By the late afternoon of the first day of enforcement of the city’s new anti-encampment ordinance, the tents and those who lived in them on Atkinson Street were gone.
Mayor Michelle Wu said at a press conference from the street Wednesday that enforcement “has been months in the process” — which took coordinated efforts to figure out the treatment and shelter needs for each person living there. Two city officials confirmed to the Herald a little after 5:30 p.m. that the few tents that had remained were cleared.
While she said the goal was to have Atkinson Street cleared by the afternoon, she did not commit to the idea that “this is the end to the encampment at Mass and Cass.” She said completely turning the area around “will take a tremendous amount of sustained effort.”
But her tone was hopeful: “Even though we know it will not be fixed overnight, I feel very grateful and confident that the coordination that we’ve seen is unlike ever before in the city.”
Just before 8 a.m., a few Boston Police sergeants started walking down the short street that has served as a tent city serving the denizens of the Mass and Cass area, the center of Massachusetts’ opioid epidemic. About 30 minutes later, 13 cops were being briefed by three BPD captains at the end of the street.
The presence of the police, as well as the contingent of patrolling Ware Security guards — a firm retained by the Boston Public Health Commission — didn’t seem to distress the people inhabiting the remaining 14 tents.
There had been more than 50 tents densely packing Atkinson from Southampton Street and Bradston Street, according to Tania Del Rio, the director of Wu’s Coordinated Response Team for the area’s plight.
Del Rio said that by Tuesday, 52 of those who had been living there had already moved, 25 had accepted a city offer for finding them shelter and services and another seven people would be “provided a placement setting today.”
While the Roundhouse hotel, the former Best Western location that housed 60 from Mass and Cass, shut down in September, Wu said almost 200 units had been created, with another 30 more “low-threshold beds” at the new shelter two blocks away “to help absorb and manage the disruption of this transition.”
A tall man reeled, barely holding on to his balance, on the sidewalk behind them. A long-haired man in a green hooded sweatshirt energetically danced around the first tent as others mulled about near him. A blonde woman recognizable from previous Herald photos of the encampment paced back and forth with what appeared to be a McDonald’s frappe in her hand.
Marie Ann Ponti, director of outreach programs at St. Anthony Shrine, and another woman tried to speak with the woman about her plans for shelter, but she waved them away with her straw and continued pacing. While this woman wasn’t receptive, Ponti told the Herald that she had been having a successful morning working with others on finalizing their housing plans.
Across from them a tent had a homey decoration that said “Fall, Sweet Fall” on a pumpkin plaque.
The third tent down Atkinson from Southampton was partially deconstructed by 8:15 a.m. Wednesday, and while its tarps were bundled, the remnants of the people who had left it remained: an empty basic tool case shell, a mess of plastic utensils, aromatic candles, single shoes without their mates, the novel “Perfect Liars” by Kimberly Reid — the end of her last name ripped from its cover — and a NERF gun were some highlights. A woman with a collection of syringes in a Coke bottle found the NERF gun and put it in her purse.
“Once the last tent does come down, we will make sure that the street is cleaned and that there's some more of those services just to ensure that this area is how it should be, but that won't be the end of our efforts by any means,” Wu said.
During the clean-up in January of last year, Wu said, the city hauled away some 44 tons of trash, with much of that weight made up of rigid shelters, which were not as prevalent these days. On Tuesday the city took away two tons with what remained on Wednesday expected to be no more than three tons.
When it’s done, Wu said that “here, as in anywhere across the city, the laws will be enforced” and that the police will maintain a presence there.
City Council President Ed Flynn said he was there to “thank the police” and the other workers helping people get into shelter and treatment. A later statement added, that it is important “our city continues to show that we are serious in maintaining a zero tolerance policy moving forward when it comes to the public safety issues that occurred partially due to the tents and encampments in the area.”
By 11 a.m., the first half of the street’s tents and debris were clear, but the people who left had not disappeared. Instead, many could be seen gathering in nearby alleys, others picking through bushes, and a contingent of 14 — two of whom, like was seen all morning on Atkinson Street, were visibly shooting up — grouped up in the McDonald’s parking lot.
