“Merchants say business is way off,” said Jack Connolly, acting President of the Somerville Chamber of Commerce and Davis Square, Winslow Avenue resident for fifty years.
Jim Harrison, of American Flatbread at Sacco's, said female workers were uncomfortable and they had implemented the buddy-system. "The boarded up buildings, not-lively appearance, the vacancies in buildings lead to the underprivileged settling and the loss of charm," he said.
120 residents signed a letter circulated by email networks built since last January's visioning Davis Square. The meeting was evidence of the "critical mass" necessary for the City Council to recognize drafted by-laws of the Davis Square Neighborhood Council, according to organizer Elaine Almquist. "Then we'll have access for community members to meet with developers when we point to the zoning for business available and ask why they're not coming here" said Zachary another organizer after the event.
“I pay taxes, I deserve compassion,” said a female Davis Square resident of fifteen years who expressed discomfort taking her children into the Square to eat icecream.
Major Katjana's framing of recent events was in light of the housing crisis: "Massachusetts has been in a state of emergency. Shelters are at capacity." Karin Carroll, Somerville Director of Health and Human Services added, "We have waiting list for both individuals and families." How long? Two years for an individual applying to the Somerville Housing Authority, as I found out in my
visit to the Somerville Housing Coalition Engagement Center. Carroll continued, "We need more available kinds of housing."
“This is happening to us. We can choose to respond with compassion or like a wack-a-mole,” said Todd Kaplan, who lives on Kidder, near the approved site for a new 26 person shelter.
One resident pointed to the agenda of an October 17th meeting where the Mayor would discuss proposed changes to the definition of shelter to include in a residential neighborhood. “Crime has gone up 24% in the square the past seven years.” It wasn't clear what source, or what the stat specified, but according to open policing data, with convenient to toggle dashboard to note the type of incident, per city section, I click in ward six and read there have been in ward six, 193 of 904 total Somerville unwanted guest incidents so far in 2024. Ward six had 316 of 1,877 total Somerville "check condition" calls, and 506 of 3,556 total Somerville "sick person" calls to the Police. In the entire year of 2023 ward six had 485 "check person" calls and 745 "sick person" calls. What was the increase in the number of disputes, 58 so far in 2024, 74 in 2023?
Was there a policy regarding drug use? one asked the Mayor and City Council. City Councilors in the room included Will Mbah, Judy Pineda Neufeld, Jake Wilson, Kristen Strezo, Willie Burnley Jr., and Lance Davis, Ward Six Councilor.
Seven Hills Park and Statue park were focal points.
"This is going to be a disaster. You already can't service with your resources," said a forty-year resident, an abutter of the Seven Hills Park, lamenting the loss of "our beautiful parks that we can't even use anymore." Another claimed that children at the daycare center might be on walks seeing drug use and sex on the bench in Davis Square.
"Don't use the daycare center my kids go to as a prop," said another. "We feel less safe because of police presence. I experience more fear from police. A police car parked blocked the cross walk was more dangerous in my opinion. The porta-potty, when first put in, neighbors chased it away. I wonder about these 'walks' the police make--if we could have a social worker without a gun."
"We've seen drug use in the library, in the kids room," said another resident.
"Others have said things are going to get worse. I don't agree" said Jim Recht, a psychiatrist and addiction specialist working at Boston Healthcare for the Homeless. The City hired three health workers and a manager to address housing crisis in the past year, said Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, and recently finalized a hire of a social worker specifically working with the unhoused who attend the library.
"My son died last year of Fentanyl poisoning. The police have been to my house hundreds and hundreds of times. Compassion, restraint, I never feared they would shoot my kid."
Another witnessed a police offer engaged in a 35-minute conversation with a group, part of the "Walk & Talk" engagement, "well received by the unhoused people." The Mayor, accompanied by Hannah SHC learned met in Davis Square with apparantly unhoused people, but learned 7 of the group were housed. "They might lose their community when they get housing so they might choose to hang out," Karin Carroll explained.
“Call 3-1-1 to remove trash, debris, sharps, syringes, needles, bodily waste, or to provide feedback, or ask for referrals” said Steve Craig, Director of Constituent Services.
Kaplan continued, “It’s a proven strategy. We will see less using on the streets, less crime. It takes a lot of courage.”
"Crime is correlated with homelessness, but it's crime against the homeless," said Recht, who had worked for decades in addiction services including around the corner at Somerville Mental Health, and at CHA 26 Central Street.
"Criminalization of opiate use does not result in recovery from addiction and it does not save lives," Recht said to applause. "Save injection sites do."
