Mayor Michelle Wu on Aug. 28 unveiled her latest plan to battle the opioid epidemic and homelessness crisis in the city’s Mass. and Cass area, but a hearing on her proposal won’t be held until late September, after the city holds its preliminary elections.

Wu pushed her plan with urgency last month, describing finding new solutions to dissolve the tent city and “open air drug market” on the border of Roxbury and the South End as a matter of “life or death.”

The mayor urged the city council to take “swift and urgent action” to approve her proposed ordinance which would grant Boston police the ability to take down tents and tarps that she says hide criminal activity such as drug trading and sex trafficking, “in order for City officials and provider partners to finalize preparations and begin implementation well before the colder temperatures of late fall and winter.”

Separately, City Councilors Erin Murphy, Frank Baker, Ed Flynn and Michael Flaherty are calling for the Boston Public Health Commission to declare a state of emergency, claiming that “dramatic intervention is vital.”

The City Council Committee on Government Operations, chaired by Councilor Ricardo Arroyo, has now scheduled a hearing on Wu’s ordinance and it will fall almost a full month after the council moved Wu’s petition into their legislative process. The hearing is set for Sept. 28, over a month after the mayor’s original announcement.

Arroyo is busy this month defending his District 5 seat, as he faces three challengers in a preliminary election on Sept. 12.

– Sam Drysdale / SHNS