‘We don’t know where to go’: Homeless encampment cleared as city cracks down on tents at Mass. and Cass

In recent weeks, people living in encampments near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard fell into a daily routine — tents, tarps and makeshift shelters were cleared away for street cleaning, reconstructed after sunset and turned over again the next day.

As of Monday, city officials brought an end to the cycle: Tents and other encampments will no longer be allowed in the area, a Boston intersection marked for years by a concentration of homelessness, substance use and poverty.

Workers employed by the city and the neighborhood's business improvement district helped people clear their tents and pack up belongings, dragging broken tents, mattresses and wood pallets into a nearby dumpster. The city says the clearing marks the end of a period of leniency offered during the winter months, in response to rising issues with crime and sanitation within the tents. But many displaced people living in the area say they don't know where else to go.

Workers employed by the neighborhood’s business improvement association helped break down a tent belonging to an unhoused woman who identified herself as Alex, who protested the clearing while pulling tent poles from her former home.

“You don’t have to leave, you just can’t bring back a tent,” a worker in a yellow vest said.

“There was supposed to be housing,” Alex said, breaking down her tent from the inside. “Now we’re just going to be sleeping in the rain.”

The trash, needles, garbage and human waste that accumulate in the streets along Mass. and Cass could be prevented with better sanitation, Alex says.

“They have better ways to help us keep clean, like more trash barrels and public bathrooms,” she told GBH News. “There’s trash everywhere because they don’t want to provide what we need, and now they want us to just take down our tents and figure out a way to survive.”

Alex interrupted her thought to run over to a man overdosing on the sidewalk. She offered nasal naloxone — a medication used to reverse opioid overdose — from her backpack as multiple Boston police officers, Boston Public Health Commission workers and an emergency harm reduction worker from Boston Healthcare for the Homeless rushed in to bring the man back to consciousness.

“He’ll be OK,” Alex said, unphased as she continued her thought. “Basically, homeless people are being made to suffer because the police want to make arrests. Those who have warrants will probably clear the area, and the rest of us will just sleep out in the rain.”

Tori Bedford GBH News

Among those who dismantled their encampments Monday was Tara, a woman in her mid-thirties who has lived on Mass. and Cass for the past year.

“I don’t think we’re going to be gone for long,” Tara said as she shoved a blanket, a book and two shampoo bottles into a milk crate near her tent. “It’s disgusting how much money is wasted doing this, but think of how much money they look to lose having us gone? I mean, people are employed because we’re here."

Enforcing the zero-tolerance encampment protocol is a return to a policy implemented by Mayor Michelle Wu back in January 2022, following a city-sanctioned sweep of more than 200 tents in the area. Nearly 600 people have passed through six new temporary housing sites since that sweep, according to city data, and 110 people have been placed in permanent housing.

Unhoused individuals who were asked to remove their encampments Monday were offered “free shelter, substance use treatment, relocation and storage options,” according to a statement from a Wu spokesperson, while “an enhanced case management team is connecting with every individual in the area and developing individualized service plans.”

The city also launched a new protocol for people hoping to connect with their lost or missing loved ones in the area by locating friends or family members, obtaining consent and facilitating communication.

Returning home is not an option for John, who says he has lived near Mass. and Cass for roughly two years and struggled to find a better housing option. John’s immediate plan is to find a bed in a shelter, though waitlists for services remain long.

“It seems like some people benefitted for certain reasons and others didn’t,” he said. “I don’t really know why.”

Some longtime occupants of the encampments are still struggling to find resources. Among them, Mercedes says she has been living in the area for nearly four years and remains on a waitlist for transitional housing.

“I see new people coming here all the time, and some get help, but people that have been out here longer than me still aren’t getting help,” Mercedes said. “It doesn’t make any sense. We don't know where to go.”

Newmarket Business Association Executive Director Sue Sullivan, who runs a program to employ people struggling with homelessness or substance use at Mass. and Cass, moved from tent to tent Monday with her team of employees in yellow vests to clear the street, moving garbage into trash bins and taking down tents.

Tori Bedford GBH News

“Most of our guys were living in these tents a year and a half ago,” Sullivan said, “and now it’s taking us forever to get them to better places.”

New people arrive in the area on a regular basis, Sullivan said, seeking treatment at methadone clinics or detox programs in the area.

“There are no less than 30 people out here every day helping people get into housing, as much as housing is available,” she said. But when it comes to building new housing, she said nobody seems to want facilities in their own neighborhoods.

“No one wants transitional housing or treatment centers anywhere, and yet all these people are waiting for that. Every day, someone asks me why there isn’t more housing,” Sullivan said. “I’m not a housing person, but I share that frustration. I don’t know the answer, but I know there’s got to be a way.”

The city “promised housing, but they don’t have any money for it,” said Laquan, who packed up the tent he shares with his partner Sophie. The couple might spend their nights in a shelter, or “another street corner in a tent somewhere else in the city,” he said, packing his clothes and blankets into four plastic bins provided by the city, with the guarantee of 90 days of safekeeping.

“They have the money to store my stuff, just not me,” Laquan said. “They don’t want to put me in a house or an apartment, because it takes months, years, decades … but wherever they put me, that’s where I reside. That’s my home.”