‘It’s a war zone’ as homeless take over the urban core

56
886

While some homeless people have sought shelter at the Sullivan and Boeke arenas in Anchorage, others are not interested in the dry cots being provided by the Mayor Berkowitz Administration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tent city at 3rd Avenue and Ingra Street has once again become a hotbed of drug-dealing and open defecation. So much so, that city officials are asking the Dunleavy Administration to send in the National Guard to clean up the mess.

Around Anchorage, from downtown to midtown, the images are heartbreaking, as derelicts and drug dealers shuffle like zombies through streets abandoned by law-abiding citizens.

On Monday afternoon, an inebriated man was openly defecating at the corner of Northern Lights and Denali. Wednesday, another incapacitated man was witnessed defecating on the sidewalk on 3rd Avenue. Today, a crazed individual ran nearly naked through the streets as firefighters tried to corral him; he was as high on some substance.

Although Mayor Ethan Berkowitz has ordered homeless people to shelter at designated locations, some are unable or unwilling to follow the rules in staffed shelters, and others simply prefer life in the open.

In fact, dozens of homeless people have been kicked out of the city-run shelters for various infractions. They hang out around the tent city, where people come and go to buy drugs in broad daylight.

Drug deals go down in broad daylight at 3rd and Ingra.

The municipality has cleaned up this location time and again, but the tents and tarps and cardboard structures once again stretch far down Ingra along the ridge where the old Alaska Native Hospital used to sit.

This is normally the time of year when the snow melts and the cleanup begins, and this year the city will have its hands full with COVID-19 stalking those who have underlying medical conditions or who live in tight quarters in these tents.

Rob Cupples and his family have owned property across the street for over 70 years. He has been trying to get the city to clean up the tent city. He formed a group a few years ago called the Third Street Radicals.

With most surrounding buildings now vacant due to the citywide COVID-19 orders, things are as bad or worse than he’s ever seen them. And the vagrants have become more aggressive. It feels like a losing battle.

“For the past 3 weeks we have experienced a steep spike in a variety of social and criminal issues within our small neighborhood.  You would think that with the relocation of a significant majority of the homeless population to the Sullivan our neighborhood should be the quietest and calmest it has been in years, but the truth is quite the opposite.  For the past three weeks the homeless camp along both sides of the fence at 3rd and Ingra has continued to grow,” Cupples wrote to his Third Street Radicals.

“With this growth has come a substantial increase in garbage on our streets, partying, loitering on our private properties, and an increase in mob mentality due to the lack of community presence under the hunker down order. The occupants of the camps have demonstrated aggression on multiple occasions to members of this community including aggressively chasing an ADN photographer from the area who reported to me personally being very fearful just last week.”

“Drugs are being actively sold from these tents on a daily basis, as easily observed from my front row seat at 3rd and Hyder.  I have personally observed an increase in vehicular traffic to the area of buyers coming to score their drugs from this location. One buyer openly admitted to me why they were there. They park directly outside my windows and walk across to the tents,” Cupples wrote.

Groups of people are gathering on street corners and on private properties in an intimidating fashion, he wrote. 

“This is particularly concerning as most of our properties are primarily vacant at the moment due to the hunker down order. We are currently at our most vulnerable. Neighbors have recently reported break ins, having their power cut to their house in the middle of the night, APD refusing to remove drug users from private property because there was no fence, etc.
The trash has overrun our streets,” Cupples wrote.

“It became so bad I personally requested of this administration they relocate a dumpster to the site of the tents at 3rd and ingra with the hopes the occupants of these tent would use it, assisting us in the trash battle.  (which has appeared to be relatively successful, thus far). 

“My wife and I have been trying to keep up on the litter around our business with nearly daily trash pickups, but it is a losing battle.  On Monday she reported that she was unable to pick up trash directly outside our fence because she no longer felt safe.  The crowds of drunk males within the immediate vicinity posed too significant a risk for her to leave the confines of our fences with her trash grabber.  For the past 3 years I have not feared my wife going to our business by herself, however after Monday she will not be returning to our business without me being present until the situation improves.”

