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Council calls hearing on Mass. Ave. and Melnea Cass Boulevard public-safety and public-health concerns
Summary
Councilors filed a hearing order to require administration updates on public safety, substance use, homelessness and related public-health activity concentrated near Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard; the matter was referred to the Public Safety committee.
Boston City Councilors on April 9 filed a hearing order seeking administration updates on public safety and public-health responses to concentrated mental health, substance use, homelessness and housing-instability activity in the Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard area.
The order was introduced by Councilor Ricardo P. Santana Jr., who asked to add Councilors Ed Flynn and another councilor as original cosponsors. "This hearing order does just that. It allows the administration to come down, provide some updates, to us about some of the work that they're doing down there," Santana said. He and other sponsors said the Mass & Cass area remains an ongoing site of concern for residents and businesses.
Councilor Andy Fitzgerald, representing an impacted district, supported the filing and said his office deals with issues near the corridor year-round. Councilor Flynn described long-standing efforts to address visible drug use, drug dealing, discarded needles and public-safety concerns in nearby neighborhoods and downtown spillover. Flynn said the crisis requires resources at city, state and federal levels and urged a "treatment first approach" that includes more detox and long-term treatment beds.
Councilor Kendra Weber, chair of the Labor, Workforce and Economic Development Committee, was among the sponsors who previously convened hearings on related grants and workforce programs; at the April 9 meeting she and other councilors added their names to the order. Several councilors emphasized oversight of the administration’s response and the need for intergovernmental coordination.
The clerk recorded that docket 0857 will be referred to the Committee on Public Safety and Criminal Justice for scheduling of a hearing. Committee members and the administration will be asked to provide updates on operations, outreach, treatment availability, and enforcement strategies in and around the Mass & Cass corridor.
