Most businesses locked their doors and put up “closed” signs Saturday due to a historic nor’easter blizzard that swept across Boston. However, at the Pine Street Inn’s homeless shelter, doors stayed open for locals who needed help during the storm.
“We didn’t turn anyone away this weekend,” said Barbara Trevisan, vice president of marketing and communications at Pine Street Inn. “Anyone who needed or wanted to come into the shelter was admitted.”
Although the homeless shelter did not have enough beds for everyone who entered, Trevisan said the team created “warming centers” to provide safety and food for those in search of shelter during the storm.
For those who did not want to enter the shelter, outreach vans were set up to offer blankets, clothes and hot food.
Trevisan said the Pine Street Inn’s outreach teams kept “an eye on people and ultimately [tried] to get them to come inside.”
Last weekend’s nor’easter tied for Boston’s most recorded snowfall in a day. However, for Pine Street Inn, providing shelter was “what we do every winter.”
“The storm was probably one of the worst storms we’ve had in several years but you know, it’s just kind of doing what we do,” Trevisan said.
One of Pine Street Inn’s shelter locations will be opening beds for 30 people and 24 medical staffers as part of Mayor Michelle Wu’s plan to relocate unhoused people from the intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue.
Locally known as Mass. and Cass, the intersection has long been the epicenter of drug abuse and homeleness in Boston, with previous administration failing to address the endemic issue effectively.
“We have 24-hour staffing to really try to help people move forward,” Trevisan said. “I think particularly with the winter, all efforts have been made to really move people into situations where they can get some support and hopefully move forward.”
Unhoused Mass. and Cass residents in transitional housing moved into fully furnished homes and signed consent forms detailing what items they could leave behind, Mayor Wu said Jan. 13 in a press conference.
Trevisan said Mayor Wu is “on board” with the need for housing.
“We want to play whatever part we’re able to play in just securing more housing for people,” Trevisan said. “We’re working on a variety of housing options for people. We have 250 housing units and development as we speak. We have one in Jamaica Plain for 140 units, and then one in the Boston Back Bay — 410 units that are in development now.”
Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) assigned 17 full-time staff to help those in the Mass. and Cass encampments, wrote Vicki Ritterband, media coordinator of BHCHP, in an email.
“Mayor Wu has prioritized creating more affordable housing options for unsheltered Bostonians and we are grateful for this,” Ritterband wrote. “We believe that housing is a human right and critical to good health.”
Ritterband also wrote the team hopes to increase available “substance use treatment” for the homeless and prioritize “harm reduction” by creating safe consumption spaces, providing sterile syringes to reduce the spread of infectious diseases and ensuring access to naloxone in case of overdose.
“We agree with Mayor Wu that taking a public health approach to substance use disorder and homelessness is critical,” Ritterband wrote.
Meanwhile, the Pine Street Inn shelter will provide ongoing support — including health care, mental health services, job training and community activities — to rebuild people’s lives and connect them back to the community.
“Our goal is not just transitional housing but permanent housing for people,” Trevisan said. “Many people, once they’re stable and they have the services they need, can really thrive.”
To keep the cleared space on the Mass. and Cass intersection, the City has increased patrolling at night and has designated more outreach workers to frequent the area. When an encampment is set up in the intersection, the City will follow standard encampment protocols and refer homeless to an “alternative space.”
“I hear loud and clear from so many across the City that it was never just about Mass. and Cass as well,” Wu said. “We truly want to make sure that this is a city-wide plan that continues to be implemented.”
Then stop stealing the public housing and giving it to the developers to fix and sell/ rent to people with money The City has taken many public housing developments, Chinatown, South Boston,etc, the buildings that housed the middle class/ poor to make money for politicians and developers who are not even from Boston