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City to start another Mass and Cass tent sweep on Nov. 1
By adamg on Thu, 10/26/2023 - 11:58am
ISD inspectors will fan out across Mass and Cass today posting notices that the city will start removing all "tents, tarps and other temporary structures" in the area on Nov. 1, Mayor Wu announced today - adding the state has approved Boston's plans to rebuild the Long Island bridge and that the city is now looking for a project-management company to oversee the work, for which the city has already set aside $81 million.
The announcements come the day after the City Council approved an ordinance letting the city immediately remove tents rather than waiting at least 48 hours after providing notice.
Under the new policy, tent removal will be paired with transportation for current denizens to one of several possible locations: A "low-threshold" housing site, a homeless shelter, a treatment program or to their family. The city will provide storage for their personal belongings. Along with this, the city will maintain "real-time inventory of available safe sleeping space" for people being moved out. Also:
Some medical services to support unsheltered residents will be temporarily relocated. The Boston Public Health Commission, in partnership with Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP), will open a temporary site at 774 Albany Street for clinical services so that individuals have uninterrupted access to care during the transition. Security will be stationed inside and outside the temporary site on a 24/7 basis.
To make room for people now sleeping on streets such as Atkinson Street, the city will add 30 "temporary transitional beds" to a BPHC building at
Wu said that the current goal for Long Island is to have the bridge - long and ultimately unsuccessfully opposed by Quincy - rebuilt within four years, and to have buildings on the long dormant campus there rehabbed in time to accept patients.
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Comments
$81,000,000. And most of
$81,000,000. And most of these people aren't even from Boston so why are Bostonians footing the bill? Why do people in cities have the clean up the mess that suburbanites drop off on us?
Homeless, mentally ill, druggies
Come from all over, not just "suburbs". Many aren't even from this state.Cities like Boston, Cambridge especially, out out the welcome mat. Boston and NYC, where I was born and lives until age of 12, don't exist in a vacuum.
How many homeless shelters in
How many homeless shelters in more convenient locations could be built for $81 million?
In 2023
Probably ONE. Construction cost are outrageous right now.
How about we compromise - the
How about we compromise - the STATE, or better yet, the MULTIPLE states currently dumping their people in downtown Boston pay for it, and Boston will manage all the construction and negative externalities and treatment and bussing etc.
81 million dollars from city coffers to clean up everybody else's messes.
The border wars
I know we have severe problems on the southern borders but the border war between Boston and Quincy promises to be just as chaotic and controversial..
Boston Public Health
They will do it as soon as possible just like they did with procuring covid vaccines for underserved populations.
4 years!
To rebuild the bridge is absurd and does not meet the urgency of the moment. Can't we do anything that doesn't take forever anymore?
Agree, but
at least it's finally moving! If we would've started 4 years ago, it would be done by now! That said, I fully expect this to take 10 years..
4 years to rebuild a bridge
Seems fast compared to current projects.
The North Washington Street bridge project will have taken six-and-a-half years if it's completed on the current timetable; even the original plans would have taken five years. The Dot Ave bridge closure was supposed to last three months but it's going to be more like three years until they're done. The closure of Congress St under the Govt Center Garage was planned to last for three months but here we are nearly a year-and-a-half later and it's still not open.
Planning, permitting, construction...
I'm guessing most of those four years are the time needed to select a construction manager, design/engineering firm, get all the permits, order materials, and so on, and the actual guys and gals running around with hardhats and hammers phase is maybe a year.
It is a decent length/height bridge over a large body of water, so it's a bit more complex than during a bunch of concrete around some rebar. And I imagine the permitting is complex given environmental review/EIS, and the fact that abutters will no doubt continue to try to scuttle the project. And it's a government project so procurement rules will add a year to the timetable because reasons.
Permitting for infrastructure in the US is bat$#@! crazy compared to peer nations like France, which is a part of the reason why the GLX cost as much as a 100-mile TGV line and why the Acela runs at bus speeds despite serving an area with the same demographics as France and Germany, and could otherwise support true high-speed rail.
But, peeling apart 50+ years of legislation, regulation, case law, and so on will not be easy, or painless.
rebuild the bridge
before bridges, people used........boats!!!
Send half the bill to Quincy
Miserable little hole that it is.
I frequently drive by
Everyday for years even before this sad open air drug market began, I’ve watch it get slimier and grimier by the second, it’s sad to see old childhood friends & enemies alike with there souls snatched. There is a Methadone mile in every city let’s just hope they do t take over the world.
Trust me
They ain’t going anywhere, the tents can get removed by bulldozer’s but it’s residents are set in there ways trust me.
For $81 million dollars, this
For $81 million dollars, this should also prevent the addict from traveling to Boston and its neighborhoods to seek out all the free "recovery" help and then still be able to walk out the shelter door to meet the drug dealer to get high at the same time!!