I had thought that the Walsh administration had come along since the precipitous closure of the Long Island facility left homeless people — especially those with substance problems — in grave danger.
The city now seems to be engaged in a campaign of harassment and vandalism against users on Methadone Mile. Police are seizing possessions from the homeless; wheelchairs are literally being flung into garbage trucks.
Tax dollars at work. Crushing wheelchairs pic.twitter.com/NxReH8sm88
— Dinah Applewhite (@Dinahlew) August 7, 2019
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They just crushed three wheelchairs!
It was heartbreaking to speak with Jarrod, who lost not only his wheelchair, but everything he owns that he keeps in his backpack. He was hit by a car last Tuesday. @CityOfBoston @marty_walsh this is inhumane & cruel. #OperationCleanSweep https://t.co/a0WrSld5fo pic.twitter.com/kcW6mEwIBP
— Cassie Hurd (@Classymscassie) August 7, 2019
The Globe didn’t cover last night’s raid. If a row of Arlington or Back Bay residents had their stuff seized and destroyed by police, I’m going to bet they’d be on the scene.
Apparently this is in reaction to a Suffolk County officer being attacked a week ago by a denizen of the row. How is this not collective punishment? How is this supposed to help addicts? Where do they go? Where is the help?
I’d look forward to hearing more context, but this seems pretty hideously inhumane. Homelessness and addiction are hard for a city to deal with. This ain’t it.
jconway says
Apparently residents were cheering them on. Probably the same people who have “Hate Has No Home Here” placards in the windows of their South End condos. My father became disillusioned with hypocritical liberal politicians in the 80’s when Dukakis first started closing the mental health clinics in this state that he worked in. Something Deval also enjoyed balancing his budgets with. Of course the Republicans are ten times worse, but with Democrats like Marty Walsh, who needs Republicans?
Of course I get the anger at the public safety problem “Methadone Mile” poses. I took the number one bus for a full school year when I taught in Dudley Sq. and saw these same meth heads routinely harassing women and blacks on the bus until they got kicked off. I also was on a red eye red line from Quincy during my campaigning days and overheard two of them discuss which treatment centers they could get a no strings attached methadone fix from.
I try to incorporate Vygotsky and Maslow into my pedagogy as best as possible. The goal of the community should be to steer these people in the right direction to help themselves. Housing first eliminated homelessness in Salt Lake City and could easily be done in Boston. Plenty of vacant buildings for the city to buy up and build these centers. The faith community can also kick in some coin and property, especially the Archdiocese. That tackles Maslow’s hierarchy.
Recovery is a two way street and it requires the addict to want to get help as much as it requires the community to provide it. Sadly some of these folks are past that point. I’m related to a few of them too and it’s really sad to see them fail to raise their kids properly or dump them on older relatives. So we need many more well trained and fairly compensated social workers, mental health specialists, and recovery centers able to help these people help themselves. That’s Vygotsky.
We also need to be reality based, some of them can’t or won’t be helped. Where should they go and how should society deals with them are questions we have barely begun to ask, let alone, answer.