“This is a character issue for the city of Boston,” stated City Councilor Tito Jackson (District 7) at the end of Monday’s hearing on the impact of the Long Island Bridge closing and the suspension of Boston social services that had been located on Long Island.
Nine months after the October 8 evacuation of Long Island that followed a failed bridge inspection, at-large City Council member Ayannah Pressley presided over the hearing on July 13 to determine the scope of the aftermath of the bridge closing. Citizens directly affected by the loss of services on Long Island and their advocates testified for nearly three hours.
Residents of the Long Island homeless shelter and individuals enrolled in various detox and addiction recovery programs are among those affected most directly.
Until October 2014, many of Boston’s homeless endured a treacherous trip across the Long Island Bridge each morning and evening. Inspections of the decaying bridge raised numerous structural concerns, forcing the City to limit traffic to one vehicle at a time over certain stretches of the structure to avoid overloading.
Former Mayor Thomas M. Menino was widely understood to be sympathetic to Boston’s homeless population but did not allocate resources within his budget to preserve the functionality of this structure, leaving a serious problem for his successor, Mayor Martin J. Walsh.
When the Long Island Bridge was closed officially, and all residents were safely evacuated on October 8, Walsh expressed great relief that no lives had been lost. With calm certainty, Walsh made a tough call that prevented a disaster of unknown proportions. And, although the bridge closing was necessary, the manner of the closing of the Long Island Bridge and suspension of services created a different set of dangers for this vulnerable population.
Confusion reigned during the five hours that the evacuation took place. Some buses carrying shelter residents home that evening were redirected from the failing bridge. Men had the option of sheltering for two nights in an industrial warehouse, as the South End fitness center was being converted into a 300 bed temporary shelter.
Women were left to scramble. Some slept in chairs and mats on the floor of the Pine Street Inn. Boston Healthcare for the Homeless created a semi-permanent place for 45 women to sleep within the entrance atrium that was used throughout the winter.
But the residents who were turned back that night did not have the chance to gather their personal effects, and many who were evacuated did not understand that they were leaving for good and left their belongings on the Island, expecting to return.
What nobody knew at the time was that this evacuation marked the final moment that residents or staff would set foot on Long Island or that the social workers employed by the City of Boston would be left with no way to contact many of their clients.
Vulnerable individuals who faced issues ranging from mental illness, PTSD, and early addiction recovery were left to fend for themselves on the streets of Boston.
At Monday’s hearing, displaced residents and their advocates painted a grim picture of the realities of surviving last winter’s extreme weather as Boston’s remaining social service agencies struggled to address needs that could not be fully met due to a lack of resources.
Those who staff shelters and work with the homeless in Boston and Cambridge said that they noticed an immediate uptick in the number of individuals sleeping “rough” because the City of Boston was scrambling to meet a drastically increased need for shelter beds, and commuters who transit South Station each day couldn’t help but notice that the number of homeless individuals on the streets of the Financial District and Downtown Crossing had skyrocketed.
The loss of approximately half of Boston’s addiction recovery beds created weeks long waiting list for detox facilities. Since the number of detox beds was halved, there has been a 30% rise in opiate overdose deaths. Last month, Governor Charlie Baker’s opiate addiction Working Group reported the immediate need for one hundred new detox beds to address this critical shortfall.
At Monday’s hearing, Councilman Charles Yancey (district 4) was visibly moved by the testimony and motioned for a recess, rather than an adjournment of the meeting. The meeting ended with a moment of silence called for by Councilor Pressley to honor a young homeless woman who had recently died, with the words, “There but for the grace of God, go all of us.”
Katherine Bennett, a columnist for the Hingham Journal since 2005, is an active member of the Boston Homeless Solidarity Committee.
