I used to live nearby this area. Until I had kids I never cared much. After kids my view of this changed significantly. Scanning for needles in playgrounds is an unfortunate way to live. The breaking point came one Saturday afternoon when I was walking on Tremont street and a man pulled his pants down to inject heroin.
The bottom line is this: heroin possession is a crime. The people committing this crime should be held accountable under the law. No one is above the law.
The more people you move to Long Island, if built, the more will come to Mass and Cass awaiting transfer to Long Island. Why not? It’ll be like a five star resort only they stay for free.
The taxpayers of Boston will now take on the burden of housing addicts from all over the country. The cost of living in Boston for the working class is already through the roof.
We need to utilize the many shuttered state owned facilities already connected to roads and services.
Why should they have to obey laws and sober up to get FREE housing?
You think I am being "cruel"? Reread the article. That's the gist of why they "prefer" living on the street. Freedom to use. No rules to follow. They can't even support themselves yet they want free housing that accepts pets. Pets are a privilege not a ",right".
Assisting people who have been delt a unlucky hand GOOD
Catering to entitled junkies who think rules, regulations and laws don't apply to them?
A permanent home is the foundation of a successful and healthy life. Everybody needs one. Doesn't matter if it's 10x10 feet or 100x100. My town of less than 200,000 people has a homeless problem in our downtown core. Some of the solutions you propose would work well for my town.
False. The so-called right to shelter is a stain on Massachusetts and its taxpayers. Everyone has a right to public education, and to apply for jobs, and a minimal social safety net. But government supported housing for life (other than prison) is too much.
Mayor Wu, this Substack article came at the perfect time. I was just reading our Aberdeen, WA mayoral candidates’ propositions for our years long homelessness problem. I’ve shared this with them. Thank you.
I don’t even live in America, but this seems like self-exculpatory waffle. The mayor is making “solid progress on a situation that has been many years in the making” (Really? Doesn’t seem like it to me.) Everyone on the streets is “suffering” from one thing or another, but apparently no one on the streets has personal responsibility or should answer for their day-to-day actions.
There is another way to look at the “homelessness crisis”: Ask the question,
“Is the homelessness crisis” driven by groups exhibiting Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy, who work to keep the homeless homeless, so that their group can be seen as ‘heroic helpers’”?
Otherwise, why not lock up the perpetually homeless to protect them from themselves?
(The death rate of homelessness is higher than the Covid death rate.)
I appreciate this more in-depth discussion about the situation direct from the Mayor, as well as the detailed comments of residents. As a Boston resident not in the vicinity of Mass and Cass, this is very helpful to understanding it more fully. I hope that this time we really have a handle on the immediate issues AND root problems.
This ordinance bit is absurd. The tents are a public nuisance. Send the officers in with bulldozers behind them, announce the area must be vacated in one hour, then arrest everyone who fails to comply. The good news you do it on Friday there is little chance any clerk-magistrate will be available so they can sit in jail until courts reopen in Tuesday. Then call Maura Healey and say we need help with beds for rehab or we’ll be building them in the parks in Arlington all weekend and send people there after they are released on bail.
Every person that has died, been victimized, or human trafficked down there since day 1 of your term is your personal responsibility. Because you enabled the “safe space” in which it happened. May your judgment in the hereafter be reflective of that, as you placed personal improvement and agenda promotion over human lives. And now you want the police to go in and clean up your mess? Now? The ultimate in self serving hypocrisy. You reap what you sow Mayor Wu.
The “national context” part is terrible. Blatant excuse. And hedge to avoid accountability in the future and downplay what's going on. Disgraceful, honestly.
A farrago of self-flattering lies and misrepresentations. I will pick out a small number of them:
1) The crisis at Mass & Cass did not start when Walsh closed the bridge in 2014. Barbara Ferrer of Boston Public Health laid the foundation for the crisis when she stopped sending vans with clean needles all around the city and centralized needle distribution in one spot, on Albany Street near Mass Ave. Drug users had to come here (yes, I live around the corner) and drug dealers followed, and more drug users came from across the state and the Mass and Cass area became an open-air drug market. Closing the bridge made the problem more visible, but there were news programs (find them on youtube) about what they called Methadone Mile before the bridge came down. Barbara Ferrer moved on to Los Angeles Public Health and used the same Harm Reduction playbook to start an even bigger open-air drug market there.
