Residents in Boston neighborhoods heavily impacted by spillover from the dismantled Mass and Cass encampment said the violence, open-air drug use and squatting that typically dies down in cold weather is spiking instead this winter.

Boston Police officials said that over the past three or four weeks, the department has taken a “much more proactive approach to” responding to “some of the street-level events” that residents from those surrounding neighborhoods, particularly the South End, were discussing at a Tuesday community meeting.

“I’ve been attacked, I’ve been kicked,” said Brian McCarter, a South End resident. “I get yelled at coming in and out of my door. I’ve had neighbors that get assaulted. People breach our gates and have stolen stuff off our porch area.

“You get yelled at on the daily, just going by any of those crowds, saying ‘don’t be looking, don’t be taking pictures.’ So sometimes you have to go around the block or go other directions because it’s not very good.”

McCarter said he’s looked out his window on prior occasions and “guys had hatchets on the sidewalks.” He’s seen other men who hang around the area pull out knives.

“At this point, I have to assume everybody is armed, because they are pretty much always armed,” McCarter said. “You have to actively avoid the crowd so you don’t get hit and you don’t get hurt, and maybe not get stabbed.”

Andrew Brand, a South End resident, said that while the city’s “no-tolerance policy” for encampments, violence and drug use cleared the formerly tent-ridden open-air drug market on Atkinson Street in November 2023, that same policy wasn’t extended to nearby areas, “which are a lot less safe now” than before.

After the implementation of the city’s anti-encampment ordinance, many drug users went to Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, the intersection known as Mass and Cass, while others dispersed to the South End, Andrew Square, Clifford Park, Nubian Square and other surrounding neighborhoods, Brand said.

Brand said there’s been shootings and stabbings in those areas since the fall 2023 crackdown. He said large crowds attract more dealers, who often become violent, while sharing a presentation that highlighted two shootings that took place near the Leon de Juda Church, where bullet holes pierced the walls.

“We aren’t going to solve this by playing whack-a-mole,” Brand, co-president of the Worcester Square Area Neighborhood Association, said. “The only way to solve it is to get people off the streets and into recovery.”

State Rep. John Moran, who represents the South End, cautioned against painting a picture of lawlessness in the area that didn’t correlate with police crime data.

“I want to make sure that we don’t leave the impression that frankly the South End is some type of war zone,” Moran said.

Brand shot back by saying that, “Depending on where you are, it’s a fairly accurate impression.”

“I’m not saying people are getting shot every day, but it might lead to that,” Brand said. “When we ignored the problem before, that’s eventually what happened. This is a trend. You can see it happening in slow motion.”

Other residents expressed similar frustrations.

“My problem here is, how do we fix something that’s so broken?” Linda Zablocki, president of the Andrew Square Civic Association, said. “Open drug use is condoned, so how do we fix this?”

Residents said planning to address problems at and around Mass and Cass is particularly important now, as the violence, drug use and other deviant behavior seen in those areas typically spikes when the weather gets warmer.

Police officials said that, along with being “much more proactive” in the area over the past three or four weeks, they’re already preparing for warm weather spikes. Those incidents typically pick up sometime after St. Patrick’s Day and gearing up toward the Boston Marathon, police said.

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Boston Police said shoplifting from Mass and Cass inhabitants remains a major problem, but shared statistics for the South End that showed over the past two-week reporting period, there’s only been eight violent crime incidents of the 114 incidents reported. Of those eight, three were in the Mass and Cass area.

Wu administration and BPD officials said they’ve shifted their approach to a more coordinated “tough-love” response that focuses on not only addressing the needs of the sick and addicted, but the quality of life of the residents they impact.

“In terms of displacement to the neighborhoods, I always refer to it as the water balloon problem,” Boston Police Superintendent Bob Ciccolo said. “No matter where we squeeze it, it’s going to come out somewhere else. We have to continuously be in motion, reassessing and hitting that.”

City Councilor Ed Flynn said there needs to be “zero tolerance for violent crime and open-air drug dealing” in the city.

Flynn said individuals with addiction should have access to treatment — but that the dealers who prey on them or others who commit violence should be “arrested, and if convicted, receive a state prison sentence.”

City workers clean up debris in the area of Atkinson Street in the South End Tuesday. Area residents say the problems associated with drug use and addiction that usually go down during the winter have remained elevated this year. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald)