Boston’s new plan to forcibly remove people from their living encampments in the area near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard is inhumane. This plan works under the assumption that an issue as complex and urgent as drug addiction can be solved in one sweeping motion.
The plan makes criminalization out to be an effective and humane solution to homelessness. And most importantly, it pretends as if the people living in these encampments aren’t human.
This encampment, known as Mass. and Cass., is populated by people with substance abuse issues and have progressively grown larger since the closing of a treatment center in 2014.
The situation at these encampments is dire and is thought to get worse. Tents will not provide sufficient protection from worsening weather conditions or the spread of potentially deadly diseases. Moreover, people have reported sexual assault and violence taking place in these camps.
One doctor who worked at the living encampments in the area of Mass. and Cass stated the situation was “beyond a public health crisis,” as it had been declared by the Boston Public Health Commission, but had now reached new heights as “a human suffering crisis.”
But the Boston government is not treating the Mass. and Cass situation as a humanitarian crisis or even as a public health crisis. Much of the press coverage and comments on the situation refer to the government’s plan to remove the encampment as a “clean up.”
On Oct. 19, Acting Mayor Kim Janey issued an Executive Order to forcibly remove people living in the encampments at Mass. and Cass. While the order claims to act in service of the health of those living in these camps and prioritize their rehabilitation, it is riddled with pathways to criminalization.
The order states officers could charge any individual that refuses to comply with being forcibly removed with disorderly conduct and involuntary commit those they deem to express “a likelihood of serious harm to themselves or others.”
Where is the government planning on forcibly moving the people who live in these encampments?
The answer is unclear. Janey states they are referring unhoused people to treatment centers, but others involved in the plan have stated they intend to use jails to involuntarily hold people.
Suffolk County Sheriff Steve Tompkins plans to forcibly move 100 people living in these encampments to a former ICE detention facility at a jail where he would keep up to three people in an (unlocked) cell. Though he claimed in an interview with Fox News Digital he and his officers “are not trying to criminalize people,” he plans on setting up a mobile courtroom in the ICE facility to process people with outstanding warrants. Moreover, police officers will be watching over the people in this facility by acting as its security team.
People forcibly placed in this detention center would then attend a virtual court hearing in which a judge would determine whether they should be granted bail, be relocated or be forced to undergo a 90-day treatment program designed and run by Tompkins.
During the first stage of his 90-day program, Tompkins — who is a police officer, not a licensed addiction care specialist — stated the people he forcibly placed into these jail cells would undergo addiction recovery treatment overseen by medical providers. This treatment would last a total of 30 days. For reference, the minimum time required for methadone maintenance recovery treatment is generally considered to be 12 months.
The remaining 60 days would be spent focusing on the casework of the detainees — most of which would likely not have recovered from their life-long drug addiction after one month of treatment — and help them find a job and reunite with any existing family.
Not much information is given as to what people are meant to do after this 90-day period ends. Experts in a recent article on Boston.com indicate that criminalization sweeps like Janey’s and Tompkins’ will only serve to further displace the people living in these encampments and likely increase the risk that people fall further into their addiction and overdose.
Physicians and addiction recovery specialists have decried Janey’s plan as profoundly ineffective and inhumane because it ultimately lacks the public health approach it claims to purport.
Research, such as a literature review by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has indicated that a lack of affordable housing, lack of access to affordable treatment and recovery services, and the criminalization of drugs are at the core of causing homelessness.
Experts in the field have repeatedly stressed that accessible, clean transitional housing and the decriminalization of drugs are key to solving this issue. Residents of Mass. and Cass have reflected these evidence-based claims. Wendell Wilson, who has lived at Mass. and Cass for months after being kicked out of a homeless shelter, stated in an interview with the Boston Herald that while he plans to move to a shelter, many people tend to avoid them because of the similarly unsanitary conditions.
Moreover, Janey’s plan ignores the ways the encampment area functions in many ways as a community. In the Boston.com article, Dr. Mark Eisenberg, a physician at MGH-Charlestown Health Care Center, stated that people in these encampments may try to prevent overdoses by supervising one another.
Research has shown that unhoused people across the nation find safety in these encampment communities, as they feel they are more protected from being robbed or assaulted by the police or other people they may encounter. Encampments have been shown to have security and behavioral protocols established and followed by the residents.
Criminalization only disrupts potentially life-saving community links established in these encampments and further isolates a vulnerable group of people from the general public.
This is not to say we should simply let the Mass. and Cass encampment be. But the research is clear — criminalized sweeps like Janey’s only make the problem worse.
Residents at the Mass. and Cass encampments reported being confused when city officials came by to lock their possessions away in neat boxes and remove their tents. City officials were unclear as to where they would be moved. Some of their family members said they feared their loved ones would get lost in the process and be placed farther away from life-saving medicine like Narcan, which can reverse an opioid overdose.
The worsening weather conditions in Boston mean that the people living in these encampments need access to shelter immediately. Urgent action is needed.
But the research has shown that these kinds of clean sweeps are not the solution. So why are we still acting as if they are?
