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Homeless encompment under Mass Ave. Bridge catches fire, shutting bridge and Storrow Drive
By adamg on Thu, 01/10/2019 - 11:44am
Smoke pic by Benjamin Day.
The Massachusetts Avenue Bridge and the connecting Storrow Drive were shut this morning when a homeless encampment under the Boston side of the bridge caught fire, sending smoke billowing into the air and bringing firefighters racing from both Boston and Cambridge.
State Police report no injuries but that the bridge and the road will remain shut until after state engineers can inspect them to ensure no damage.
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Comments
Why was there an "encampment"
there in the first place?
Uh...
Because they were homeless...and went there.
Is this a trick question?
hey man
he's Just Asking Questions!
/s
Hey man
unless you are from another planet where homelessness is a non issue, most humans in Boston understand that an encampment under a bridge means human beings are living there who are homeless. So to ask the question, is, well...
you must be new here (the internet)
/s at the end of a post denotes sarcasm. im on your side guy, lol.
Snark Tags
We all forget them and all miss them from time to time.
/s We should feel sorry for Roman, as he's unemployed and day drinking/trolling /s
If the question was too subtle for ya
Why wasn't this "encampment" shut down? Why are we tolerating "encampments" that are catching ablaze?
Ask stupid questions
How long has it been there? How many times had officers "shut it down" before today? Until you can answer either of those questions, then what right do you have to ask why it wasn't shut down or assume we're tolerating it being there? Your question is akin to "when did you stop beating your wife"?
I'll assume you probably didn't even know it was there before it had caught fire today since you want to know more about it now...which then suggests if it wasn't bothering you before now, then maybe that's the answer to both of your questions as well.
It's not my job to seek out
It's not my job to seek out homeless encampments. I know they exist in places like this, but I don't go poking around highway underpasses to find out exactly where. Nor should I.
There are people whose job it is to go to places like this. Highway maintenance workers, state police. Hopefully some social service workers as well. And I highly suspect they knew that there was an encampment under this bridge.
Quite simply, homeless people
Quite simply, homeless people have to go somewhere. I doubt many non-homeless spend time in or near the encampment to report them and force them out and to move on. It was a safe, overlooked space for them.
If you don't want encampments like this, where do you suggest they go? It's not as though there are enough beds (and even fewer safe beds!), and our society is such that we expect them to lift themselves by their boot straps without much or any assistance.
The location is cited as
The location is cited as under the Mass Ave Bridge at Storrow Drive. In other words, this encampment was directly on, or abutting, a cycling/walking trail that runs alongside the Charles River. This is therefore far from an "overlooked place" but right on a public, well-used, maintained, taxpayer-funded right-of-way.
Form a Brute Squad then!
I want that homeless encampment cleared out before I marry the princess!
(Only slightly less detached from reality than the original post.)
It was there because we live
It was there because we live in a capitalist society that necessitates a certain percentage of the population suffers in poverty.
Unlike socialist societies
that necessitate that everyone suffer in poverty.
Come off it dude. I was born in the Soviet Union. I read history. You ain't foolin' no one.
The Soviet Union's economy
The Soviet Union's economy was state capitalism (not socialism), similar to current day China (mostly). Private capitalism and state capitalism are both deeply flawed systems. Capitalism was an improvement over feudalism, much like feudalism was an improvement over slavery. I'm not sure why you think that capitalism is a perfect economic system and we can't do any better.
What I'm trying to say is read more history, you fucking dunce.
So now the Soviet Union was too capitalist?
Whatever dude.
No matter what system you put in place, some people will not play by the rules and suffer the consequences. If your metric for "improvement" is how many fewer people will suffer the consequences, then you get right on back to mostly free-market capitalism as your best result to date, with socialism as a demonstrably worse option.
Roman! I thought you read
Roman! I thought you read history, man! Yes, the USSR was capitalist. A country needs to be capitalist before it can become socialist. State capitalism was established after the Russian revolution with the intention of progressing to socialism (and eventually communism). They never made it past step 1. Lenin never referred to the Soviet Union as a socialist state. When Stalin came to power, he declared that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism as a propaganda method to improve morale. It wasn't true though (in the same way that it isn't true that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a Democratic People's Republic). The workers did not control the means of production, which means *DING DING DING* the Soviet Union was not socialist.
You know what the letters USSR stand for, right?
I mean, you can disagree with Roman on a lot of things, especially since he posits a viewpoint different than may readers here, but I will say that he probably knows a lot more about life in the Soviet Union than most of us, either first hand or from what his parents told him.
