It should go without saying that the solution to a problem shouldn’t entail making the problem worse.
For Boston, finding a solution to the humanitarian crisis playing out daily at Mass and Cass has been an endless loop of one step forward, two steps back.
Now the city is taking three steps back.
On Tuesday, Hub officials announced a plan to clear the encampments on Atkinson Street in the South End, as Boston 25 reported. This sounds like a good idea, especially as violence has been on the rise in the area.
But there’s more.
The city is looking to open up a new “safe sleeping area” and clinical services site at 725-727 Mass. Ave. near Albany Street, said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission.
Welcome to Mass and Alb.
“All we’re trying to do is find a safe place for a small group of people to exist and sleep temporarily while we bring some order to that street,” said Dr. Ojikutu.
City leaders have been trying to bring order to that street for years, only to find disorder returning again and again. In this context, the term “temporarily” has little meaning.
Dr. Ojikutu said people wouldn’t be allowed to use drugs inside the new area, and that security would be in place around the clock.
Technically, people aren’t allowed to use illicit drugs along Mass and Cass – but they do anyway. Addiction doesn’t care about the law, only about securing the next fix. And while this “safe sleeping area” is intended for a small cohort of homeless people who choose not to use a shelter, what’s to prevent other denizens of the Methadone Mile from seeking out the new digs?
“People are not going to be allowed to stand around outside. We will also have increased lighting, increased cameras, and the metal detector to enter the building,” Dr. Ojikutu explained.
South End residents aren’t buying it.
State Rep. John Moran, who lives in the South End, said “this is ridiculous. I’ve had it. We’re not putting a fourth shelter in the South End!”
Spreading the Mass and Cass problem to another part of the neighborhood is a recipe for disaster. But city leaders who dreamed up this idea are not the only ones at fault.
The South End has been Ground Zero for the horrors of the Methadone Mile for years, and that’s suited residents of other Boston neighborhoods and nearby cities and towns just fine.
Addiction and homelessness are everyone’s problem, but judging from the pushback and punchback from Revere and Quincy, who opposed putting unhoused people in a hotel and building a bridge to access rehab facilities, respectively, these are problems best left to fester in Boston.
The idea of using a Dorchester hotel as supportive housing for homeless people whipped up ire among neighborhood residents, although the BPDA ultimately approved the plan.
It’s no wonder Boston is throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.
But maintaining the status quo for South End residents and businesses who’ve lived with the Mass and Cass mess for years has to be off the table.
Those who live in the South End need – and deserve – to sleep safely as well.
