ALPINE BAKERY – SPRING 2025

Due to all of the broken promises and our broken dream, we feel that we can no longer maintain our silence and that we must share our story with you.

Years ago, we moved to Whitehorse to settle into a vibrant community. We purchased the Alpine Bakery property on Alexander Street as our home sweet home and as a business. We invested our life savings to take over the Alpine Bakery because it was a respected business locally known as a Whitehorse landmark. After our take over, the bakery continued to provide 100% certified organic healthy food with many dietary options. Wanting to be good corporate citizens, we ran the bakery as a social enterprise and contributed 1% of our sales to an environmentally friendly fund.

After we purchased Alpine Bakery, the shelter was built by Yukon Government a few doors down from our location. We understood the goal of the shelter. Being socially conscious people, we understood that the facility was required to assist with the challenges that others may be facing with addiction, homelessness and mental health.

At the beginning, under Salvation Army management, the shelter operated as a dry facility with low to moderate impact on the neighborhood. After Yukon Government took over control of the shelter and transformed it in a low barrier facility, issues started to arise. A worker at the shelter described her workplace as a “no barrier” facility during a hearing in 2024. 

Alexander Street and surrounding area is not safe anymore. We and others in the area experience open violence during the day and at night. You can witness everything from drug dealing to violent fights in the street. Everyday we are now collecting needles, picking up human feces on our property, dealing with individuals blocking our doorways, feeling intimidation, threats, and even having to use side doors to access our building. Sleeping is often impossible due to the blasting of loud music, yelling and relentless screaming throughout the night.

We tried to work with government officials including the Minister of Health and Social Services and Premier, attended community meetings, etc. This was to no avail. Some of our customers, such as the elderly, parents with young kids and women, apologized for not being able to attend our place of business any longer. They shared with us that they did not feel safe anymore to walk on Alexander or to enter the bakery because of individuals blocking our entrance. As a result, we had to close the bakery because a business simply cannot operate in this type of environment. We can’t even sell our business. We face a dilemma of having to find another location in order to get healthy sleep or having to stay in our home above the bakery out of the fear of leaving the building unattended at night.

We received plenty of letters containing promises of action and “political nothingness” from the Yukon Government. The Premier even took over the shelter file from Minister MacPhee with a promise of change. Some actions were indeed taken such as security patrols – only temporary and with no power of enforcement - and the benches outside the shelter were removed. Needless to say, these steps did not bring positive change. The gatherings simply moved across the street with people sitting on the curb or on the ground. We and others in the neighborhood then experienced an increase of personal threats (even inside our building), property damage, etc. To add insult to injury, there is now a sign posted at the  shelter “no loitering”. The irony is striking.

We had hoped that the situation would improve and that we could one day re-open by giving government measures a chance. We continued to maintain our organic certifications with the hope that things would change. Regrettably, the situation has not improved – in some ways it has worsened. We feel that the measures ended up being “band-aid” solutions masking the problems. We have lost hope. All of this has been already voiced by community members, neighbors, neighboring businesses, some First Nations, shelter staff and even shelter guests.

Being a good neighbor doesn’t mean “putting up and shutting up” as this government seems to want us to do - being a good neighbor involves mutual respect and understanding. It means working together to find solutions. We understand that is a politically charged matter but ignoring the situation doesn’t make it any better for anyone.

Although the Premier is loudly promoting the support of local businesses, the actions (or inactions) of his government demonstrate otherwise. We have received more support and encouragement from local businesses and community members than we have from our own government.

After we sent the Premier and other government officials our security camera footage capturing loud street parties at 3:00 a.m., fights, open sexual activity, theft, drug use, drug dealing and other types of violent and criminal acts to raise awareness and show what is happening on our doorstep, we were informed that the sharing of this footage was inappropriate, disrespectful and should cease. We remain speechless because we chose to be respectful by not posting any video content on social media and sharing it with a select few. The lack of concrete action by Yukon Government has in essence expropriated us from the enjoyment of our home and ability to make a living through our business. That’s our reality but that’s apparently acceptable because this government is choosing to look the other way.

Silvia + Walter Streit, Whitehorse, 2025 April 13