Cupples is asking for people to join the Third Street Radicals at 11:30 am on Friday on the corner of 4th and Ingra to publicize what he and others are calling a war zone. He’s asking they bring homemade signs and personal protective equipment, and observe the six-foot rule. Cupples said he’s not trying to pick on homeless people, but the neighborhood wants to reverse the criminal activity that has taken it over:

56 COMMENTS

  1. This is sick and heartbreaking to watch. Yet another business will fight the city until what? Look what happened to the last guy that did. The homeless have now spread throughout the city. Now Berkowitz wants the Guard to clean it up? I watch his pressers and when asked about this problem, he is quick to place the blame on everyone and everything except himself while screaming for more money. You could drop a million dollars in his lap tomorrow and this problem would remain because liberal policies are a FAIL. Time and time again across the liberal cities of America it’s the same FAIL. He’s prepping for a Governor run so he can destroy the entire state. Hey Alaska…take a look at hell hole Anchorage and let us know what you think!

    • If he is elected governor, we can expect Alaska to look more and more like the San Francisco from whence he came. I don’t want a crap map showing me not to go to 3rd and Hyder nor behind the Baptist Church there. Rather I’d prefer clean streets, and the rule of law. Enforce the laws Ethan, quit giving special treatment to special people.

  2. My heart breaks for the folks whose homes and businesses are located near the Homeless encampments. Homeless people by and large need medical help for their mental issues but our Courts and Elected officials have decided that it is cruel to commit these sick people into an institution. The result is the public menace we now experience.
    I wonder if Homeless folks carried a deadly virus, would our Sage Leaders commit them to an isolation area?

  3. I’ve watched the trash spread more and more from 3rd and Ingra over the past couple of years. The more money that gets put towards an issue, the more of that issue rises to feed on that money. Berkowitz’s homeless plan is just such an increase in funding. Voila! We’ve got more of it. Any high school economics student could have predicted these results.

  4. If you want to read about the real “drug pushers” across the globe research the IFPMA in Geneva.
    “IFPMA represents the research-based pharmaceutical companies and associations across the globe.
    The research-based pharmaceutical industry’s 2 million employees research, develop and provide medicines and vaccines…
    Based in Geneva, IFPMA has official relations with the United Nations and contributes industry expertise to help the global health community…”
    (ifpma.org)
    This organization of 2 million employees along with Bill Gates and his global vaccine push (GABI) are currently “pounding the drum” along with socialist leaders at the WHO.
    Alaskans need to focus on the bigger picture instead of slipping back into the typical party banter while our personal liberties are destroyed forever and fear replaces freedom in America.

    • Bill Gate’s global vaccine push is call GAVI not Gabi. His foundation has spent 1.56 Billion dollars on it. Let that sink in

      • Bee,
        Thanks for correcting that mistake.
        A quick search on (gavi.org) shows big players like Walmart and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) are behind this global vaccination push as well.
        “Former U.S. President Bill Clinton moderates the opening session at the Clinton Global Initiative annual conference with participants…Wal-Mart President Michael Duke, Her Majesty Queen Rania of Jordan (a former GAVI Fund Board member), UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and World Bank President Jim Kim…
        GAVI ultimately raised US $ 61 million in private sector funding in about four years.
        The CGI commitment came just a few months after the announcement of GAVI’s Advance Market Commitment (AMC) for Pneumococcal Vaccines, under which donor funding is used to incentivise vaccine suppliers to produce affordable and appropriate pneumococcal vaccines…” 

        • Bill Gates is a MONSTER

          -> An Explosive Article About The Reign of Terror Bill Gates’ And the World Health Organization Conducts with His Deadly Pharmaceutical EXPERIMENTS on Real People! 
          By Robert F Kennedy Jr

          “Promising to eradicate Polio with $1.2 billion, Gates took control of India ‘s National Advisory Board (NAB) and mandated 50 polio vaccines (up from 5) to every child before age 5. Indian doctors blame the Gates campaign for a devastating vaccine-strain polio epidemic that paralyzed 496,000 children between 2000 and 2017.

          -> In 2017, the Indian Government dialed back Gates’ vaccine regimen and evicted Gates and his cronies from the NAB. 
          ->Polio paralysis rates dropped precipitously. 
          ->In 2017, the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) reluctantly admitted that the global polio explosion is predominantly vaccine strain, meaning it is coming from Gates’ Vaccine Program.

          ->The most frightening epidemics in Congo, the Philippines, and Afghanistan are all linked to Gates’ vaccines. By 2018, ¾ of global polio cases were from Gates’ vaccines.
          -> In 2014, the Gates Foundation funded tests of experimental HPV vaccines, developed by GSK and Merck, on 23,000 young girls in remote Indian provinces. Approximately 1,200 suffered severe side effects, including autoimmune and fertility disorders. Seven died. Indian government investigations charged that Gates funded researchers committed pervasive ethical violations: pressuring vulnerable village girls into the trial, bullying parents, forging consent forms, and refusing medical care to the injured girls. The case is now in the country’s Supreme Court.
          -> In 2010, the Gates Foundation funded a trial of a GSK’s experimental malaria vaccine, killing 151 African infants and causing serious adverse effects including paralysis, seizure, and febrile convulsions to 1,048 of the 5,049 children.
          ->> During Gates 2002 MenAfriVac Campaign in Sub-Saharan Africa, Gates operatives forcibly vaccinated thousands of African children against meningitis. Between 50-500 children developed paralysis. 
          —>> South African newspapers complained, “We are guinea pigs for drug makers”.
          ->Nelson Mandela’s formar Senior Economist, Professor Patrick Bond, describes Gates’ philantropic practises as “ruthless” and immoral”.

          ->In 2010, Gates committed $ 10 billion to the WHO promising to reduce population, in part, through new vaccines.

          ->A month later Gates told a Ted Talk that new vaccines “could reduce population”.

          —> In 2014, Kenya’s Catholic Doctors Association accused the WHO of chemically sterilizing millions of unwilling Kenyan women with a phony “tetanus” vaccine campaign.

          —>> Independent labs found the sterility formula in every vaccine tested. 
          ->After denying the charges, WHO finally admitted it had been developing the sterility vaccines for over a decade. 
          ->> Similar accusations came from Tanzania, Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines.

          ->A 2017 study (Morgensen et.Al.2017) showed that WHO’s popular DTP is killing more Africans than the disease it pretends to prevent. 
          ->Vaccinated girls suffered 10x the death rate of unvaccinated children.

          ->Gates and the WHO refused to recall the lethal vaccine which WHO forces upon millions of African children annually.

          —> Global public health advocates around the world accuse Gates of hijacking WHO’s agenda away from the projects that are proven to curb infectious diseases; clean water, hygiene, nutrition and economic development. 
          ->They say he has diverted agency resources to serve his personal fetish – that good health only comes in a syringe.

          ->In addition to using his philantropy to control WHO, UNICEF, GAVI and PATH, Gates funds private pharmaceutical companies that manifacture vaccines, and a massive network of pharmaceutical -industry front groups that broadcast deceptive propaganda, develop fraudulent studies, conduct surveillance and psychological operations against vaccine hesitancy and use Gates’ power and money to silence dissent and coerce compliance.
          —>In his recent nonstop Pharmedia appearances, Gates appears gleeful that the Covid-19 crisis will give him the opportunity to force his third-world vaccine programs on American children.”
          Robert F. Kennedy Jr
          —— End—-

          I changed nothing but paragraphing and bullets for ease of reading 
          Jdk 

  5. This is where phony “compassion” takes you. These are vagrants aka bums. Arrest them and put them to work cleaning the streets.

    • That’s a very good idea.
      Muni workers union representing them will scream bloody murder. (And ACLU)
      That’s what I was told when I asked why Anchorage jail inmates should be able to volunteer to help break up the 2 inches of of road sanding material along the curb before the street sweepers come in the spring.
      Work off some fines and exercise.

      • Imagine that. Having to clean up your own mess. I sure had to do that as a kid and have to do it as an adult. Riddle me this: why is the ACLU on the side of everyone except the law abiding citizen? I just don’t get it. Where are OUR rights?

  6. Everything a homeless person owns is in or at whatever place they have set up. Tent, bedding, any clothes. Maybe camping stuff. If you go stay at the Sullivan you likely can’t take that stuff with you. So if you leave your stuff behind, it won’t be there when you return. The use of the Sullivan won’t last for very long.

  7. Residents had been somewhat successful in the ever-encroaching hazard of the bums on private and public property, that is until our Dear Leader and his politburo shut us all in, leaving the streets of Anchorage in the hands of the double-dipping Homeless Coordinator, her zombie army, and the ever-expanding homeless industrial complex (~hic~). It is quite clear that Dear Leader and his team have engineered their plan to turn us into SF/LA/NYC. Just wait until we are all able to return to normal activity… You think being stuck at home is bad, wait till you try to go downtown, with the homeless owning that core that Dear Leader ceded to them. Taxpayers mean nothing to him, except that we are his cash cow, and since he got his emergency powers, he’s doing whatever he wants and screw us. Welcome to Dear Leader’s “New Normal.”