The state controlled the means of the production, and the state was and extension of the proletariat. Under capitalism, production is controlled by the elite, who exploit the proletariat to enrich themselves off the backs of the workers. Soviet state enterprises, for all their faults (and there were many, hence the collapse of the system) were owned by the state, so any success (see wheat exports) were for the people. That the system ultimately did not do what it was set up for is another story. I'm just kicking myself that I have thrown myself in to this discussion. I may not come back.
I have some bad news for you
about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. There's more to it than a name, and the USSR functioned more like oligarchical feudalism than capitalism or socialism.
Also:
I think you may have made a typo there; it's not "may readers here," it's "observable reality."
lol
Saying state capitalism and private capitalism are both deeply flawed systems is like saying pizza and dog shit are both bad for you to eat large quantities of.
Thank you, officer. I value
Thank you, officer. I value your poorly constructed simile immensely.
lol
good enough.
In all seriousness, you do know what you said was pretty off base. Not a lot of people since 1917 were barging down the borders of the Soviet Union looking for work, safety, equality, civil rights, voting rights, money, etc......
What?
I did look rather carefully to see what comment you were responding to (it's not all that easy), and I'm damned if I can figure out what position you're supporting here.
Sufferin' Socialists
Yeah those Finns and Swedes are so miserable. Oh wait, they're not. Finland has the #1 happiest citiizens, Sweden #5, Capitalist paradise USA #17. Sad trombone. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/these-are-the-happiest-countries-...
He was talking about the Soviet Union...
I think Roman and I could probably do very well in Sweeden or Finland. And those countries would probably let us immigrate there.
Those countries would not let the "unhappy" citizens of the US into any of those countries for countless reasons.
"Socialist Societies"
Nah, dude. Read what he wrote up top. He was using the Soviet Union as an example of a socialist society, as if a murderous Marxist-Leninist dictatorship is the only model of how people could live under socialism. I'm using Sweden and Finland because, you know, they still exist AND they tell a much different story of life under "Socialist Societies".
As to your comment about letting unhappy people in, a hugely separate topic and a non-sequitur here, I don't know what you're trying to imply. Do you think there are no native mentally ill people there who require medical care and housing?
Zach, you’re the equivalent
Zach, you’re the equivalent of a nazi, except you’re on the opposite end of the political spectrum.
And you are the equivalent of a flesh bag
Except you're on the amoeba end of the moral spectrum. /s
At least amoebas serve a
At least amoebas serve a purpose.
Why do you get away with obnoxious
mean spirited insults, while others can't even get an in-topic, reasonable comment posted?
I appreciate the sentiment
I appreciate the sentiment @zachandtired, but this isn’t the industrial reserve army (see, e.g., Marx).
And yet there is pushback if
And yet there is pushback if anyone tries to do anything about problems like this.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2019/01/07/spikes-keep-out-homeless-...
spikes are not the solution
spikes are not the solution to homelessness, it just makes it worse.
homes are the solution to homelessness.
Yes, because
people were living there, hokey?
As of last January 2018 we had 20,000 people counted as homeless in the city of Boston. How many fires have we have? Can't think to too many, can you?
Compassion goes a long way, anon. Try it sometime.
Compassion is like everything else. It's best in moderation.
An excess of compassion often turns into an excess of excuse-making and invites an excess of antisocial behavior because compassionate people will work excessively to take the ouch out of said antisocial behavior.
so declares the useless troll.
what's your excuse-making for being such a fucking piece of shit?
go fuck yourself.
Um, way out of line.
He has a point even if you don't like it. Does compassion = allowing people to live under a bridge and potentially harm themselves and others because they are living there in an unsafe environment? Allowing people to live under a bridge = the enabling sort of 'compassion' that does more harm than good.
And wipe off your potty mouth.
No, not out of line at all.
No, not out of line at all. This person has zero compassion for people who are homeless trying to seek the least bit of shelter from the elements in the winter. It's an inconvenience or an unwelcome reminder or an eye-sore or whatever to them. They're a POS and that's about the kindest thing I can say about them. Decorum and polite language is not more important than compassion and humanity. Get your priorities in order.
what's the problem?
if you cant take the heat get the fuck out of the kitchen.
he had a point to make. compassion is not something he understands.
I have a point to make, he should go fuck himself.
thanks for playing.
That's alright, you have to have compassion for people like that
They aren't able to grasp that some people can believe things they don't like while remaining human. There will always be people like that in society. All you can do is try your best to not add to their number.
goddamn
what a fucking rube you are.
almost forgot:
go fuck yourself.
REALY?
why can't you respond to something or someone you disagree with ant Go FYS? Honestly, get real no one wants to debate a person who can only say F-off? I hope this helps you going forward. One more thing and this really helps: RESPECT
REALLY!
i could if i wanted. but i didnt.
if you want to listen to roman argue in bad faith or spout off hateful shit, or whatever else he does to get his rocks off. that's your game.
me? i'll continue to tell him to fuck himself.
and converse with the adults. hope that helps.
