Like many communities across Massachusetts, Worcester is struggling with an increasingly visible problem: homeless camps. WGBH reporter Stephanie Leydon (@stephanieleydon) goes to Worcester to find out more.
Tucked beneath a railroad bridge on a dead end street, Worcester’s skateboard enthusiasts gather to test their skill and nerve. Over the last decade they’ve built concrete ramps and covered the tunnel walls with boldly colored graffiti art. It’s a hidden world, but it’s been discovered by another local population: the homeless.
“This summer it probably swelled up to fifteen people,” said Dan Mooradian, who helped build the skateboard park. “You’d go back there and you’d see people injecting their friends in the necks for them.”
Mooradian is sympathetic to the plight of the people who have set up mattresses on the concrete floor at the far end of the tunnel, but he’s frustrated, too. The area is littered with old tires, lawn chairs, clothing and a cardboard sign that reads “travelling, broke and sexy."
“It pretty consistently steadily degrades to total chaos,” explained Mooridian, “garbage, vomit, feces, needles everywhere.”
Makeshift camps like this are becoming increasingly common in communities across Massachusetts. They pose a thorny dilemma: how do you encourage urban revitalization and help the homeless?
In Worcester, city officials hope the answer will come from a mix of enforcement and outreach. About a year ago the city formed what they call the “Quality of Life” task force comprised of police, public works and health and human service employees. They look for everything from routine code violations to signs of homeless camps.
“Your eyes get so trained,” explained Dan Cahill, a city inspector who leads the task force. “I’ll be driving down the street and out of the corner of my eye I’ll see a tent in the woods.”
On a recent morning a tip from police led Cahill and his team to a camp where several tents were set up in a wooded thicket, just steps from a residential neighborhood. Cahill says it’s hard to tell how long people have been living here, but he says the land is state owned.
“We can tell the state to pick this up right off the bat,” said Cahill, “we don’t want that. We want to make contact with these people and say – hey – what do you need for services?”
The team leaves a bright card inside each of the tents. It lists phone numbers for everything from shelter to food to mental health services. Worcester’s Health and Human Services commissioner says eliminating camps like this one ultimately requires tackling what are often the root causes of homelessness: addiction and mental illness.
“How do we treat it as a disease?” asked Dr. Mattie Castiel, Worcester’s Health and Human Services Commissioner. “How do we bring the right treatment to the folks that are suffering with this?”
There’s no easy - or quick - solution. But Castiel says connecting with the people who create these camps is a crucial first step.
“When you’re actually coming out here and seeing that these are people’s lives and these are people who deserve the same treatment as you and I do,” said Castiel, “that’s when you start changing the whole process.”
