City of Boston officials have unilaterally decided to move their homeless, opioid, mental health, and alcohol afflicted, and unvaccinated COVID-19 residents from Boston’s Mass Avenue/Melnea Cass Boulevard area (otherwise known as “Methadone Mile”) to a hotel in the peaceful residential neighborhood of North Revere.
Just recently, the Boston Police made 30 drug arrests, 16 stabbing arrests, two shooting arrests and two homicide arrests in this out-of-control Boston public health and safety problem area.
Now, Boston wants to relocate them from that area to Revere. This is unacceptable.
Many, if not all of the people that Boston wants to relocate to Revere reportedly have addiction and/or mental-health issues and, as we well know, Revere has their hands full with our own residents who are dealing with these concerns.
It is unrealistic to think that these relocated Boston residents are going to remain in their hotel rooms 24 hour each day. Revere simply doesn’t have the social services and resources to deal with the magnitude of the problems that Boston wants to send our way.
Further, if these homeless Boston residents are to be relocated to Revere, we are not sure if this may include school-age children. Unfortunately, Revere’s schools are already overcrowded and there is just no space to accommodate them.
This problem needs to be addressed now. This hotel was not zoned as a rehabilitation facility, a hospital, or a rooming house; it was zoned as a hotel.
Boston has plenty of hotels. If they wanted to clean up this dangerous and blighted area, they could have done so using its own resources.
Revere simply cannot, nor should we have to provide for additional educational, medical, food and transportation services for what could easily become an emergency-housing facility for upwards of 300 transitory Boston homeless residents, housed in a Revere hotel.
We should not have to strain these resources for a problem that emanates out of Boston, putting Revere neighborhoods at risk. We, as taxpayers, have to pay for these services and we need to send a message to Boston letting them know that they need to find adequate alternatives within their own city limits.
Action needs to be taken now and it can only be taken by the people in charge. Sending a letter to the City of Boston is not the solution. Flagging an issue without offering a solution is just complaining. Our building department along with our city’s legal team should issue an immediate cease and desist as a result of zoning violations and withdraw the occupancy permit for the hotel and order the building closed.
Finally, I urge all residents throughout the city to have their voices heard. If we do not speak up, this will turn into Revere’s own “Methadone Mile.”
Dan Rizzo is a city councilor-at-large in Revere and the city’s former mayor.
