“Open substance use in any part of Boston is illegal and unacceptable,” the memo said. “As we have built up a coordinated citywide response to shut down encampments, decrease overdose mortality, and continue to strengthen the continuum of care, our focus is today on ending outdoor substance use in Boston and the criminal activity that supports it.”
Last month, District 2 Councilor Ed Flynn filed a resolution to declare the area a public safety emergency after frustration grew in the abutting South End neighborhood over continuing open drug use and homeless people occupying their steps.
“It’s long overdue for the Boston City Council to have this conversation,” Flynn told his colleagues last month. “If this is not a public health crisis, I don’t know what it is.”
District 8 Councilor Sharon Durkan scuttled Flynn’s resolution, saying she did not believe the resolution represented “the right steps forward,” the Globe reported.
“For starters, what funding would an emergency declaration provide? None,” Durkan said at a council meeting last month.
Flynn’s resolution was sent to committee, often where resolutions go to die. In this case, however, the chair of the council’s public health committee, District 3 Councilor John FitzGerald, who represents part of the South End, promised a hearing.
According to the memo, the Boston Police Department has conducted 467 drug-related arrests so far this year in the South End, Roxbury, and other impacted neighborhoods, an 85% increase from 2024.
Efforts to tamp down drug activity in the area are being supported by the addition of nearly 100 new officers, new bicycle patrols, enhanced street lighting, frequent street cleaning, and the installation of portable cameras for real-time monitoring in high-impact areas, the memo said.
The city’s Coordinated Response Team reported that in the last six months it has, on average, transitioned 55 people per week to treatment or recovery services, or transported them back to their “place of origin” to reunite with relatives.
The Boston Public Health Commission reported that outreach teams are ending outdoor syringe distributions, increasing collection of discarded needles, and referring users to indoor locations and day spaces. The commission also is decentralizing treatment and recovery services away from the Mass and Cass vicinity, the memo said.
In the last six months, the commission has transported 785 people to treatment services, made 1,185 treatment referrals, and reconnected 76 people with family and friends, the memo said.
The area surrounding Mass and Cass has long been the epicenter of the intertwining crises of homelessness and substance abuse in the city.
More than a dozen South End residents previously told the Globe that they regularly see discarded needles and drug paraphernalia on their streets, as well as people openly injecting, smoking, and exchanging substances.
Flynn echoed their concerns in his resolution, which, if passed by the council, is purely symbolic.
“As well-intentioned as some of the City’s efforts have been, it is wholly appropriate to finally acknowledge that the City of Boston’s current plan at Mass and Cass has been an abject failure by any standard,” Flynn wrote.
“Any reasonable person who visits the area will say unequivocally that what has taken place there on a daily basis for over a decade today — an open air drug market and dealing, public drug use, the trafficking of women, acts of serious violence, public defecation and urination, among others — is completely unacceptable,” he continued.
Flynn called for law enforcement to make arrests and have “zero tolerance” for public drug use and dealing. He also pushed for the city to prioritize creating a new treatment facility where people struggling with addiction can receive services.
Residents and business groups have told Boston city councilors that drug use and other illegal activity spread into their neighborhoods after Mayor Michelle Wu in late 2023 instituted a camping ban in the city, which resulted in the dismantlement of a large crime-ridden encampment around Mass and Cass.
Wu has acknowledged residents’ concerns about the persistent issues around Mass. and Cass and in the South End, and said the city has more work to do to address those challenges. She has also highlighted the city’s efforts to respond to the problems, including more police patrols, city outreach workers who connect people struggling with addiction to services, and the Boston Public Health Commission’s needle pickup crew.
Globe staff reporter Niki Griswold contributed to this report.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tonya.alanez@globe.com. Follow her @talanez.
About the Author
