Methadone Mile needs clean up

[Peter Szerlagi]

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Andrea Campbell rolls out Methadone Mile plan

NEWSHEALTH
Andrea Campbell rolls out Methadone Mile plan

BOSTON, MA – January 22, 2021: Mayoral Candidate Andrea Campbell takes
a tour with Domingos DaRosa of the area of Mass. Ave and Melnea Cass
in Boston, Massachusetts. (Staff photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki/MediaNews
Group/Boston Herald)

By SEAN PHILIP COTTER | sean....@bostonherald.com | Boston Herald
PUBLISHED: January 22, 2021 at 7:18 p.m. | UPDATED: January 22, 2021
at 7:19 p.m.

Mayoral hopeful Andrea Campbell said the city needs to create a
Methadone Mile czar and a more focused team to improve conditions in
the troubled area known as Mass & Cass.

Campbell, a city councilor who’s vying for the city’s top job, went on
a walk around the area near the intersections of Melnea Cass Boulevard
and Massachusetts Avenue as she announced what her plan would be for
the area, which increasingly has become a haven for drug use,
homelessness and violence.

“The public health crisis at Mass & Cass has been building for years,
but has been exacerbated by COVID-19, threatening the health and
safety of everyone in the neighborhood. It demands immediate
leadership and action,” Campbell said in a statement.

“My approach,” she added, “will establish dedicated leadership by
appointing a cabinet-level Mass & Cass Chief to drive a coordinated,
public health response and decentralization plan that will build
sustainable paths to recovery citywide and ensure the health and
safety of all who live, work, visit, and go to school in this
neighborhood.”

The portion of the South End is commonly known as “Methadone Mile,”
due to the methadone clinics located there, though the city and
advocates call it “Mass & Cass” in an effort to be more positive.

For years, it’s been home to a great deal of vagrancy and drug use —
and residents there say it’s only gotten worse, leading to recent
neighborhood protests there over perceived inaction. Every day, crowds
gather there, with some openly shooting up.

Campbell said she’d appoint a public-health professional to be “Mass &
Cass Chief,” which would be a full member of her cabinet. The idea
would be to better focus services for the area.

In the same vein, she said she’d create a “dedicated Mass & Cass first
responder unit,” which would be composed of public health and
recovery service professionals as well as first responders. That would
be in an effort to “streamline response efforts and better protect
people living and working in the neighborhood, service providers
working in the area, and vulnerable residents spending time at the
intersection.”

She said she’d push to build the Long Island Bridge, as current Mayor
Martin Walsh has, but in the meantime she’d work on creating a ferry
service to the spot where the city intends to build major addiction
treatment facilities. The city of Quincy, which owns part of the land
where the bridge to the island would go, has fought that plan tooth
and nail, but officials there recently said they’d be happy to partner
with Boston on a ferry, according to The Patriot Ledger.

Walsh, who appears to be on his way out as mayor because he’s
President Biden’s pick for Labor secretary, created a task force a
year and a half ago to focus on the area. The task force is
prioritizing decentralization and bathrooms for the area, where
residents often complain about human waste.

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