Boston Mayor Michelle Wu announced an expansion of the city’s efforts to crack down on public drug use in response to rising complaints from residents.
The mayor cited “quality of life issues, the impacts of the opioid crisis and the many challenges that residents are facing.”
City leaders will continue efforts to connect people experiencing homelessness with shelter and housing opportunities while increasing enforcement of laws against public drug use, Wu said at a press conference in Downtown Boston Wednesday, joined by leaders from local neighborhood groups, law enforcement officials and representatives from the city’s Coordinated Response Team.
The Boston Police Department will “prioritize the assignment of officers at sites of congregate use” throughout the city, with a particular focus on the Boston Common, Downtown, parts of Dorchester, Roxbury and the South End, according to a memo released Wednesday from the city’s Coordinated Response Team.
The city’s plan builds on its efforts to increase police presence and enforcement around Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue.
In the months after a police sweep and clearing of tents at Mass. and Cass, the Boston Common and surrounding neighborhoods began to see an influx in the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness and using drugs in public.
“We’re not trying to create a war on anything,” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said Wednesday. “We are trying to address, you know, crime and fear in our city in a fair and balanced way.”
Kelly Young, the leader of the city’s Coordinated Response Team, said outreach workers and police work together to curb public substance use, with the goal of moving people into rehabilitative treatment.
In some cases, people who have been arrested on drug-related charges can be directed to alternative options at their court hearing through the Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s Services Over Sentences program, which aims to provide an alternative to prosecution for those struggling with homelessness and substance use disorder.
“We want people that are suffering with substance use disorder to get the treatment they need,” Young said. “But we also do recognize that court is an intervention and can be a pathway to recovery.”
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Hayden said the program is geared toward “high risk and high need” individuals and determines eligibility on a case by case basis.
“Incarceration is not the answer to help them get sober, and if we don’t get them sober, they’re coming back,” he said. “Even if we did incarcerate them for a period of time, we’re actually just driving cycles of trauma, having them spun dry and sent back out into the community to do it all over again.”
Hayden also told reporters Wednesday that he will continue to target dealers.
“People that are preying on the vulnerable on our streets, that have drug addiction problems and are dealing drugs in the streets should be held accountable,” he said. “And yes, they should be incarcerated.”
Through a large glass window behind the podium at the press conference, a small group of protesters could be seen holding signs that read “forced treatment kills” and “end the war on the poor.”
Protester Cassie Hurd, who leads the Material Aid and Advocacy Program, criticized the city’s announcement as vague and confusing, with potentially dangerous consequences.
“This explicitly targets people who are poor and use drugs, not people who may have the ability to consume in their homes or private places,” she said. “Forcing people into treatment is deadly. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has shared that it is deadly. This is a death sentence for people.”
Cox and Hayden did not provide details regarding enforcement protocol, but emphasized that each case will require a coordinated and somewhat varied approach.
Wu said the city will continue to meet with community groups and leaders to prioritize the issue of congregate use, as part of “the ongoing strategy to meet the evolving needs that are presented in the community as we take steps forward in a very complex challenge.”
