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Boston removes about a dozen tents from Mass. and Cass encampment
"Is the city just going to keep doing this? Or are they going to make a reasonable offer?”
About a dozen tents were removed from the encampment near Mass. and Cass over the course of three hours on Thursday, WBUR reports.
mass. and cass
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Elected officials join doctors and advocates pushing back against plan for addiction treatment at Suffolk County jail
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Experts in public health, housing, and addiction rebuke Boston officials over actions at Mass. and Cass.
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City begins ‘general cleanup’ around Mass. and Cass following executive order from Kim Janey
Boston began efforts earlier this week for what city officials called a “general cleanup” of the streets around the area, which has become the epicenter of the overlapping crises of addiction, homelessness, and mental health in the city. The move followed after Acting Mayor Kim Janey issued an executive order last week aimed at clearing the more than 100 tents that have been set up in the streets since the summer.
Janey declared the situation around Mass. and Cass a public health emergency and said “tents and temporary shelters will no longer be permitted” in the city.
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According to WBUR, while the city had removed a few tents since the executive order was issued last week, Thursday marked the largest number of tents cleared in the area. Janey’s office told the radio station that the nor’easter this week delayed the removals until Thursday and that the planned action was part of regular cleanup for scheduled building maintenance.
Janey and city officials have said that under the executive order, the approach to tents and temporary shelters will be guided by public health and ensuring the respect and dignity of the unhoused individuals in the encampments. Officials said people living in tents will not be given a notice to move unless a shelter bed or placement is available to them “at the time of removal” and that the city must also offer free short-term storage for personal belongings. But in cases where a person refuses the available services, the individual could be charged with disorderly conduct.
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The city said with the commencement of the “general cleanup” earlier this week that no individuals would be asked to move their tent as part of the effort without first being offered shelter.
Mario Chaparro, a program director with the Boston Public Health Commission who oversaw the removal effort on Thursday, told WBUR three people agreed to go to shelters or seek services.
But individuals who had their tents removed told the radio station that they preferred living in the encampment to going to a shelter.
Ronald Geddes, 53, who has been living in the area for months, told WBUR he was offered a bed in a nearby shelter. But he said he moved his belongings to another area when he heard the city was removing tents on Southampton Street and Theodore Glynn Way, where he was originally set up.
“Is the city just going to keep doing this?” he said. “Or are they going to make a reasonable offer? I don’t want to share a shower and bathroom with somebody, and a kitchen. And that’s all I can afford right now — a room — and I don’t want to do it. I’d rather live in a tent.”
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The city’s revamped approach to tents and encampments, as well as a plan from Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins to establish a court and treatment facilities at the South Bay correctional campus to bring in people from Mass. and Cass with outstanding warrants, have drawn sharp rebuke from a coalition of doctors, advocates, researchers, and elected officials.
The group is raising concerns that the approaches by both the city and the sheriff will cause harm to an already vulnerable population by criminalizing and dispersing individuals who would be better served by low barrier housing and other public health measures.
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