2) Michelle Wu opposed reopening the bridge to Long Island for as long as she was a city councilor. She only adopted it after she became mayor because she, like Martin Walsh, found it a useful distraction from her disastrous policies.
3) Within a week of taking office, Michelle Wu cancelled Kim Janey’s plan because it did not meet the approval of the ACLU and began casting about for a new plan. While she diddled, two people froze to death. Yes, she got the tents down before the blizzard, but those tents came back and stayed up last winter because we were told the residents were safer and more comfortable that way. Now, she is telling us that the tents must come down before the winter because they will not be safe or comfortable.
4) At her press conference on January 10, 2022, just before tents came down Mayor Wu promised as her immediate strategy to clear the encampment and house those in tents, continue public health outreach, repair and clean the streets, and that “the Boston Police Department will ensure a safe environment for residents, businesses, and individuals accessing care.” Twelve months later, she boasted that the situation was 80 to 90 percent better to her Amen Corner at WBUR. Eighteen months later, the streets are neither clean nor repaired, the BPD has not been allowed to ensure a safe environment, and the tents are back, less numerous but much larger: in terms of square feet of tented space, it is a draw. There were only 150 people on the street when the tents came down, now there are more than 200. And that is after, according to Cullen Paradis of the Boston Guardian, she spent 40 million dollars in the last year and a half on these programs.
5) Yes, 149 people from the street are now in permanent housing, but not because they have achieved what she calls “stability, health, and recovery.” The Housing First approach rejects making housing contingent on treatment, and so the vast majority of those people are still using drugs. How is that progress? If they come back to Mass and Cass to buy drugs, they are still supporting the open-air drug market. If they buy locally, they are destabilizing the neighborhoods they are now living in.
6) The neighborhoods and business community has come up with a much better plan, Recover Boston, that would focus on recovery not the perpetuation of addiction. Mayor Wu does not like it because it did not emerge from the same experts at Boston Public Health who created the crisis in the first place.
Hi George, I appreciate your ongoing efforts as a neighborhood leader and our conversation earlier. As promised, wanted to share some thoughts publicly in case others have similar Qs. I hear your frustration and know that many residents and businesses have been calling for action and even offering suggestions for many years, while it's felt like you've only gotten failed promises in return. You refer to changes in City policies from the late Menino administration as the spark for increasing numbers of individuals using substances in the area, but it's also important to recognize a coinciding spike in opioid usage and overdose deaths nationally (local researcher Alicia Modestino's graph here lines up with some of the years we're talking about: https://econofact.org/how-opioid-overdoses-reached-crisis-levels). I wasn't in any kind of policymaking role then, but I imagine government officials were reacting to this disturbing national trend and trying to address resulting impacts such as the spread of transmissible illnesses from reused or shared needles. Compared to a decade ago, needle exchange is actually much more accessible today; in addition to the site on Albany St, there continues to be a mobile van and Fenway Health runs a needle exchange as well. But you don't need to be licensed to provide clean needles in MA, so there are many other unlicensed sites as well. The City has been taking steps to decentralize services, including creating additional engagement centers at Whittier Street and the Boston Living Center, and providing transport to and from day spaces around the city. On the Long Island bridge -- I wasn't opposed to reopening the island and building a dedicated campus, but always worried that we weren't acting urgently enough given long timelines for reconstruction and believed ferry service could happen faster, but as hard as I've pushed for evaluating ferry options, I've since been convinced by medical experts that the population of people we'd be serving need the reliability of ground transport. Even during the several trips I've taken out to Long Island, we've occasionally had to reschedule because of choppy water or inclement weather, so water transport is less reliable. At this point, we're confident in the work done to accelerate the permitting process and have identified philanthropic partners eager to get involved to make this a reality as quickly as possible. We've never used Long Island as a distraction--it's a needed long-term resource that will make a difference for the entire region and state, and we're already planning for the programming and design to open this back up on an expedited timeline, but as outlined in the post, we're ready to take action in the short term too to address the violence and criminal activity that has been going on for too long.
As the mayor today, I take responsibility for all the fits and starts of various steps and abandoned strategies of past administrations as we plan for what's needed now. I've worked to see and learn directly from all parts of what's happening--riding along with our Public Works team as they do the first 5:30am daily cleanings in the area, or with the BPD Street Outreach Team engaging with people on the street, or our public health workforce. The public health and housing infrastructure we've built up does make a difference in helping dozens of people toward recovery every month. Today the tents are not fortified structures with constant fires and illnesses from debris building up on the street. There are more than 200 people gathered during a summer day, but no where near 150 people who are in need of housing in winter. We're not where we need to be yet, but we're ready to take action focused on public safety with real resources behind it.
