Boston city workers began to clear tents Monday morning near the troubled intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue as part of an effort to enforce a new encampment ban across the city.
Boston city workers began to clear tents Monday morning near the troubled intersection of Melnea Cass Boulevard and Massachusetts Avenue as part of an effort to enforce a new encampment ban across the city.
For Boston specifically, they could rebuild the Long Island Bridge, which before its demolition was a usable footpath for addicts seeking treatment to get to Long Island, which at one point housed a hospital and even after the hospital’s closure offered facilities for those in need including a homeless shelter and rehabilitation programs.
The area the article discusses, called politely “Mass and Cass,” is also referred to as “methadone mile” and it does not really have comparable facilities to help those in need. Methadone mile sprang up when the BU medical center became the only real place where addicts can get treatment to try and wean off their drug addiction, and it’s a real problem even for the addicts as there is very easy access to genuine opiods.
Stressful street living + constant presence of dealers + no facilities besides a regulated hospital = a really fucking impossible way to kick your addiction.
Methadone mile needs to go. Boston also needs the neighboring town of Quincy to stop fighting the rebuilding of the Long Island Bridge.