    • I am one of those business owner down on 3rd/4th ave. In the 5 year that we have been here the mayor has not one time to my knowledge ever come down here and rolled up his sleeves and pick up the mess that he and his administration has created!

      It also make me sick to think that the Mayor would ask the National Guard for help cleaning up his mess. These are hard working, typically young men and women that in no way should have to deal with that mess.

      • Agreed. National Guard should not be asked to clean up that mess. If Berkowitz worked along side of them for every hour they put in, then I might change my mind. It’s not about punishing Ethan. It’s about making him personally experiencing the problem from the unsafe environment to the human defecation and other wastes surround this encampment. If he participated in the clean up, I believe he would be sufficiently motivated to find a solution.

  8. Non profits and government love the homeless. It brings in money.. A non profit leaders said it’s great business and loves that the organization can employ people. They know that their efforts cannot make a difference, but they will apply and take the money over and over again. Just look at history. A few years ago Berkowitz took $11 million on left over tax money and threw it at the problem. No change…in fact the issue has gotten worse.. Sad that our non-profit leadership knows that they cannot do much but take the money from property tax payers!

  9. We need to discuss the question that is on everyone’s mind but no one wants to openly ask: Is a 9mm enough in this period of urban chaos? As a corollary; at what point do we stop being ladies and gentlemen in carrying concealed i.e. concealable firearms and begin carrying long arms? Optics be damned. If we have to go into known hazard zones a short-barreled shotgun with buckshot is far better, especially after dark.

  10. These are Bezerkie’s people. His supporters. Bezerkie’s Poop Patrol needs Democrat volunteers ….. now.

  11. A workable option might be deploying the National Guard to clean up Anchorage’s bum camps to EPA standards
    .
    …and billing the Municipality of Anchorage for the work.
    .
    Precedent exists; municipal policy lets city officials enter distressed private property to mitigate the same problem and bill owners for mitigation.
    .
    Voters were so eager to embrace new taxes in the last election, they should have no problem with a surcharge to clean up bum camps.
    .
    What better time to do this than while the public’s all fired up about public health?
    .
    Bums have clearly united to disobey “health mandates”, so city officials should round them up, show productive residents what’ll happen if they don’t give up their Constitutional freedoms and Bill of Rights and submit to “health mandates”.
    .
    But not to worry… voters solved the problem already by creating a brand-new Assembly position for the “urban core”, so things are good.

  12. The little Dictator who wants to control you and destroy your every Liberty can’t, or won’t control the citizens of the Berkowitzville shanty town. Anchorage is the official S-Hole of the People’s Republic of Alaska. Evil is as evil does.

  13. Mayor Berkowitz has turned Anchorage into San Francisco, but it’s the voters who allowed this to happen. They had a chance to elect Amy Demboski. They had a chance to elect Rebecca Logan. Voters, this is the hellhole that you created. Don’t ask our National Guard to come and clean up your mess.

    • I Vote and did not Vote for any of this. What you need to do is convince the people on the Hillside to stop giving the Mayor the ability to Kill this City. EAGLEXT NOW.

  14. I may be going out on a limb here, but has anyone considered asking law enforcement to uh…you know…enforce the law?

  15. It’s not the Governor’s job, nor Alaska Nat’l Guard’s job to clean up this mess, but the Anchorage Mayor’s job, who created this mess with unsuccessful campaigns to house, relocate and fund the homeless. Instead of appearing on TV looking like he is doing anything meaningful and enforcing the bunker in place mandates for otherwise law biding citizens, he needs to direct the APD to address the issue directly. It’s not as though there are a lot of people out doing business. Everyone involved here are victims, from the mentally ill homeless person, to the neighborhood residents in the midst of these encampments, to businesses who suffer from theft and vandalism. At the risk of sounding harsh and uncaring, these homeless folks will not change anything about their situation voluntarily, until the homeless are separated from their vice and properly evaluated for their mental health deficiency, the cycle will continue. Throwing money at the situation only perpetuates the flow of money.