Mayer Wu, I just wish you would be open and honest with tax paying Boston residents about the ENTIRE cost of building the bridge, the island, the maintenance, the fire house and ALL expenses which will go on forever.
Give the full information to the taxpayers and put it up for a vote. Thank you.
House them in the prisons. There are plenty of drugs there. Just ask Freda Brasfield. Meanwhile, my formerly fiercely independent, 80-year-old mother who worked her entire life and never did a single drug will be forced to move in with me next weekend because rent prices are so ridiculously high here. What an upside down world.
The conditions at Mass/Cass continue to remain inhumane and out of control for everyone.
What’s disappointing is that resident and business concerns are not being taken into consideration nor incorporated as part of the plan.
For those of us that have been experiencing the effects of the crisis first hand are very worried to see more of the same from this administration - which policies have continued to grow the crisis and keep people with addiction suffering.
Parks, schools, neighborhoods will bear the brunt of the pending dispersement of folks when Atkinson closes. We’ve seen and experienced this before.
Asking that Mayor WU please consider and plan for the impacts to residents safety and quality of life before moving forward with this ordinance.
We have ideas and solutions to help everyone. We want to work with you to help solve this.
Where's the money going to come from to help "U.S. citizens" ? Everyone knows that the Democrats are more concerned with flooding our cities and towns with migrants, and our tax dollars are needed to house and support them.
I am not sure your premise is correct. It seems more likely that these people are on the street due to serious mental health issues, including drug addiction. If housing affordability were really the issue, it seems the solution would be as simple as moving to a less expensive area. In addition, it is hard to see how health care cost is at the root of the problem. Wouldn't most, if not all, of these people qualify for Medicaid?
How are your nazi vax passports coming?
I used to live nearby this area. Until I had kids I never cared much. After kids my view of this changed significantly. Scanning for needles in playgrounds is an unfortunate way to live. The breaking point came one Saturday afternoon when I was walking on Tremont street and a man pulled his pants down to inject heroin.
The bottom line is this: heroin possession is a crime. The people committing this crime should be held accountable under the law. No one is above the law.
Build it and they will come. In droves.
The more people you move to Long Island, if built, the more will come to Mass and Cass awaiting transfer to Long Island. Why not? It’ll be like a five star resort only they stay for free.
The taxpayers of Boston will now take on the burden of housing addicts from all over the country. The cost of living in Boston for the working class is already through the roof.
We need to utilize the many shuttered state owned facilities already connected to roads and services.
Please, Mayor Wu.
"meet the level of need we’re seeing"
Free Government Housing for Junkies
Why should they have to obey laws and sober up to get FREE housing?
You think I am being "cruel"? Reread the article. That's the gist of why they "prefer" living on the street. Freedom to use. No rules to follow. They can't even support themselves yet they want free housing that accepts pets. Pets are a privilege not a ",right".
Assisting people who have been delt a unlucky hand GOOD
Catering to entitled junkies who think rules, regulations and laws don't apply to them?
Sounds like bad public policy. ✅
A permanent home is the foundation of a successful and healthy life. Everybody needs one. Doesn't matter if it's 10x10 feet or 100x100. My town of less than 200,000 people has a homeless problem in our downtown core. Some of the solutions you propose would work well for my town.
False. The so-called right to shelter is a stain on Massachusetts and its taxpayers. Everyone has a right to public education, and to apply for jobs, and a minimal social safety net. But government supported housing for life (other than prison) is too much.
Mayor Wu, this Substack article came at the perfect time. I was just reading our Aberdeen, WA mayoral candidates’ propositions for our years long homelessness problem. I’ve shared this with them. Thank you.
Have they re-opened the bridge? Or are those buildings and resources just deteriorating while governments argue about money?
Argue about money? It’ll cost $ one billion dollars. An argument worth having.
I don’t even live in America, but this seems like self-exculpatory waffle. The mayor is making “solid progress on a situation that has been many years in the making” (Really? Doesn’t seem like it to me.) Everyone on the streets is “suffering” from one thing or another, but apparently no one on the streets has personal responsibility or should answer for their day-to-day actions.
