Plans for Boston Methadone Mile hotel housing scuttled in face of community opposition

The controversial plans to house homeless in a vacant Methadone Mile hotel are dead, the main proponent told locals.

“We thank the City of Boston, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the many individuals who supported this effort. But in the end, the outcry of opposition to this plan at this location was loud and forceful, including from elected officials who had originally supported the idea,” wrote Sarah Porter, head of the Victory Programs addictions-services organization.

Victory Programs had sought to move 14 to 35 people who are living on the streets in the rough area Mass and Cass known as or Methadone Mile into the hotel at 891 Massachusetts Ave. That’s a 200-room Best Western known as the “Roxbury Roundhouse” due to its cylindrical shape.

The idea, backed by a state grant, was to use the hotel as “transitional” housing for people on the streets, stabilizing them before moving them out of the Mile, which continues to worsen as a haven of violence and open-air drug use.

But the plan ran into a buzzsaw of community opposition, as the Herald reported last week, with locals and elected officials criticizing it on multiple fronts, including saying that it goes against the long-stated goal of “decentralizing” services in the area so the problems aren’t so concentrated.

Opponents also said that moving people just a short distance away into a hotel doesn’t seem like a recipe for success, though Porter has continued to argue that it’s a good first step for people to get their feet under them.

“There are hundreds of individuals suffering on the street at Mass & Cass,” Porter continued in the email to community members announcing the end of the push. “For whatever reasons, other services aren’t working to help them exit the patterns in which they are caught. This is not a failure of those services but the complexity of the situation.  If we want people to exit street life, we have to offer them a place to stay as they are — without barriers.  If what exists is not working, we must create other options that work.”

But a deeper worry for some locals was the city of Boston’s involvement. The city agreed to add some money to give Victory Programs enough cash to lease out the whole hotel — and officials suggested they might have some use for the other vacant floors. Locals feared the city was eyeing the other 180 Roundhouse rooms for shelter space right in the heart of Methadone Mile, and though Porter said that wasn’t in her plans, she said there wasn’t much to say to alleviate those concerns, given some statements from city officials.

“We will stop, regroup, and continue to explore other options,” Porter wrote in the email shared with the Herald. as possible, no matter their circumstances. “We will work with whichever new Administration begins in January and trust that the plans being outlined now, for the sake of so many, will move quickly and successfully.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3Abx7X7