Mass and Cass Engagement Center to close temporarily
Due to uptick in violence, “public safety necessitates” the closure, city says
The Mass and Cass Engagement Center will close until next week after a swell of violence in and around it, with the city saying “public safety necessitates” the closure.
“Our approach to the crises centered in the area known as Mass and Cass have always been centered on public health and safety,” a spokesman for Mayor Michelle Wu said in a statement Wednesday night.
“Right now, public safety necessitates that we shut down Atkinson Street, including the Engagement Center, for a few days. Outreach teams will continue to work in the area to provide services to those that need them. We will continue to offer transportation to daytime service centers in Boston,” the spokesman added.
Atkinson is the heart of the area known as Mass and Cass or Methadone Mile, where open-air drug dealing and use predominate. Though the Wu administration cleared away the hundreds-strong tent city that sprung up around the area over the past year, the population on the streets appears to have swelled back up, particularly on Atkinson and especially around the Engagement Center, which just opened up a few months ago in an effort to connect the people in the area battling addiction and mentalhealth issues with services.
Staff was told that the center would be closed until Monday or Tuesday as Boston Police shut down Atkinson for a few days of police work and “decongestion.”
Just this week, two different people were stabbed inside of the shelter, with three more happening in the surrounding blocks over three days. One man was arrested in one of the incidents, and no one was killed.
“This is just a preview for what we will begin to see as the weather changes and gets warmer,” said Steve Fox of the South End Forum neighborhood group. “It’s time for us to reevaluate the effectiveness and purpose of the engagement center. Right now it’s more of a clubhouse for the kinds of deals that are going down within the Mass and Cass area as well as the violence that we’re seeing.”
This temporary closure has echoes of the former “comfort station” there that authorities had to pull the plug on last year because it became too dangerous to operate.
One Boston Public Health Commission employee told the Herald that “some staffers are scared to come to work” in the Engagement Center given the conditions there.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” said the employee. “Knives, hammers, machetes — they have all that in their bags.”
He also said “drug dealers hang out in the Engagement Center” to take a load off and scope out what’s going on, and then they make sales and send addicts off to meet up with runners.
Neal O’Brien of SEIU 888, which represents the Engagement Center workers, said “Employees are worried to go to work because some of them feel threatened” — and they are worried to speak up because of retribution at work, he said.
The Mass and Cass area, in the South End or Newmarket part of Boston, has struggled for years. Particularly after the recovery services on Boston’s Long Island closed and homeless shelters and methadone clinics centralized in the old industrial area, people from all over the region have congregated there to sell, buy and do drugs and live on the streets.
The area reached possibly an all-time low last year when multiple people were killed there and a blockslong tent city flourished. Wu’s administration cleared away the tents, but problems remain.
The matter of public safety at Mass and Cass will be a point of interest in the current Suffolk District Attorney race. DA Kevin Hayden’s office said in a statement that he’s “keenly aware of the numerous problems associated with the Mass and Cass area and we’re working with all of our law enforcement partners to address the area’s many challenges.”
“We’ll continue to prosecute whenever warranted, such as in cases of violence or exploitation, but many of the issues associated with Mass and Cass will not be solved in courtrooms,” Hayden’s office said.