Funding dries up for homeless clinic at Mass. and Cass Roundhouse Hotel

Funding has dried up for clinical services at the Roundhouse Hotel near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, commonly referred to as Mass. and Cass. People experiencing homelessness and substance use disorder have received medical care and housing at the hotel since a sweep of a nearby homeless encampment in December 2021.

A Boston Medical Center clinic at the formerly abandoned hotel will shut down by the end of March, according to a spokesperson for the medical center. The clinic currently provides area residents with access to clinical staff, methadone clinics, emergency triage and resources to cope with withdrawal and intoxication — all efforts to reduce strain on nearby emergency rooms.

The city will continue to provide transitional housing at the Roundhouse Hotel until the end of June, and is currently “looking for other sites to decentralize” while “evaluating what options are available to us” in the interim, according to a spokesman for Mayor Michelle Wu.

“Any reduction in services is going to negatively impact the population of people experiencing homelessness and people who use drugs,” said Azzy Mae, a harm reduction activist and member of the New England Users Union, a local advocacy group for people who use drugs. “With the warmer months approaching, it’s important that the services are near where folks are congregating. It’s definitely not the time to be reducing services.”

The closure comes after months of stalled negotiations between Boston Medical Center and neighborhood groups on a memorandum of agreement about a long-term plan and final end date for services at the Roundhouse.

“It’s not that the services aren’t necessary, just not there,” said Sue Sullivan, executive director of the Newmarket Business Association, who suggested the creation of an “enclave” of housing and clinical support in another part of Roxbury, Dorchester or South Boston. “I see loitering, vandalism and aggressive panhandling. For those reasons, all the neighboring businesses will be very glad to see them leave.”

The Roundhouse is one of several low-threshold housing sites established for unhoused people at Mass. and Cass, including Willow at Woods Mullen, Southampton Dorm 1 and the Envision Hotel. The city budgeted $21,269,552 in federal funding to support these sites through the end of this year, and 180 residents are currently living across six sites, according to data provided by the city.

Other services will continue in the area, including city- and federal grant–funded programs and clinical services at the Engagement Center on Atkinson Street, harm reduction efforts through the AHOPE program, and city collaborations with nonprofits including the Whittier Street Health Center and Victory Programs, according to the Boston Public Health Commission.

“We are grateful to our partners at BMC for their collaboration in supporting the city’s public health response to the substance use and homelessness crises at Mass. and Cass,” a Boston Public Health Commission spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the commission will continue “to direct individuals to their day spaces so they can access the wraparound services they need.”

People experiencing homelessness have been “forced into a concentration at Mass. and Cass,” May said, an already disenfranchised area of the city that has grappled for years with a lack of resources and support.

“If we want to decentralize, if we want folks to be enmeshed in society in a way that they can be accepted, then we need to have programs all over the place,” they said. “But in the meantime, we need to meet people where they’re at — and not just in a philosophical sense. We need proximity.”