Mass & Cass cleared out
Will it last? ‘Friends and Family’ reunification tried
The city is launching a renewed initiative to keep the homeless from putting up tents and encampments along Mass and Cass, beginning with a clear-out Monday.
“What we’re doing out here is what we do five days a week from 9:30 to noon,” said Sue Sullivan, director of the Newmarket Business Association, as she and 30 to 40 other workers helped move camps Monday morning. “Everyone packs up, and then we clean the streets and everything. And then typically they come back by about 12:30, 1 o’clock. Difference today is that the city said it is not allowing tents anymore.”
The tent ban was suspended in the area — a region around the intersection of Melnea Cass Blvd. and Massachusetts Ave. long known for drug use and homeless encampments — during the winter months “out of concern for the wellbeing of unsheltered individuals,” city officials said.
Regulars in the area were notified they must remove tents and tarps via city flyers last week.
“Individuals in the area are being asked to voluntarily remove their tent and are being encouraged to take advantage of the free shelter, substance use treatment, relocation, and storage options available to them,” the city said in a statement.
Efforts to clear the tent encampments reach back years and have occurred under former mayors Marty Walsh, Kim Janey and now Mayor Michelle Wu.
Since November, Sullivan said, the number of tents has grown from around 10 to around 40 — an expansion she noted is reminiscent of the out-of-control occupation in the area in 2021.
Linda Winn, who was unhoused in the area for around two years, praised the services and workers as she passed through to check on friends but echoed a common thought that there’s just a lack of housing opportunities in the city.
Though the troubled area saw normal turmoil — including overdoses and emergency aid — all tents came down without incident and the clean-up went fairly smoothly. People were allowed to keep any tents and tarps, along with all belongings, if they so chose.
The real test, people said, will come as individuals begin to try to move tents and tarps back in.
People migrated back onto the street not long after the clean-up ended and workers dispersed, though no tents went back up immediately.
Local business owner Doris Wong, who runs FoodPak Express along the encampment, said she doubts anything will change without punitive enforcement.
“The city doesn’t do anything to help me,” Wong said. “They come in. They do the little cleanup. And then they go away. Then they send out notices and say, this is it.
No more tents. Come tomorrow — you want to bet me? It doesn’t mean anything.”
The move follows the March 31 end of the “roundhouse hotel” — a nearby operation to provide housing and addiction services at the vacant Best Western Roundhouse Hotel operated by Boston Medical Center since December 2021.
The city’s announcement also noted a new “Friends and Family Protocol” aiming to reconnect people with their supportive family and social networks.
That effort allows family and friends of unhoused individuals to fill out something like a missing person report with the city if they think someone they know is living on Mass and Cass.
“The protocol promotes reunification for consenting individuals” working with street outreach teams in the area, the city said on its website.
Alongside Monday’s effort to clear the tents on Mass and Cass, the city said “daily outreach efforts continue and an enhanced case management team is connecting with every individual in the area and developing individualized service plans.”