Unsafe environment?
Being unhoused is a fundamentally unsafe condition; it is also not something a person can simply stop being through force of will. Sleeping under a bridge with a group you trust is significantly safer than sleeping in the rain, alone.
What are you doing to help end homelessness?
You must be fun
to walk away from at parties.
Life's always a party for a committed leftie, isn't it?
In Soviet Russia, Party commits you!
Lotta asshole comments on here today.
I'm far from being a member Roman's fan club, but the point he's raising here is far from insane. Reasonable people disagree on the degree to which specific behaviors are actually harmful, on the degree to which they should be tolerated (either explicitly or by looking the other way), and, more specifically, upon appropriate policy responses to homelessness.
"More homes" will solve some of the homelessness problem, but it will not solve the problem of people whose untreated or poorly managed mental illness, combined with lack of family and community, makes them incapable of living conventionally.
Well, actually....
The Housing First model tends to help stabilize people a tremendous amount so that they're in a place where they can get help with mental health issues, addiction, chronic illness, etc. Give someone a home without condition, and many, many of them will stabilize to the level that they can be at.
Do not concern yourself
about suffering from an excess of compassion. You are perfectly safe.
Well you're safe then
Well you're safe then. The only thing you use in excess is racist dogwhistling and outdated nostalgia for a mythic past.
Numbers
Er, the point-in-time count for January 2018 showed 6,146 homeless persons in the City of Boston and only 163 of those were unsheltered (i.e. sleeping under a bridge or in a doorway). 20,000 people might have experienced homelessness during the year, but on a given night the count is going to be closer to the Point-In-Time Count number, with the number of unsheltered likely higher in the warmer months.
Massachusetts is a right-to-shelter state so going unsheltered is typically a choice driven by mental illness and/or substance/alcohol addiction. Pine Street Inn does quite a bit of outreach in trying to get the unsheltered into shelters, but the rules and/or shelter environment don't work for everyone.
The death rate for the unsheltered in Massachusetts is ten times that of the general population. That doesn't feel compassionate, either.
Right to Shelter
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this law only applies to families with children, right?
Yes.
You are correct.
Single individuals do not have a right to shelter under ma law
In 2018 The City of Boston
In 2018 The City of Boston has 612 individuals experiencing chronic street homeless and 6146 individuals experiencing homelessness in shelters, agencies or doubled up. 20000 is the number for individuals experiencing homelessness in Ma.
This is a symptom, not the problem itself
Putting spikes up ..."to keep the homeless from invading our space" is not trying to do anything about the problem, it's simply trying to push it of onto someone/somewhere else. It's also cruel and mean-spirited.
Do you lock your front door? Do you chain up your bike?
I'm sure there's someone out there who needs your bike more than you do. Is it mean-spirited to prevent them from getting at it?
i prefer
my non sequiturs after 5 with a stiff drink, thanks.
Nah, man. You see, if you
Nah, man. You see, if you aren't on board with forcing homeless people out of the city or forcing them into the open elements because this guy up here prefers not to be reminded they exist, then that means you *must* leave your door unlocked and give away your bike. It's the same exact thing. It makes all kinds of sense if you don't think about it.
At the risk of opening up a can of worms
I wonder how the various participants in this debate feel about space savers, since we're discussing the ways in which people do and don't have a right to use public property.
Eeka I love you but...
... that's a fairly obvious bit of trolling there.
Nope, not intended to be such
Just pointing out that the same people who don't want homeless people anywhere often think car owners should be able to lay claim to public spaces.
I don't know about anyone else...
.... but I'm entirely consistent. I don't believe car owners ought to be able to claim exclusive use of a public parking space. And I don't believe anybody ought to be able to use the Esplanade as a campground.
I will bet you
That I personally know, and am on friendly terms with, and have shared my lunch with, more homeless people than most people on here. I can still smell on my gloves the guy whom I helped up in the street yesterday and stayed with until he could support himself upright. Having compassion is not incompatible with understanding the degree to which one guy with active delusions and a knife in his back pocket can really fuck up your whole day.
Not even remotely a non-sequitur
Spikes, like locks, are a physical means to deter people who don't have rights to use a specific piece of property from using it for purposes that the property owner doesn't want to allow.
so
might i ask: who owns the Mass. Ave bridge - and more specifically the space underneath it?
answer carefully, remembering the conservative tenets of small government and public land use.
i’ll wait.
Easy answer
Who owns the mass ave bridge and the space underneath it?
We the public.
Just as we own the runways at Logan Airport.
Just as we own the nuclear missiles onboard the USS Ohio.
