Mass and Cass crisis control
Roundhouse program to run through July
Some services at the old Roundhouse hotel on Mass and Cass now will run through the end of July, the state now says as it looks to allow for a “wind down” rather than the March 31 closure that Boston Medical Center had planned.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health & Human Services said in a statement that it and Boston are ponying up the cash for the hospital to extend the clinical services at the former hotel in the troubled area.
“EOHHS, in partnership with the City of Boston, will continue to provide funding to Boston Medical Center to maintain clinical support services at the RoundHouse program through July 31, 2023, to allow for a well-planned winddown of services and transition of patients to appropriate clinical settings as needed,” the state said Wednesday.
]This is specifically the clinical services, and not the housing component of the Roundhouse.
The state added, “EOHHS and the Commonwealth will continue to work diligently on longterm multifaceted interventions that include closure of the RoundHouse and identification of longer-term placements outside the area.”
The Boston Public Health Commission, a quasi-independent city agency, said it’s paying for half of this cost.
“Addressing the opioid crisis and providing lifesaving care and services to meet the needs of those dealing with substance use and homelessness remains a top priority for BPHC and the City of Boston,” a BPHC spokesman said. “We will continue to collaborate with our partners in state government to address this crisis through public health policies that support the health and wellbeing of our residents and continue evaluating potential sites and clinical offerings for future services.”
BMC, which is located kitty-corner to the vacant former Roundhouse hotel right in the heart of the troubled Mass and Cass area, has been running a range of services out of the building for the past year and a half. Some of that has been clinical intake and addiction services, in addition to 60 transitional-housing beds in the rooms of the old hotel.
The plan drew heavy controversy when a first iteration of it came up in summer 2020, when former Acting Mayor Kim Janey’s administration put forward the idea in the area, which is home to an open-air drug market and, at the time, a large, entrenched homeless encampment, when it was proposed under .
In the face of the opposition from neighborhood groups and city councilors, the Janey administration and the addiction-services provider they’d sought to partner with pulled the plug. But when Mayor Michelle Wu swept into office that November, the general idea suddenly was back, now with BMC, and it went into effect that winter.
Locals have complained about increased drug activity around the Roundhouse, but the hotel space largely has avoided incidents that led to any major headlines.
The Herald first reported in February that BMC now was beginning to close up shop. The hospital announced that a “lack of long-term funding” would lead to it shutting down the clinical services March 31. As for the housing, the hospital has previously said funding “has been identified through June” — the end of the city’s and state’s fiscal year — though anything after that has remained a bit of budget-dependent mystery.
BMC’s lease for the hotel is currently through September.
BMC said in a statement Wednesday, “Boston Medical Center has worked with our partners in state and city government to identify funding for clinical services at 891 Massachusetts Avenue through July. We are pleased that these important programs will continue.”
In the most recent announcement from EOHHS, which is run by former BMC head Kate Walsh, the state continued on to say that this “winddown” is “an alternative to abrupt closure.” The statement didn’t say one way or the other whether this was extending the transitional housing there.
The state said the move to extend clinical services “will help lower the overall risk of overdose deaths and emergency department visits, and increase access to medical services and linkages to housing and appropriate (substance-use disorder) care that are evidenced-based and have demonstrated impact in addressing unsheltered homelessness and SUD in the area.”
Steve Fox of the South End Forum neighborhood group said this feels like “serious deja vu,” and he worries that these programs will stretch out indefinitely — especially if they’re coming to an end in the summer, when the street scene there is at its most bustling.
“Everything is announced as temporary just before it comes permanent,” he said, saying this goes against officials’ stated goals of decentralizing services from the area.
The Roundhouse costs $7,487,000 a year for shelter services and $5,600,082 for the clinic, cash that comes from a combination of city funds and federal dollars. Last fall, Boston’s Mass and Cass coordinator said the lease and the funding both run through June, the end of the fiscal year, but no further information about the longer-term future of the site was available.