There is another way to look at the “homelessness crisis”: Ask the question,
“Is the homelessness crisis” driven by groups exhibiting Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy, who work to keep the homeless homeless, so that their group can be seen as ‘heroic helpers’”?
Otherwise, why not lock up the perpetually homeless to protect them from themselves?
(The death rate of homelessness is higher than the Covid death rate.)
I appreciate this more in-depth discussion about the situation direct from the Mayor, as well as the detailed comments of residents. As a Boston resident not in the vicinity of Mass and Cass, this is very helpful to understanding it more fully. I hope that this time we really have a handle on the immediate issues AND root problems.
This ordinance bit is absurd. The tents are a public nuisance. Send the officers in with bulldozers behind them, announce the area must be vacated in one hour, then arrest everyone who fails to comply. The good news you do it on Friday there is little chance any clerk-magistrate will be available so they can sit in jail until courts reopen in Tuesday. Then call Maura Healey and say we need help with beds for rehab or we’ll be building them in the parks in Arlington all weekend and send people there after they are released on bail.
Every person that has died, been victimized, or human trafficked down there since day 1 of your term is your personal responsibility. Because you enabled the “safe space” in which it happened. May your judgment in the hereafter be reflective of that, as you placed personal improvement and agenda promotion over human lives. And now you want the police to go in and clean up your mess? Now? The ultimate in self serving hypocrisy. You reap what you sow Mayor Wu.
The “national context” part is terrible. Blatant excuse. And hedge to avoid accountability in the future and downplay what's going on. Disgraceful, honestly.
A farrago of self-flattering lies and misrepresentations. I will pick out a small number of them:
1) The crisis at Mass & Cass did not start when Walsh closed the bridge in 2014. Barbara Ferrer of Boston Public Health laid the foundation for the crisis when she stopped sending vans with clean needles all around the city and centralized needle distribution in one spot, on Albany Street near Mass Ave. Drug users had to come here (yes, I live around the corner) and drug dealers followed, and more drug users came from across the state and the Mass and Cass area became an open-air drug market. Closing the bridge made the problem more visible, but there were news programs (find them on youtube) about what they called Methadone Mile before the bridge came down. Barbara Ferrer moved on to Los Angeles Public Health and used the same Harm Reduction playbook to start an even bigger open-air drug market there.
2) Michelle Wu opposed reopening the bridge to Long Island for as long as she was a city councilor. She only adopted it after she became mayor because she, like Martin Walsh, found it a useful distraction from her disastrous policies.
3) Within a week of taking office, Michelle Wu cancelled Kim Janey’s plan because it did not meet the approval of the ACLU and began casting about for a new plan. While she diddled, two people froze to death. Yes, she got the tents down before the blizzard, but those tents came back and stayed up last winter because we were told the residents were safer and more comfortable that way. Now, she is telling us that the tents must come down before the winter because they will not be safe or comfortable.
4) At her press conference on January 10, 2022, just before tents came down Mayor Wu promised as her immediate strategy to clear the encampment and house those in tents, continue public health outreach, repair and clean the streets, and that “the Boston Police Department will ensure a safe environment for residents, businesses, and individuals accessing care.” Twelve months later, she boasted that the situation was 80 to 90 percent better to her Amen Corner at WBUR. Eighteen months later, the streets are neither clean nor repaired, the BPD has not been allowed to ensure a safe environment, and the tents are back, less numerous but much larger: in terms of square feet of tented space, it is a draw. There were only 150 people on the street when the tents came down, now there are more than 200. And that is after, according to Cullen Paradis of the Boston Guardian, she spent 40 million dollars in the last year and a half on these programs.
5) Yes, 149 people from the street are now in permanent housing, but not because they have achieved what she calls “stability, health, and recovery.” The Housing First approach rejects making housing contingent on treatment, and so the vast majority of those people are still using drugs. How is that progress? If they come back to Mass and Cass to buy drugs, they are still supporting the open-air drug market. If they buy locally, they are destabilizing the neighborhoods they are now living in.
6) The neighborhoods and business community has come up with a much better plan, Recover Boston, that would focus on recovery not the perpetuation of addiction. Mayor Wu does not like it because it did not emerge from the same experts at Boston Public Health who created the crisis in the first place.
Can you share a link to the Recover Boston plan?
NJC: If you send me your contact information, I can send you more information from the creators of the plan. They do not have a website yet.
