Boston Mayor Wu files ordinance to ban tents at Mass and Cass

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has filed an ordinance that would give police the authority to clear out homeless encampments, a measure aimed at cracking down on the crime in the Mass and Cass zone.

Wu urged the City Council to “take swift and urgent action” to approve the ordinance, which will be introduced at the body’s Wednesday meeting.

“The ordinance will establish a prohibition against unsanctioned use of tents, tarps, and similar temporary structures on public property and in the public way which have been shielding much of the dangerous activity in the area and undermining the ability of providers to safely and effectively deliver services,” Wu said in a Monday letter to the City Council.

It stipulates that “Boston Police would have the authority to enforce on the condition that individuals are offered shelter and transportation to services, as well as storage for personal belongings,” the mayor said.

If approved, the ordinance would give more teeth to the city’s existing anti-encampment policies, including an executive order signed in the fall of 2021 that Wu first tried to enforce soon after taking office in January 2022.

The order is the first step of a new three-tiered approach the mayor, law enforcement officials and healthcare providers announced last Friday, as the city aims to cut down on the increased violence, drug and human trafficking occurring this summer at the troubled area known as Mass and Cass or Methadone Mile.

The city’s current anti-encampment policies require that individuals be given a 48-hour heads up before their tents are removed, which Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said last week is “not realistic” given that the tents are being used to support the open-air “drug market” the area has become known for.

He said gun arrests and assaults have doubled in the past several months on Methadone Mile, the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis, which is “making it almost unbearable for people to work down there.” The danger prompted all non-city teams to pull their outreach workers from the area, Wu previously said.

While police would be given more authority to enforce the ban, it would not apply at times “when shelter is unavailable,” the mayor’s filing states.

At other times, when there is a violation, an individual experiencing homelessness would be offered emergency shelter space, and when requested, transportation to the available emergency shelter space. The city would also provide storage space for the individual’s personal belongings.

The mayor cited these aspects of the ordinance as steps the city took to protect itself from a constitutional challenge. The American Civil Liberties Union has threatened or filed lawsuits against other large cities that have taken action to clear out homeless encampments.

Individuals in violation of the ordinance, who refuse to remove or allow for the removal of their campsite, or who reestablish their tents and tarps after police have removed them, “shall be subject to penalties,” the filing states.

Boston Police, as the enforcement authority, are “empowered to make an arrest” when a violation occurs, the ordinance states, which also lays out the potential for a $25 fine that would be incurred with each offense.

Enforcement would begin seven days after passage of the ordinance, the filing states.

“We’re not trying to criminalize folks that are homeless, at all,” Cox said at last Friday’s press conference. “But the fact is, there are certain people who prey upon people who are down and out, and they come to the area hidden by shelter tarps and tents, and really the law is intended to disperse them, to get them away from the area, obviously, or actually get them in the criminal justice system.”

The ordinance would “support public safety as the city doubles down on our public-led approach to the crises of mental health, substance use and unsheltered homelessness concentrated in the area of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard,” Wu said.

Other plans call for temporarily housing the displaced individuals at a 30-bed overnight shelter at 727 Massachusetts Ave., and an increased police presence to restore Atkinson Street to an encampment-free thoroughfare and prevent the tents and crime from reoccurring at a different location once the crowds are dispersed.

The city is also moving forward with plans to rebuild the Long Island bridge, which would provide access to a future addiction-recovery campus on the island in four years.

A key license was secured this month, but the effort has faced staunch resistance from the mayor on the other side of the bridge, Quincy’s Thomas Koch, and two other permits are still needed prior to construction.

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