  16. If you get good at handling the drug and crime riddled homeless element your reward will be more of them.

    It gets worse though. Consider the following…

    – May 1, 2020 BP abandons Alaska
    – May 1, 2020 Hilcorp takes over & 2/3rds of BP employees are left jobless
    – During 2020 State and local gov’t implodes due to irresponsible spend and reduced funding
    – Q2 2020 CapEx construction is being cancelled or postponed at an alarming rate
    – Q2 2020 Fed incentives make unemployment a $4k/mo summer vaca
    – Q2 2020 significant AK Industrial projects are being set aside
    – Q2 2020 AK distribution chain is rightsizing rapidly
    – Alaska’s 2020 commercial construction season is lost and will not recover.

    – Commercial construction in AK mirrors and lags the Slope. When the Slope is healthy consulting companies are designing projects that will be funded and built the following summer. That the Slope is in turmoil in 2020 means that commercial construction 2021 will be dead as well. Speculating beyond 2 years in Alaska is a masturbatory experience.

    – On top of it all we have as exacerbating viral cough that’s inseparable from the balance of our challenges.

    You should anticipate a significant exodus in Q3 and a burgeoning percentage of the remainder will be this underperforming miscreant population. If you think Mr. Berkowitz has been supportive of that segment’s growth heretofore you will hate seeing what’s about to happen as demographics naturally adjust post exodus. You’ll hate it more if Berkowitz’ influence persists.

  17. If some of these people are breaking the law they need to be arrested. I’ve worked in jails before and discovered, once in a supervised, controlled environment, with no access to drugs/alcohol they can work as trustees. Some have skills such as experience cooking for large groups. Given longer sentences they can get cleaned up & maybe participate in counseling. But sometimes it’s the controlled structure that holds them together. Once on the street again,free, it’s very possible they will end up homeless again despite everything.

    And now it looks like some number of these homeless are even unable to clean up their own messes or will not do it even if provided the tools & dumpsters to the point the National Guard may be asked to do it for them. If these people are that “helpless” maybe it’s time we consider sanitariums for them like we had for TB patients before we developed better medications. We’ve always had “hobos” and times of low employment where people had to create camps. But they usually sought privacy, cared for themselves as conditions allowed & avoided city parks & sidewalks. What we are seeing now is something else. I guess I’m saying if they can’t care for themselves & they insist on trying to live on our front door steps, despite all our efforts, they need to be institutionalized (needed be a jail but it does need to be secure) until they can do better for themselves or permanently as the case may be. If present law does not allow that we need new laws.

    If people know living their lifestyle may ultimately result in an involuntary commitment maybe they will move on, or be committed where they might get help.

    These are just ideas, but there has to be a solution. Enabling is not.

    • Correct …we should change some laws …to heck w/ the ACLU

      A lower security work camp past Willow (tents on platforms w/ small wood stoves)

      3 months ….. walk away, next time 6 months ….walk away next time a year

      Walk a 3rd time, real jail …. inhabitants must be in mental health/ rehab at the camp

      Churches & non profits can send books, clothing & toiletries to campers

      Let’s take care of our neighbors …..this is just nonsense ….it is NOT civilized

  18. Sounds like a good labor pool for the fish processing plants. Arrest them and sentence them to work. Give them a quota of fish to slime and if they reach it, theyre free to go (with $ in their pockets).

  19. Sounds like a good labor pool for the canneries. Arrest them, sentence them to work, give them a quota to fill over the course of the season, release them with money in their pockets.

  20. Dear mayor Berkowitz, your policies helped create this mess. You clean it up. Dont call on the state to clean it up so you can continue to mess things up. Your policies, your dime.

  21. Those aren’t homeless camps they are drinking camps, quit feeling sorry for them ! Most but not all like the life style they live. Arrest them or get out of the way.

  22. The mayor just needs to reinstitute the Kimmel Solution to the homeless problem downtown. I am sure GCI could support it with the right advertising

  23. Urge Your Local Assembly Rep.
    All pay to the executive Branch which includes Mayor suspended effective as of date of Shut down Order until it is lifted.

    “Let us all be in this together”

  24. This once was a great city now that the libs are in charge see what we get. We should transport them to the mayors and assembly members neighborhoods and according to the law they cannot be forced to leave. I would pay to make that happen.

  25. Hahahha..good one but. But, this is the only way we will ever find out someone’s personal (HIPPA private act) health situation is when they are diagnosed with the CCP virus adding to the phony stats…

  26. And I wonder if Berkowitz or his groupies will even see this article or these comments. He is being insulated by his fans and may never see how much damage he has done.

  27. What ever happen to the Air Guard anf Anc police drug scandal..just saying… no one seems to stop the flow of Drugs into AK.. wonder why?

Comments are closed.