Right on George
Hi George, I appreciate your ongoing efforts as a neighborhood leader and our conversation earlier. As promised, wanted to share some thoughts publicly in case others have similar Qs. I hear your frustration and know that many residents and businesses have been calling for action and even offering suggestions for many years, while it's felt like you've only gotten failed promises in return. You refer to changes in City policies from the late Menino administration as the spark for increasing numbers of individuals using substances in the area, but it's also important to recognize a coinciding spike in opioid usage and overdose deaths nationally (local researcher Alicia Modestino's graph here lines up with some of the years we're talking about: https://econofact.org/how-opioid-overdoses-reached-crisis-levels). I wasn't in any kind of policymaking role then, but I imagine government officials were reacting to this disturbing national trend and trying to address resulting impacts such as the spread of transmissible illnesses from reused or shared needles. Compared to a decade ago, needle exchange is actually much more accessible today; in addition to the site on Albany St, there continues to be a mobile van and Fenway Health runs a needle exchange as well. But you don't need to be licensed to provide clean needles in MA, so there are many other unlicensed sites as well. The City has been taking steps to decentralize services, including creating additional engagement centers at Whittier Street and the Boston Living Center, and providing transport to and from day spaces around the city. On the Long Island bridge -- I wasn't opposed to reopening the island and building a dedicated campus, but always worried that we weren't acting urgently enough given long timelines for reconstruction and believed ferry service could happen faster, but as hard as I've pushed for evaluating ferry options, I've since been convinced by medical experts that the population of people we'd be serving need the reliability of ground transport. Even during the several trips I've taken out to Long Island, we've occasionally had to reschedule because of choppy water or inclement weather, so water transport is less reliable. At this point, we're confident in the work done to accelerate the permitting process and have identified philanthropic partners eager to get involved to make this a reality as quickly as possible. We've never used Long Island as a distraction--it's a needed long-term resource that will make a difference for the entire region and state, and we're already planning for the programming and design to open this back up on an expedited timeline, but as outlined in the post, we're ready to take action in the short term too to address the violence and criminal activity that has been going on for too long.
As the mayor today, I take responsibility for all the fits and starts of various steps and abandoned strategies of past administrations as we plan for what's needed now. I've worked to see and learn directly from all parts of what's happening--riding along with our Public Works team as they do the first 5:30am daily cleanings in the area, or with the BPD Street Outreach Team engaging with people on the street, or our public health workforce. The public health and housing infrastructure we've built up does make a difference in helping dozens of people toward recovery every month. Today the tents are not fortified structures with constant fires and illnesses from debris building up on the street. There are more than 200 people gathered during a summer day, but no where near 150 people who are in need of housing in winter. We're not where we need to be yet, but we're ready to take action focused on public safety with real resources behind it.
Mayer Wu, I just wish you would be open and honest with tax paying Boston residents about the ENTIRE cost of building the bridge, the island, the maintenance, the fire house and ALL expenses which will go on forever.
Give the full information to the taxpayers and put it up for a vote. Thank you.
House them in the prisons. There are plenty of drugs there. Just ask Freda Brasfield. Meanwhile, my formerly fiercely independent, 80-year-old mother who worked her entire life and never did a single drug will be forced to move in with me next weekend because rent prices are so ridiculously high here. What an upside down world.
Perfectly said George.
The conditions at Mass/Cass continue to remain inhumane and out of control for everyone.
What’s disappointing is that resident and business concerns are not being taken into consideration nor incorporated as part of the plan.
For those of us that have been experiencing the effects of the crisis first hand are very worried to see more of the same from this administration - which policies have continued to grow the crisis and keep people with addiction suffering.
Parks, schools, neighborhoods will bear the brunt of the pending dispersement of folks when Atkinson closes. We’ve seen and experienced this before.
Asking that Mayor WU please consider and plan for the impacts to residents safety and quality of life before moving forward with this ordinance.
We have ideas and solutions to help everyone. We want to work with you to help solve this.
The Long Island facility is a Billion dollar project. Money better spent elsewhere.
Where's the money going to come from to help "U.S. citizens" ? Everyone knows that the Democrats are more concerned with flooding our cities and towns with migrants, and our tax dollars are needed to house and support them.
I am not sure your premise is correct. It seems more likely that these people are on the street due to serious mental health issues, including drug addiction. If housing affordability were really the issue, it seems the solution would be as simple as moving to a less expensive area. In addition, it is hard to see how health care cost is at the root of the problem. Wouldn't most, if not all, of these people qualify for Medicaid?