Boston residents, businesses say Mass and Cass conditions have spread, worsened in parks and neighborhoods

Residents and business leaders slammed the open-air drug use, public sex and violence they said has worsened in surrounding neighborhoods since tents were cleared at Mass and Cass, in stark contrast from the progress cited by the Wu administration.

The public testimony came at a Tuesday City Council hearing on a measure put forward by Councilor Ed Flynn, who is pushing for a new plan to address the crowding, drug dealing and filth that returned in full force this past summer to the troubled intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard.

“Even when the tents were removed, the problem remained — the problem was spread out, not just at Mass and Cass, but other areas,” Flynn said. “It’s OK to admit failure, but let’s admit failure and move forward with a comprehensive plan that works for residents, that works for the businesses, that works for the people suffering from drug substance-use-related issues, and provide the critical leadership that is needed.

“Even though it may be politically unpopular, we have to do what we believe is right.”

He’s been pushing for a city crackdown that leads to arrests and prosecution of drug dealers, and efforts that get the people openly using drugs off the streets where they can harm themselves and into medical facilities for detox-related treatment.

Flynn’s district includes South Boston and the South End, two neighborhoods that he said have experienced Mass and Cass spillover, along with Roxbury, Dorchester and downtown Boston — a scenario that is plaguing residents and businesses in those areas, according to the day’s testimony.

“The conditions at Mass and Cass and beyond remain inhumane and out of control for everyone involved,” Jonathan Alves, a 10-year South End resident and member of the South End Business Alliance, said. “That includes the people suffering, that includes the residents. That includes the businesses.”

Alves said he’s “personally picked up hundreds of needles over the last several years in South End parks,” and is concerned about the needles and other unsafe conditions he says are plaguing the surrounding parks and neighborhoods.

“Most of us know and agree this is not a police issue; the police are not going to solve this issue for us,” Alves said. “This is a political issue.”

David Stone, a 28-year resident of the South End, said that while he agreed with the mayor’s decision to clear the encampments at Mass and Cass last fall, it has resulted in the problem dispersing into neighborhoods like his.

Given that Atkinson Street is no longer an option for people to hang around all day to use drugs, the area across the street from his house has become “littered with drug paraphernalia, abandoned clothing, remnants of stolen packages and sometimes human waste.”

“Most mornings walking my dogs, I find evidence of more drug use that’s happened overnight,” Stone said. “But since last year, there are now increasingly also times when the evidence is a human being lying flat on his back or on his face on the Harrison Avenue sidewalk, in some combination of sleep or over-sedation.

“It didn’t used to be this way. As recently as two or three years ago, visible drug use was a rare sight on my street, and someone sleeping rough would have been shocking on the corner. Now everyone just walks on by, including me, quite frankly, most of the time.”

Marla Murphy Smith, a Shirley Street resident who lives near Clifford Park, said the Roxbury park has become a “lawless no-man’s land,” where recordings from witnesses frequently published on social media have included “drug use, drug sales, knife fights, altercations with passersby, partial and full nudity, prostitution and full-blown sex acts.”

“All the city does is post a sign, but not enforce the words written right on it,” Murphy Smith said. “There’s been very little urgency to remediate the situation.”

“What’s being normalized for Roxbury kids,” she later added, “is that drug users have more rights to the park than they do, that actions have no consequences and accountability doesn’t exist. This primarily black and brown community should not be used as Boston’s dumping ground for things other neighborhoods don’t want — and have the political capital and clout to shout down.”

Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said the city has made progress since the tent removal last year, “not just working in the Mass and Cass area,” but working “citywide,” while noting the decline in overdose deaths seen over the first four months of this year compared to last year.

Dan Humphreys, deputy superintendent for the Boston Police Department, spoke to the improvements seen over the past 30 days, with a new phase of deployment, supervision and coordination in places where people “don’t feel safe.”

The department has seen “clear progress to where we were a year ago,” he said.

“We can talk about stats; in the Mass and Cass area overall violent crime is down 27%, like robberies are down 25, the list goes on,” Humphreys said. “But if people don’t feel safe there, it doesn’t mean anything, right?

“So, that’s our objective now, is to continue the coordination,” he said. “We see clear progress in the Mass and Cass area. The other places that we’ve adjusted our deployments, we’re starting to get positive feedback. We’re not taking a victory lap by any stretch of the imagination. The work is ongoing. We have a lot of work to do.”