Introduction

The intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue, or “Mass and Cass,” represents a crisis of street homelessness, addiction and mental health issues, often in combination. It is also a crisis of pervasive public disorder, drug dealing, property crime that seriously harms residents and businesses, and victimization, violence and human trafficking that endangers those on the street.

Mayor Wu did not create all these problems, but her approach has failed to solve – and often exacerbated – them, while also spreading the crisis from its original epicenter around Mass and Cass outward across much of the city, including the South End, Roxbury and South Boston, Downtown Crossing and Boston Common, around Copley Square, and beyond.¹

Josh’s plan to effectively address the Mass and Cass crisis centers on three actions: prioritizing public order and community safety, with more proactive police enforcement; adopting a recovery-first model to help those suffering from addiction, with intervention when needed; and strong support for housing and other services that help people get off the streets and back on their feet.

Action #1: Ensure business’ and residents’ right to public order and safety, with more proactive police enforcement

Under Mayor Wu, drug-use driven property crime and harmful conditions, such as discarded needles, trespassing and outdoor living, have reached intolerable levels in many neighborhoods, due to City Hall downplaying the severity of the problems and the threat they pose to public safety, and a deliberate de-emphasis on enforcement of state laws and city ordinances.²

To change this, Josh will:

• Deploy police with a mandate to proactively engage and end public drug consumption, trespassing, and encampment, both on private and public property.
  • The goal is to increase people’s willingness to seek and accept help by making it clear that ongoing public drug use and indefinite street living are no longer tolerated.
• Emphasize enforcement of laws against drug-use driven property crimes such as shoplifting, package theft and car break-ins, with prosecutions handled in specialty courts, such as Recovery Court and Mental Health Court, that can use the judicial system to steer people into treatment where possible.
  • The aim is for the addicted to receive services, not sentences. But stealing from others and quality of life crimes must have consequences.
• Add a specific Mass and Cass-focused police command framework that directly reports to the Superintendent of Bureau of Field Services (one of BPD’s most senior leaders), ensuring accountability and strategic deployment, which is currently difficult given that the Mass and Cass area is split among three BPD districts.
  • Establish a police substation in Downtown Crossing, staffed 24/7–an approach that was used in the past to great success.
• Create a specialized booking system for handling arrests associated with Mass and Cass and persons who are under the influence of drugs or emotionally disturbed, situations that can be hard to handle safely in standard police stations.
  • This facility would be staffed with medical and treatment professionals, as well as law enforcement.
• Revive the successful Community Syringe Redemption Program, in partnership with RIZE Massachusetts, that recovered 765,000 used needles which otherwise could have been left on the street.³
  • In the final six months of 2024, 311 reports of discarded needles surged by 50%, as a result of  Mayor Wu’s misguided decision to end this highly cost-effective public safety program last summer.⁴

Action #2: Adopt a recovery-first focus, with intervention when necessary, supported by stronger state and regional partnerships

Josh believes recovery must be the first priority in efforts on addiction and addiction-driven street homelessness. Boston needs to move away from the Wu Administration’s preference for approaches so focused on “harm reduction” that people are left stuck in the grip of addiction, with dire consequences for themselves and the community. 

To change this, Josh will:

• Establish a “Recover Boston” campus to provide seamless addiction recovery, mental health services and temporary housing support, where people can come in the door for detox and progress through the continuum of recovery services within a structured setting that’s safe for them and the community.
  • The Wu Administration dismissed this proposal when it was made by community and business groups.⁵
• Reinvigorate and expand the city’s collaboration with the Commonwealth, neighboring municipalities and community stakeholders, which Mayor Wu has allowed to wither. Homelessness and addiction are crises that inherently spill cross municipal borders, even state lines, and bureaucratic boundaries, yet one of Mayor Wu’s first acts in office was to abolish the city/community leader task force on Mass and Cass issues and essentially walk away from what had become a strong partnership with the state Secretary of Health and Human Services (whose office oversees vast housing and treatment resources) under the Walsh Administration.
  • Josh envisions that the Recover Boston program he advocates would be undertaken and funded in partnership with the state, at a site within greater Boston, which is fair and appropriate given that an estimated one-half or more of people in the Boston shelter and homelessness services system are from outside our city. 
  • Effective public safety responses also demand collaboration, because many places of concern for drug activity and encampment, like T stations and bus shelters and the Southwest Corridor Park, are actually owned and controlled by the Commonwealth, and therefore patrolled by the MBTA Police or Massachusetts State Police.
• Expand options for recovery care and getting people into the appropriate level of care, including both voluntary (which is preferable) and involuntary care (such as “sectioning”, when necessary).
  • We need to increase access to Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (e.g., Suboxone, Vivitrol, and similar evidence based treatments that suppress cravings for illicit opioids or block their effect), which can be the most effective option for many people.
  • Create more integrated intervention and outreach teams that pair up addiction/mental health specialists, street outreach workers, police officers and EMTs to maximize opportunities to persuade people into treatment voluntarily and move them into the continuum of care.

Action #3: Support housing and services crucial to stability and progress

Going back many years, Boston has done better than some peer cities in offering shelter and homelessness services, and recent data show a significant drop in overdose deaths, mirroring positive national trends.⁶ But far too many continue to be on the streets, even die. 

To help people stabilize their lives and get back on their feet, Josh will:

• Ensure that the Boston Public Health Commission and its partners, like Pine Street Inn, collectively have sufficient shelter capacity to provide a bed for every individual on the street.
  • The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which has recently closed homeless facilities on its Shattuck Hospital campus, needs to do its part and add back lost beds–another reason why we need to renew cooperation between the city and state. 

• Continue strategies such as widespread access to life-saving Narcan, and distribution of sterile syringes (to discourage needle sharing that spreads Hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS) which reduce some health harms caused by drug use.
  • However, Mayor Wu’s call for opening Supervised Drug Consumption Sites in Boston neighborhoods under the guise of “harm reduction” is a mistake.⁷
• Support an integrated system for creating pathways to success for individuals in recovery. More specifically, replicate the highly-successful system created by Triangle Residential Options for Substance Abusers (TROSA) in Durham, North Carolina.
  • This model empowers individuals to change their lives by providing long term residential treatment, educational opportunities and vocational training through social enterprising programs that lead to lasting change.⁸

Methods and more. To better achieve the outcomes set out above, Josh advocates for:

Better addressing emotional traumas and mental health challenges that are the root causes of drug and alcohol addiction for many people. In coordination with leading healthcare providers in the city, individuals in need would have access to counseling, coaching, and comprehensive therapeutic resources to stem the underlying issues that often lead to substance abuse.

Employing more people who are themselves in recovery or otherwise have real familiarity with drug addiction, and thus bring unique expertise and empathy for those who are struggling. Boston also can do more to leverage the addiction and mental health expertise and resources of the world leading hospital and medical research institutions that call Boston home.

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¹ Many residents, workers feel unsafe in downtown Boston. A meeting this week aims for answers.
² A year after Mass. and Cass tent clearance, residents and businesses say safety concerns have spread
³ This unique buyback program aims to reduce needle litter in Boston
⁴ ‘They’re everywhere’: Boston losing fight against spread of used drug needles
⁵ Wu cool to Widett Circle proposal
⁶ Decline in Overdose Deaths in Boston
⁷ Boston Public Health Commission Policy Brief: Overdose Prevention Centers
⁸ About Us – TROSA