Ten years ago, the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard did not yet bear the moniker “Mass and Cass”. Millions of dollars were not spent on emergency services or police overtime in the area. City councilors did not debate about what to do there, and articles were not written about it in national papers. The area’s devolution into its present state as a full-blown humanitarian crisis mirrors the development of the opioid epidemic in the United States, which has grown exponentially worse since the late 1990s. In Massachusetts alone, the number of deaths from opioid-related overdoses has increased every year since 2019. Mass and Cass is the most disturbing expression of these trends. This past summer, the increase in violence and death in the area pushed Mayor Michelle Wu to develop a new strategy to address the crisis.
Mayor Wu’s proposed ordinance would give Boston police more authority to remove tents in the area and would create 30 temporary shelter beds at the Boston Public Health Commission offices on Mass Ave. The City Council must approve the ordinance before it can be implemented. Some local businesses and state representatives have proposed other ideas, such as establishing a recovery center in Widett Circle, but Wu has argued that these proposals were “not formed with significant public health expertise” and lack the funding to be successful (the MBTA has also recently purchased the plot at Widett Circle for use as a rail yard, so the plan may no longer be possible anyway). Wu’s long-term goal is to reestablish treatment facilities on Long Island in Boston Harbor, the original closures of which are at the origin of the Mass and Cass story.
Long Island had long been home to recovery centers and homeless shelters. 57% of the city’s substance abuse treatment beds used to be housed there. Nine years ago, on October 8, 2014, the city condemned the Long Island Bridge after years of warnings that the bridge was in danger of collapsing (the city demolished it several months later). All the treatment facilities on Long Island were evacuated, and around 700 people were displaced. In January 2015, then-Mayor Marty Walsh’s administration ordered the renovation of a transportation building on Southampton Street near the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. The building was turned into a homeless shelter, initially with 100 beds available. By 2015, the shelter had expanded to 450 beds, and there were more social services offered to address drug addiction. Unsheltered people set up tents, and an open-air drug market developed.
By 2016, the area was being referred to as “Methadone Mile” in the Boston press. Opioid abuse was common. Heroin and fentanyl overdoses and deaths increased. The area became a point of political debate in 2019 when Boston police arrested dozens of individuals and destroyed tents and property in an effort known as “Operation Clean Sweep”. The operation was unsuccessful. Not only did encampments gradually return to Mass and Cass, but the police crackdown also likely contributed to an increase in overdose deaths, as people fled the area and were separated from treatment facilities designed to prevent overdoses. The ACLU accused Boston police of intimidation tactics and unlawful detentions. And the situation continued.
Since 2019, several other efforts have been made to clear tents in the area and get people into treatment or shelters. Mayor Wu’s proposal to clear tents and create new shelter beds is the latest as the situation has become more urgent in recent months. Assaults, stabbings, and even human trafficking are now features of daily life at Mass and Cass. Something must be done. Wu’s new ordinance is, as she admits, a temporary solution that may simply see encampments set up in another area of the city. The long-term solution of restoring Long Island to its former use may take four or more years: a new bridge must be built, and the abandoned buildings on the island must be renovated or torn down and replaced.
Meanwhile, the state is taking action to address the opioid crisis, and this may improve conditions around the city. Now that Narcan, an opioid overdose antidote, is available over the counter, boxes of the medication will be placed at 20 MBTA stations, including every station on the Red Line. The Healey administration also recently announced the expansion of the state’s overdose prevention hotline. People who use drugs can call the helpline while they use, and operators alert healthcare authorities if the user becomes unresponsive. A volunteer effort initially, the helpline has successfully reversed 9 overdoses since July 1 of this year. You can contact the hotline at 800-972-0590.
Of course, the opioid epidemic is not just a Massachusetts problem. Real solutions must address a crisis that is nationwide. A symptom of the economic disorder of the United States, the epidemic has impacted the rural white working class disproportionately, and is part of what the economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton call “deaths of despair”. Economic inequality is widening and economic opportunities are shrinking for many Americans. Whole ways of life are disappearing as once thriving centers of industry and manufacturing become post-industrial wastelands, filled with broken families and poverty. In this climate, more and more people will die by suicide, alcohol-related liver disease, and drug overdoses. Until the dysfunctional features of our society improve, more streets across the country will become methadone miles.
