the locals from enjoying their neighborhood park.
In addition to continuous patrols and cleanup efforts, T.B.O.P. and the Anchorage Parks Foundation just completed a more than $250,000 project at Campbell Creek Park.
The state and privately funded project replaced playground equipment and increased safety, making the area more inviting for residents, and less desirable for the homeless.
"The beautification brings more people in and that's also going to help bring those people out of the park," said Steve Keppel, Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission. "They're not going to be around people that are celebrating and having fun in that park."
T.B.O.P. works with community members, local businesses and authorities to set-up a zero tolerance policy at the Anchorage Gospel Rescue Mission to help clean up the area.
It is policy that was put in place to deny services to anyone caught drinking, camping or disturbing residents in the neighborhood.
"April of 2009 is when we went to our zero tolerance here," said Keppel. "That's when things started getting better, that's when the transformation started happening."
Wooden says the movement has been so successful that it's now serving as a template for other communities to take back their neighborhoods and parks.
For more information about Take Back Our Parks and how you can get involved, call Jeff Wooden at 444-1811 or e-mail Jeff at jakers@gci.net.
Contact Blake Essig