Mayor says no timeline for Mass and Cass tents
City searching for 200 homeless beds
Mayor Michelle Wu said she has no timeline for tearing down the tent cities that have sprung up at Mass and Cass, where opioid use and homelessness have hit crisis levels.
“We don’t have a specific timeline. We are working as quickly as possible,” the mayor said, speaking at an unrelated event at City Hall on Monday.
Wu said city officials are searching for up to 200 beds to house people living in tents around the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard in the area sometimes disparagingly referred to as “Methadone Mile.”
“We are identifying sites citywide to make sure we have enough beds for everyone who needs support or shelter,” Wu said, adding potential locations still included the Roundhouse.
The Herald first reported last week that the now-vacant Best Western known as the Roxbury Roundhouse hotel was back in the mix as a potential location to place people after it was tabled following controversy when its use was first floated over the summer.
Then-Acting Mayor Kim Janey’s plan to work with recovery organization Victory Programs to put up a couple dozen people in the vacant 200-room hotel went down in flames in the face of near-unanimous community opposition. Critics say the plan contradicts efforts to decentralize addiction and homelessness support services, which are concentrated in the area.
Wu said she is shopping several plans for rehousing the homeless and noted it would be one of the topics up for discussion at a City Hall meeting regarding Mass and Cass planned for Monday afternoon.
The administration did not provide any additional update.
Last week the Wu administration said the immediate goal is to provide “lowthreshold housing” for homeless suffering from mental health problems and addicts who are actively using.
The tent encampments that have grown over the past year along the Mile shrunk after Janey erected anti-tent protocols and sent out eviction notices shortly before she left office. But in the face of pending lawsuits, Wu hit the brakes and tents have started to return in the Newmarket Square business area.
While Wu acknowledged that the crisis is an urgent one with the winter cold weather already beginning to settle in, she said “I don’t think we can accelerate” any more than the city already has.
Clearing tents from the area around Mass and Cass is one of the biggest issues confronting Wu’s administration as it settles into office. The problems of homelessness and addiction and the consequences of tent cities — which have led to excess waste and even a rat-borne illness in the area — dominated the mayoral campaign.