How to best manage the intertwined problems of homelessness and public drug use that converge around the crossroads of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard has long been a source of frustration for Boston’s police, public health authorities, and leaders.
The problematic neighborhood known as Mass and Cass is still a hub for drug activity and a gathering place for the homeless two years after the city dismantled a nearby tent encampment where officials claimed drug usage, drug trading, and sex trafficking were common.
Many of the former residents of Mass and Cass have subsequently moved into the adjacent neighborhoods, according to South End locals. They claim that there has been a noticeable rise in drug dealing, visible substance use, and abandoned needles in their communities in recent months.
In a Tuesday interview with WBUR, Mayor Michelle Wu stated, “It’s not okay.” I have three children. The possibility that one of their children might encounter something similar while simply strolling through the city or any other location should never even cross a parent’s mind.
Philanthropist Josh Kraft, Wu’s primary reelection opponent, claimed the mayor has not done enough to improve the situation around Mass and Cass and should do more to help individuals get off the streets and into addiction treatment centers.
Both agreed that it would be extremely challenging to address the expanding homelessness crisis and the national drug epidemic locally.
Here are the things Kraft suggests doing differently and what the mayor claims her administration is already doing.
In a June letter to South eradicate residents, Wu outlined her plan to eradicate congregate substance use in Boston and the criminal activity that encourages it by utilizing all available city government tools in collaboration with the state and charitable organizations.
Dismantling the tent camp on Atkinson Street, a side street close to Mass and Cass, in November 2023 was a crucial component of that strategy. According to city officials, the location had descended into a public health crisis, with drug use and violence rife within and surrounding the tents. Social workers were able to assist residents in finding housing and recovery assistance once the campground was dismantled.
Devoted efforts to stop the tents from reemerging were as crucial, according to officials.
Police did not record a homicide in the vicinity of Mass and Cass in the year after the removal of the tents from Atkinson Street. In February, the Wu administration delivered a seven-page document to Boston City Councilors stating that violent crime rapes, attempted rapes, robberies, and assaults had all decreased.
According to the document, the city’s strategy is constantly changing to address the persistent problems of group outdoor drug use that have extended to Roxbury, Downtown Boston and Boston Common, the South End, and portions of Dorchester and South Boston.
A crucial component of the plan is the Boston Coordinated Response Team, which works with local agencies to enforce laws prohibiting outdoor encampments and responds to constituent calls about widespread drug use in public places and related problems.
The team collaborates with Boston Police to link individuals battling addiction to treatment programs and residential recovery services provided by the Boston Public Health Commission and other organizations.
The Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office provides programs that steer individuals toward treatment instead of the conventional criminal justice system for some individuals facing nonviolent drug charges.
Wu said last month that the Coordinated Response Team would be expanded with $200,000 in new grant funding.
With an emphasis on enforcing drug-related crimes, those efforts have also coincided with a continuous increase in police presence near Mass and Cass and other areas where drug usage is common.
Additionally, police made more outreach officers with specialized training available to help those in the Mass and Cass area who are struggling with mental health and drug use issues.
Kraft claims that Wu’s strategy has not resolved the issues at Mass and Cass and has frequently made them worse. He also claims that the prevalence of outdoor living, trespassing, and discarded needles has reached unbearable levels in several communities.
His plan calls for police to crack down harder on quality-of-life offenses like trespassing, public drug use, and tent camping. Specialty courts would handle prosecutions with the goal of guiding defendants into treatment programs as opposed to jail.
Additionally, Kraft would bring back the Community Syringe Redemption Program, a needle recovery initiative funded by pandemic relief funds that urged individuals to return discarded needles for a cash reimbursement.
The program’s funding expired last year.
The city is currently concentrating its needle collection efforts in other areas.
According to the Wu administration, the Boston Public Health Commission’s Mobile Sharps Team is still working at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to pick up needles around the city. Another initiative employs people in the early stages of recovery to pick up syringes and clean the streets.
However, following news that a 4-year-old child stepped on a discarded needle in a park in South Boston and now needs to start a long-term HIV prevention program, Kraft has intensified his requests to amp up the cleanup efforts this week.
Kraft stated on Monday that no mother or 4-year-old child should ever have to go through this.
Additionally, under Kraft, authorities would create a treatment campus in or close to Boston to offer accommodation and support services to individuals attempting to overcome addiction. According to Kraft, the site might cover the void left by the closing of the Long Island facility in Boston Harbor more than ten years ago, where the city provided social services and shelter to hundreds of homeless individuals.
When authorities concluded that the bridge that connected Long Island to the mainland was no longer structurally sound, they closed the facility.
In an attempt to strengthen the local-state relationship on public health issues, which Kraft claimed deteriorated under Wu, the state would jointly fund and oversee the proposed campus.
In collaboration with the state, the Kraft plan also calls for a large increase in shelter beds to house everyone who is homeless.
According to the Boston Herald, a South End community leader advocated for the deployment of National Guard troops in the Mass and Cass area to support the city’s response to public drug use and homelessness, but then retracted the proposal.
Wu denied that notion, stating on Monday that she did not believe a military presence in our city was necessary or desirable.
A Kraft campaign representative did not immediately respond when asked if Kraft was in favor of sending Guard troops. He directed a reporter instead to the candidate’s Mass and Cass policy and recent remarks about discarded needles, which included a request that the mayor pledge to take immediate action to collect all used needles in Boston.
