by Peter Twitchell
My next article is a continuation of what I brought up not too long ago. A lifelong friend of mine and I openly discussed the homeless situation in Bethel because he has had a brush with the homeless on his property. The community of Bethel became a caterer to people who had no place to stay and were not Bethel residents, but people from various villages in the Y-K Delta.
If you’re reading this article you’re definitely aware of the homeless problem the City of Bethel has been experiencing for the last twenty years, and is still a problem and growing. The City of Bethel allowed the homeless residence from villages within the Y-K Delta to come to Bethel and put up house.
It started with the churches putting up homeless in their church properties to keep them out of the cold. The various churches in Bethel alternated in taking in these homeless people to give them shelter and they fed them meals. Churches in their infinite wisdom perpetuated a problem that is growing like cancer – there are problems created by these homeless.
These abandoned houses in Bethel were once homes to our Elders but the homeless have no respect for people past and present.
Some of these people who were put up by the churches so they wouldn’t freeze to death may have said, “Oh boy, we can party now and Bethel will take care of us!”
And here they come. They’re all over the place in Bethel taking over abandoned buildings that belong to people and their descendants who own these properties. They don’t respect Bethel people, the villages they represent, or themselves. It makes me wonder that some people are like that!
My extended family called the Bethel Police Department and asked them to please remove the homeless that were wrecking my Mother’s house on Watson’s Corner. Removing the door, breaking windows, and trashing a home which doesn’t belong to them. I wondered, do these homeless people have the right to do that because no one lives in that house and is someone else’s property?
My friend in Bethel and I conversed for some time and then he hit the nail on the head. He said, the homeless need a blue ticket to go back to their villages – thus the end to our homeless problem! I believe my friend has the Wisdom and foresight. I would nominate him to be the next Chief of our Yup’ik tribe. We need desperately someone to set the record straight and run our community so that it’s in order. Thank you my friend to lending an ear and speaking words of wisdom. Too many lack such words today, which is only the truth.
