Mass and Cass

In the fields of politics and public policy, Boston’s communities of color made historic gains in 2022, with former City Councilor Andrea Campbell’s elevation to attorney general, Michelle Wu’s first full year as mayor and, for the first few months, a majority of people of color on the City Council.

While the mayor has laid the groundwork toward rent control and some other big-ticket reform items she ran on — like fare-free transit, overhaul of the Boston Planning and Development Agency, and revamped police contracts to tamp down overtime — none of those changes have yet come to pass.

Two weeks ago, Mayor Michelle Wu made a public appeal to the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker asking for the state’s partnership in responding to the crisis of homelessness and addiction and seeking a commitment of 1,000 state-funded units of supportive housing outside Boston.

Mayor Wu now confronts a very serious dilemma. After the attack on Jean McGuire, it will be difficult to gain community support for the assignment of Mass and Cass residents to the Franklin Park area.

Mayor Michelle Wu says she’s asking the state to facilitate the construction of 1,000 units of housing outside of Boston for people experiencing homelessness and addiction.

Despite a pledge last year to spread throughout the city housing and addiction treatment services for the homeless population concentrated in the area around Mass and Cass, Mayor Michelle Wu is not opposing a proposed 400-unit housing shelter that would be built at the site of the Shattuck Hospital in Franklin Park.

There is inadequate housing available for those now living at Mass and Cass without creating a social problem in Roxbury and other Black communities. The solution lies in finding a way to utilize the City of Boston facilities at Long Island in Boston harbor.

In mid-January, Mayor Michelle Wu enacted a policy that removed the dozens of tents in the area around Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard that were home to hundreds in the throes of addiction and struggling with homelessness. Wu’s policy came with plans to provide housing to anyone who wanted it, regardless of their sobriety.

There has been limited information about the adverse impact on the Boston Medical Center of the Mass-Cass problem. Part of the reason for this is the lack of historical understanding of major city hospitals in America.

The problem with finding shelter for the homeless is, the Mass and Cass colony brings a number of social problems with it, including drug addiction and mental illness, as well as poverty. Few people would welcome the addition of those problems to their neighborhood.

Mayor Wu’s decision to move people living in tents in the Mass and Cass area into housing is to be applauded; how exactly the city plans to achieve this goal is of great concern to many in Roxbury.

Mayor Wu should do everything to make the Long Island facility function again.