And, we have delegated to our elected government the stewardship authority to manage those assets that we own.
Part of that stewardship authority includes the authority to regulate who gets to hang out under the bridge, walk on the runways, or push the launch buttons on the boat.
This is not a particularly controversial area of political theory or law.
oh ok.
are the homeless part of the public?
You're being obtuse
The homeless are every bit as much a part of the public as I am.
They have the same rights, privileges, and obligations as I do.
They have the same ownership stake in public property as I do.
Their vote, to choose the representative government that manages public property, counts just as much a mine does.
They have the same rights to be on the publicly owned land under the Mass. Ave. Bridge, to walk onto the publicly-owned runway at Logan Airport, or to fiddle with the publicly-owned launch controls on a publicly-owned submarine as I do.
When
is the last time you tried walking down the runway at Logan?
Whooosh
Whooosh
Only kind of woosh
Massport is a quasi government agency. It's not using your tax dollars. At all.
I think you might have chosen a different agency to make a better point, is all.
Ownership of the real estate?
Is not the underlying real estate owned by the public?
Maybe?
It's state owned, so, yes?
maybe I'm wrong. wouldn't be the first time. ;-)
Not controversial
Unless you don't want yellow corners on your intersections. Then it gets all sorts of controversial as to what "we" are allowed to do with our public streets.
Only sort of.
Whether or not we get yellow plastic on our street corners is determined by the government we have democratically elected. Said government is also required to follow the law. There is a legal process to determine whether the government is acting within the rights we have delegated to it or not. Legal and political processes are places in which competing and conflicting interests are represented. Not everyone gets their way. On the matter of the yellow plastic street corner things, the law allowed Walsh to bypass the normal operation of the political and legal process and get his way by declaring a public safety emergency, just as Trump is looking to do with his Mexico wall.
If, in fact...
...it is private property.
I believe this is also something of a fuzzy area - for example, as when a private business makes use of the public sidewalk, which quite a few do in Boston.
It is illegal
For a private business to display merchandise, signboards, etc. on public sidewalks is illegal. Plenty of businesses do it, and the city is lax about enforcing it, but the legality is not fuzzy.
Apologies!
Were you wanting use of the underside of the Mass Ave bridge, but were prevented from people simply trying to seek out shelter?
No, but...
No, but I was wanting use of the Mass Ave Bridge and Storrow Drive for purposes of transport, and was prevented from doing so by people setting the place on fire.
oh wow good point
your desire to cross a public bridge is much like your desire to use my private bike!
wooosh!
No, my desire to cross a public bridge is like my desire to use my private bike. If someone else's illegal activity damages either the bridge or the bike, then I have a problem with it.
being
homeless is illegal?
EDIT: i'm going to ward off your inevitable obtuseness by pointing out that nothing in the OP or MSP tweet suggests any illegal activity. so you must be referring to the legality of homeless encampment itself, unless you're privy to info none of us has.
Setting the Mass Ave overpass
Setting the Mass Ave overpass on fire is illegal.
Who ever said that being homeless was illegal?
Just to clarify where I'm coming from, I believe that we have a moral obligation to provide warm, dry, safe housing to anybody who needs it who cannot provide it for him or her self.
That is completely orthogonal, of course, to the question of whether the encampment under the Mass. Ave Bridge is legal.
If the property in question is controlled by the DCR, which, it being adjacent to Storrow Drive, seems a good bet, then here are the applicable regs that would, on first inspection, appear to make camping there illegal.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2016/08/xn/3021200.pdf
So.....
If we have a moral obligation to provide this warm dry safe housing as you believe we do, but aren't.
What are folks supposed to do?
What are folks supposed to do?
By "folks" do you mean you and me? Vote for representatives who promise to meet this obligation. Lobby existing representatives to do something. Donate time and money to private charities that help.
If you mean homeless folks, they're in an impossible situation. If they had our (the public's) support? Sit in in the lobby of the state house and say "we're not going away until the state does something to meet its obligation?
Thanks for clarifying
Sorry yeah I wasn't clear by folks. I did mean the homeless folks in the impossible situation. I hear you on the homeless going to the statehouse and occupying it until action is taken. I'm sure that would work. It's just feels less effective when the statehouse is closed and there are no shelter beds available, I guess I'm thinking how they solve the homeless situation for the night? Then I suppose that the moral obligation you were talking about feels less about providing actual shelter for those that need it and more about how to lobby effectively.
next
https://www.necn.com/news/new-england/People-Spotted-Living-Above-Boston...
A bridge with many names
FYI
It’s official name is the Harvard Bridge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Bridge
As my father taught me
"There but for the grace of God go I".
For certain
One thing I have learned with increasing age is that I am not a better person than any of the people living under that bridge.