The idea of allowing drug users to safely dispose of needles and cope with addiction has been tested. "Around the world," said Councilor Willie Burnley Jr. after the event, in these kind of shelters "no one has died, crime has gone down," who added that the allocation for the shelter has already been made.
Mayor Katjana said she was personally committed to evidence-based practices. She had recently begun walking in the square up to twice a day. Another time visiting the Square, out of a group of ten, four had housing. "So people make friends in the community. They come to hang out."
“We do know these touch points build trust,” said Karin Carroll, Director of Health and Housing Services for Somerville. Her organization has openings for volunteers to help make backpacks, running the winter warming center that previously was in Ward 5 at the Armory. Utilizing ARPA funds for a vaccine clinic.
"If you didn't call up and get them moved there'd be more of them," said Karen Love, my Magoun Square neighbor.
After a Mass. and Cass crackdown, a forced exodus in March, Somerville made the news cycle about being on the receiving end. NPR had a story about the regional use. Wednesday night, residents pointed to the Central Square construction resulting in dispersion. Residents felt they used to know who was homeless in Davis Square but in the last year it was different, the addiction to drugs and violence was evidence of a migration to Somerville.
"Somerville can not be. Davis Square cannot be a service center for a regional problem" said a resident who had lived in Somerville for fifty years.
"And I agree that this is a regional problem that we cannot solve alone," said Councilor Willie Burnley Jr.
"We need to have candid converation, balancing needs. It could be Ward One tomorrow" saidNew Police Chief, Shumeane Benford. "I have no hesitation asking for help," he said, adding he has met with Superintendent Sullivan and asked for staffing of the Davis Square MBTA station. He and Deputy James Donovan explained that surveillance is used for investigation purposes.
Police resources were stressed. There remain six vacancies to fill on staff. One called for more community policing. "The Climate of the last years has affected our ability to attract others to the discipline" the Chief said, explaining patrol coverage, "What Deputy Donovan is not saying is that ours are being asked to stay overtime." He suggested his community affairs team like himself in his eleventh day had worked sixteen hour days. "I would like to see a plan--and I offer that as an invitation and as an action step."
"600 patrols works out to 6 patrols a day" said Jim Harrison nonplussed, reading the Police Department slide.
"It's about to be daylight savings time and Seven Hills Park is about to get dark very early. Maybe we ought to have more protection for women walking" said the woman with the list of 39 names who were turned away because of capacity.
As a Somerville Human Rights Commissioner I attended this meeting, aware that a neighbor of mine has made calls to the police when she has seen drug users in Magoun Square, and told me about drug overdose on our street.
Karen Love: "When I worked at the liquor store, we got the drinkers. They drinking, and their doing drugs. oh now They’d be OD’ing in Trum field, Didn’t have Narcan and thing. Now they hang down in Davis square, And if you dind’t call up and get them moved there’d be more of them.
"Oh, so somebody OD’ on our block" I asked.
"Yeah probably a few times, even. Yeah, on the sidewalk they would be laying
Yeah, one OD’s been there, another girl, maybe seven years, her boyfriend was dead on the couch." And then there was the neighbor Kathy T. Melvin at 53 Trull whose body Karen had found. "On the first floor of that house."
Kathy had been on pain meds and "Richy" watched her. He died of a stomach infection on May 20, 2022 and Kathleen Melvin (nee Mangin) died February 15, 2023. Her brother Paul Mangin died six months before. Only then did she talk of the pregnancy and the closed adoption.
"We talk about Opioid epidemic but Somerville had this problem before it became a national conversation," Councilor Willie Burnley said. "Somerville has for generations had drug overdose as a leading cause of death."
The recent
burial service at St. Clements of Stanley "Chip" Koty III who grew up on Partridge Avenue, struggled life long with addiction, never giving up on recovery and friends in Narcotics Anonymous, this past June "died suddenly."
In Magoun Square, Sal Sperlinga, right hand man of Howie Winter, chased out of the Square sellers of hard drugs. He had no gun on his person. A week later, in January 1980, Sal was gunned down. He was deeply mourned.
"Most of the evidence collected in cities where there is a strong preexisting drug and violence problem but here your planting something in a neighborhood that is very different. If people thought it was permanent, the number of people today would be doubled." He continued, "Our daughter was one of the first to reach out with Narcan in Cambridge."
"Well Narcan and overdose, they're correlated but not the same," said the Councilor.
"What my husband is saying is that where this study was in New York, Quebec, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, there's a preexisting problem. Everyone in the neighborhood knows and the streets are littered with syringes, whereas when you put it in a relatively bourgeois place it's maddening. It doesn't respond to an existing problem."
"We need to face reality," another resident had said inside.
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