Warm Up Boston held a rally to pressure the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Massachusetts state government to stop the sweeps of homeless encampments Wednesday morning, in the wake of a scheduled sweep for an encampment located under the Boston University Bridge.
Warm Up Boston is “a radical survival program serving, supporting, and empowering Boston’s unhoused community through solidarity rather than charity,” according to its website. They work to provide material aid, advocacy and harm reduction strategies to the homeless encampments located in Boston.
More than 60 people gathered at 7 a.m. at the intersection of the BU Bridge and Commonwealth Avenue. Rally attendees marched down part of Comm. Ave. and ended under the BU Bridge, before dispersing an hour and a half later due to a large police presence.
During the rally, Warm Up Boston was also leading an effort to help encampment residents move their belongings out of the encampment site.
Miguel Maron, chief harm reductionist and executive board member of Warm Up Boston, said this effort has been successful and that because of this, the damage done to residents from a sweep will be “minimal.”
James David, executive board member and distribution management chair of Warm Up Boston, said although DCR’s policy is to give three weeks notice to the residents of encampments before a sweep, typically, residents are “lucky” if given notice three days prior.
David said when encampment sweeps take place, state police and contractors arrive at the site — often with bobcats and bulldozers — and tell residents to remove all their things or face arrest.
“Police pull up to your home and evict you and give you 15 minutes to move out or you will be thrown in jail,” David said. “None of it is humane. There’s no humane way to do it.”
David said anything residents fail to remove gets destroyed and thrown into dumpsters, causing residents to lose family heirlooms, things of personal value, identification and other important paperwork.
“[The sweeps do] nothing but to get people further and further away from housing,” David said.
The rally and encampment sweep was originally scheduled for Monday, but was delayed to Wednesday due to Massachusetts State Police safety concerns, according to an email the DCR sent to Warm Up Boston.
The rally further delayed the sweep and the encampment remains untouched.
Maron said he hopes the rally sends a message to the community and government that new solutions for homelessness are needed.
“As long as there has been homelessness in this city, this has been the solution: constant policing, constant displacement and it’s obvious that’s not working,” Maron said. “We need more low transitional housing, low threshold housing, we need revamping to human services, we need an ending of the tent ban and all of that starts to begin to address the problem.”
BU graduate student Erin Taylor attended the rally to show solidarity with their community.
“I hope it’s a message to the city and to the school that we’re not going to tolerate this kind of treatment and that we stand by our neighbors,” Taylor said. “Everyone deserves a place to live.”
Good work. Beautiful activism. We need better and more humane solutions for our unhoused brothers and sisters.