Homelessness, a shared problem, needs a universal solution

Homelessness does not respect borders. Neither does addiction.

Those truths are becoming increasingly evident as the city of Boston continues to struggle with the sprawling encampment of unhoused people at Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

Colloquially known as Mass and Cass, the tent city has become the statewide symbol of the concurrent housing, opioid and mental health crises. Attempts to address the problem by the administration of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu have been met with resistance from neighboring communities. In many respects, the city is being abandoned.

It’s easy to look at Boston from afar and assume the city’s problem is its own.

It is not. It belongs to all of us, as does the responsibility for solving it. The cycle of shutdowns of Boston’s tent city has sent some of the unhoused there into the suburbs. Meanwhile, many of those remaining on Mass and Cass hail from places like Essex County. There are no borders here. “The crew around Wendy’s is a particularly vexing one,” Salem police Chief Lucas Miller said of a homeless encampment that has grown in his city. “Some of them are locals, which is to say people we’ve encountered before. Some of them aren’t – they’re coming from Boston, probably displacements from Mass and Cass.” Salem, like Boston, has struggled to get people in crisis – ranging from a lack of housing, to drug addiction and mental health issues – into secure housing and effective treatment.

Besides the tent community by the Wendy’s along Salem’s South River, there are encampments dotted throughout the city’s extensive woodlands and in parks like Leslie’s Retreat. And there is no shortage of encampments throughout the North of Boston region.

Like those on Mass and Cass, some of the homeless people have resisted assistance.

“The whole goal is to engage, to try to find a way to work together, and to offer anything we can to get them where they have to be,” said Jason Etheridge of the Salem-based shelter program Lifebridge and Beverly-based River House.

Why some people won’t engage, he said, is “the million-dollar question. “We see it, we’re part of the response. We want to work with these folks and figure out what they need and want.”

Wu is correct when she says, as she did in May, that the crisis at Mass and Cass is a statewide issue rather than just a Boston issue.

And she could have been talking about many other North of Boston communities – not just Boston – when she said “the reality is that a large number of people, including new people every month, are arriving who are not from Boston.”

“And you know, that’s our role, right? That’s our role in the migrant crisis. That’s our role – welcoming new residents from whatever walk of life,” she said. “Boston has always been that safe harbor for people. But we have to recognize this opiate crisis, just like what we’re experiencing with migrant families, is a statewide and even a national issue, where the city and the state really have to work together on this. … We really need a comprehensive plan.”

Salem Mayor Domenic Pangallo recently said, “Like many communities across Massachusetts, Salem is grappling with the escalating cost of housing and the dearth of sufficient housing supply. These are compounded by the substantial and complex challenges presented by diminished access to mental health care and the scourge of substance use disorder. As a result, far too many neighbors lack access to a safe roof over their head.”

Both mayors are correct. It’s long past time for a regional solution to a regional problem.