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Good question
20+ years ago, everywhere (except the North End, you know who kept them out). Now -primarily in Downtown Crossing / Chinatown area, on Mass Ave, & out /around major T stations (South Station, Back Bay, Ruggles, Forest Hills, Dudley, North Station, Maverick, Haymarket, Kenmore, Park St).
The blogger inadvertently answered the question
Take for example The Veterans location pictured in the blog. They recently changed their canopy signage to a nondescript Court St marker. It no longer labels the building as a homeless shelter. Meanwhile, most tourists see Pine Street Inn and think it's just another hotel.
Lots of Places
Families are sheltered in motels and family-specific shelter situations.
Some people sofa surf.
Some live in campgrounds in the summer and move into "summer" rentals off season.
Boston has quite a bit of shelter space, too, due to our nasty winters.
Nasty winters also limit our population because sleeping rough year-round is difficult.
And yes, some people live outside. They don't tend to create encampments like they do in the West Coast. Like the guy who lived under a bridge on the Muddy River path and was completely mad and feral as a result (he quietly accepted food drop offs). Or the persons with addictions on Methadone mile. Or the people who camp on heating/MBTA grates. Many of those can't go to shelters due to addiction and/or mental illness.
Please note ...
The author of the piece is not questioning that Boston has homeless people herself, but pondering why tourists literally just off the boat seem so puzzled that we don't have large congregations of homeless people on the usual tourist routes.
That may be
But they must not have been on the freedom trail yet - that does have a substantial population of panhandling performance art going on.
I wonder if they are from outside the country or from places bombarded with propaganda about evil wicked cities? Sinclair has been making "round them all up" muckumentaries of late.
Yes, they go on the Freedom Trail
@SwirlyGrrl - she says right in the article that they go by the Freedom Trail. But not all panhandling performance artists are homeless - many are buskers with places to sleep. She explains herself quite clearly in the article.
Not much though
Went to a presentation recently talking about our success in working with our homeless population. I believe they said that EVERY homeless family had a place to sleep at night (if they chose to seek assistance) and as noted in the article, we have very few unsheltered individuals. One more case where we are a model for the country (but also recognizing that as a community, we are more wealthy than almost everywhere else which certainly helps).
Many of us (myself included) criticize government. But I will join others in tipping my cap (and gladly opening my wallet) for the hard earned success of our politicians, administrators, shelter workers and health care workers for demonstrating that while you can never totally win this battle, you can make significant inroads.
One aside - one of the "downsides" to our success is that we are becoming a regional magnet for homeless who hear there are services here. Relatively small "price" to pay - but there are advocates seeking more help from the state because we can't hope to keep up if all the homeless in New England keep coming to Boston, especially in light of the lingering opioid problems. Hopefully others will chip in.
We're a model for the country
We're a model for the country?
A positive model, not "here's what not to do..."?
In which parallel universe are we a model for the country?
Believe it or not, some may
Believe it or not, some may view preventing homeless people from freezing to death as a good thing. Shocking, I know.
Believe it or not, some may
Believe it or not, some may view years of daily trundling a good chunk of the homeless population out of sight to an island, not repairing the bridge that is the main link to said island, being caught completely flat-footed when said bridge had to be taken out of service (despite warnings), and NIMBYism & zoning/permitting structures that leave people with problems in streets & schoolyards instead of developing needed infrastructure as NOT A GOOD THING.
.
Shocking, I know.
Some things we do really well
Homeless
Education
Policing (mostly)
I'm sure a few others.
Then there's the T...
Reasonable question
Especially if those same tourists just left NY. Boston is stunningly clean for a major city. I cannot walk outside without seeing multiple homeless people. Can't walk two blocks without someone asking for money. Boston has a lot of good going for it self.
So... um ... RTFA?
So... um ... RTFA?
more than 1000 beds and dangerously cold weather
But I think that homeless camps are not far in the future if we don't do something about the housing crisis.
When is housing not in crisis?
I was listening to some Somerville commentary from the late 90s and it sounds identical to today: housing crisis, people forced to leave, homelessness, etc.
Wouldn’t that have been the
Wouldn’t that have been the beginning of what we’ve landed at today ?
No, just a continuation of it
Everyone who doesn't currently own a home thinks housing prices are too high. There has never been a time in Boston in which the general consensus was that housing was reasonably priced.
Housing as a percentage of average earnings has leveled off in the past year.
I own a place and I think
I own a place and I think housing prices are way too high. Yeah we could "cash out" with an appreciation of 15k/year for the time we've lived here, but where are we going to go? Can't afford a new place, the prices are too damn high.
It has?
(Genuinely curious, not being snarky--YOY rents are up slightly, and I think it's outpacing inflation)
There was at least one small
There was at least one small encampment this summer. Without giving any details because I don't want anyone to get evicted, it was a place where a few people have been sleeping for a while but when I went down there this summer there was way more stuff than I had ever seen before, including a cluster of tents. There were also people hanging around during the daytime for the first time.
Does the tour bus go by Methadone Mile?
Does the tour bus go by
Methadone Milerebranded as trendy Mass & Cass?Or near South Station?
Lots of homeless around there...
Where I came from we had a
Where I came from we had a phrase. RTFA:
O Fishy
First you call death threats just being humorous; now you mock people in the throes of addiction. Given your predilection for celebrating suffering and willingness to be false I can only considering your suffering in that you clearly were born in the wrong century on the wrong continent. You have my sympathy.
Boston's homeless population is concentrated in Newmarket...
Boston hides the homeless in the Newmarket, South End, and Roxbury neighborhoods. Homeless people are told to leave Downtown for those areas "you will not be arrested for drug use on Southampton Street". You know out of sight out of mind.
TL:DR:
She's touring the wrong neighborhoods.
Never enough ...always more need ...but ......
The Boston area has a number of successful initiatives to help with homelessness including:
City of Boston's Boston's Way Home Action Plan:
https://www.boston.gov/departments/neighborhood-development/bostons-way-...
Boston Public Health Commission Housing First Initiative
https://www.bphc.org/whatwedo/homelessness/homeless-services/Pages/Housi...
This WBUR piece from 2018 is a good introduction to coordinated local efforts to help the homeless.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/10/09/boston-chronic-homelessness
And for homeless families,
Family Aid.
http://www.familyaidboston.org/
Multi-pronged approach to truly improve families situation for long term.
It’s very hard being a
It’s very hard being a homeless person with an addiction because I think all shelters are sober (for good reason). I think bay cove might be one of the only exceptions
Tourists definitely see things different from locals
I notice this with transit. Visitors from the Midwest probably think the T, especially the Green Line, is great, while we think it sucks (and to be fair, those from here who visit New York experience the same phenomenon.) I never think about it with homeless people. I suppose if you are on the West Coast, with their milder temperatures, you expect encampments right downtown. Meanwhile, we just know where the homeless are locally.
Mixed bag IME
Hop on the Green Line at rush hour when the Red Sox are in town, and the loudest whiners (and loudest most obnoxious people in general) are Sawwwwwwwks fans taking up more than their fair share of space. Likewise new college students who miss that they're the source of the problem that they're complaining about.
Tourists who visit Copley
Tourists who visit Copley Square often mention it, either with empathy or disgust.
Maybe they're at work?
Maybe they're at work?
They're Underground
Tour buses can't go down the connector tunnel between Park and Downtown Crossing Stations and they're in the Boston Common. Homeless people look just like regular residents or tourists mostly.