Despite a Cambridge City Council policy order urging the organization Fenway Health to reconsider, it has closed Boomerangs in Central Square as well as the thrift store chain’s other locations in Jamaica Plain and the South End.
Boomerangs was started in the 1990s by AIDS Action, a group that provided services to people living with HIV/AIDS and populations at risk of infection. Its first storefront, on Canal Street in Boston, was an outlet for the belongings of people who had died from complications relating to AIDS. The Canal Street location has since closed, but AIDS Action opened three other locations; by accepting donations of old clothes, books, furniture and knickknacks and selling them, the stores turned a profit that was used to support HIV services.
Fenway Health, which absorbed AIDS Action in 2013 into its public health division, announced April 30 it would close all three stores due to financial issues.
“For nearly 20 years, Boomerangs was an amazing success story, but for the last six years, it has seen significant financial losses. Fenway simply cannot continue to absorb those losses year [after] year, so we have made the difficult decision to close Boomerangs,” the announcement said.
Mayor E. Denise Simmons, vice mayor Marc McGovern and councillor Ayesha Wilson co-sponsored a policy order urging Fenway Health to reconsider, requesting a detailed explanation from the company about the reasons for the closing and asking that they explore all possible alternatives to maintain “this vital community resource.”
Residents rally for workers
At the council meeting on June 10 where the order was passed, Simmons called the closing “a little short-sighted and sudden.”
“I don’t know if Fenway understands just how much Boomerangs is used,” Simmons said. “It felt a bit disrespectful to the community.”
Kristen Hiestand, a resident of Cambridge for 20 years, likened Fenway Health’s approach to offering “thoughts and prayers.”
“I would say what is needed is not just an explanation, but actually some accountability,” Hiestand said. “Fenway Health has created conditions that have culminated in this closure, and they have set it up in a way that very little could be done by the community to save this store that has been such an important beloved institution in Cambridge.”
Fenway Health’s decision also affects its Boomerangs employees. A GoFundMe posted May 18 by Jamaica Plain Boomerangs manager Dee More to support Boomerangs employees has brought in more than $10,000 from 135 donations.
“Boomerangs has been a haven for many queer and trans folks, disabled folks, older folks, neurodivergent folks, housefolks and so many people at all of the intersections, both customers and staff,” Moore wrote, noting that the staff at Boomerangs make minimum wage and are getting only meager severances that “will not last them beyond a week or two.”
“We have employees currently undergoing cancer treatments, experiencing houselessness and incredible housing insecurity, are single parents and caretakers, disabled folks who have a hard time finding accessible work, trans folks who struggle to find accepting environments and staff facing so many other systemic barriers that make this transition an uneasy one,” Moore wrote.
Fenway Health response
Fenway Health director of communications Chris Viveiros said reconsidering is not an option, and reiterated that the decision to close the stores is the result of finances.
“Again, those reasons are that Boomerangs is dealing with the same challenges facing other bricks-and-mortar retailers and has not been profitable for several years,” Viveiros said. “As a health care organization, Fenway Health isn’t able to continue operating a retail chain that is losing money.”
Options to keep the Boomerangs open were explored, and Fenway Health briefly partnered with another organization interested in taking over Boomerangs, Viveiros said, but they decided not to move forward. Offers are still welcome from other potential buyers, despite the closings, he said.
The Boomerangs stores’ last day was Friday.
Issues beyond Boomerangs
Fenway Health is also cutting funding to Youth on Fire, a day drop-in center in Harvard Square for 14- to 24-year-olds experiencing homelessness, and it is cutting hours at the needle exchange on Green Street in Central Square.
“We probably should be having a larger conversation with them about better understanding what the financial difficulties are, and if there’s a way for the city to try and help with that, because these are important services that I think would be really tragic to lose, even beyond Boomerangs,” McGovern said.
Youth on Fire, which provides basic necessities such as hot meals, clothing, showers and laundry facilities, as well as medical care and mental health counseling, also provides prevention information about HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and Hepatitis C.
“Most people didn’t know that the funding to Youth on Fire was being cut or that the hours of the needle exchange were being cut, because if you don’t use those services, you wouldn’t,” McGovern said. “Boomerangs got the attention, but I do think it can springboard us into a larger conversation about whether there’s some way for us to maintain these services, including Boomerangs.”
McGovern and Wilson, in addition to being social workers, co-chair the Human Services and Veterans Committee, and McGovern said he hopes to call a meeting to have Fenway Health “come to the table and talk about what cuts they’re making that are offered in the city, and see if that can lead to some kind of collaboration.”
“If we can’t keep those services fully funded, I hope we can keep them at least partially funded so that we don’t lose them altogether,” McGovern said.
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Curious about Fenway Health, I remembered meeting someone recently who was a leader of a recently successful union organizing effort there with 1199SEIU. [see below]
I remember a past President of the UAW, Doug Fraser, explaining once over beers: “Workers don’t organize unions, management do…”
The perceived need for a union is often triggered by – and then, of course, resisted by – bad management. This could be a warning sign that there is something wrong there that workers are trying to put right.
Investigating a little further, I stumbled on a number of interesting reviews unexpectedly at Yelp, of all places, all of which were quite negative, while also quite eloquent.
Fenway had a great reputation years ago. Could it be that they’re different now and in need of a shake-up? Not all “non-profits” remain “virtuous” forever.
https://www.1199seiu.org/massachusetts/healthcare-workers-fenway-health-vote-join-1199seiu
WHAT? They closed even though the council passed a “policy order”.
It’s almost like the council specializes in pointless acts of chest thumping which display how impotent they truly are.
Fenway has done excellent work for an under-served and often maligned cohort for over half a century.
These choices certainly did not come easy for them.
“Fenway Health has created conditions that have culminated in this closure”.
REALLY? Fenway Health created the downturn in brick and mortar shopping? Fenway Health create the pandemic which weakened macro-economics further? Fenway Health created a Central square which is increasingly less pleasant to visit? Fenway Health created rising operational costs for utilities, rent, and insurance?
Completely cutting the needle exchange and Youth on fire would have “felt disrespectful to the community” that needs it most.
Boomerangs itself, while certainly helpful to people of all classifications, lost money for six years. Fenway COULD have thrown in the towel during the pandemic. That would have been the economically sensible thing to do. Instead they chose to fight the good fight until the painful choices became obvious.
Maybe Cambridge can take some of that sweet, sweet marijuana money and get into the retail junk business. No? Not your core mission you say?
Maybe the residents of Cambridge could step-up and form a non-profit to staff it with volunteers and keep it open. No? Not your core mission of bike lane and weekend parks?
Guess what? Retail isn’t the core mission of Fenway Health either. But they absorb AIDS action and kept it going for another decade.
Disrespectful indeed.
Now I’ve gotta go and get an over-priced venti half-cafe, double-espresso from Starbucks.
Oh wait….that’s right…..
It was simply a way to fund it, and it wasn’t doing that anymore.
Fenway has not only cut the budget for Youth on Fire but it has said that it will no longer have it as a Fenway program. It gave very short notice to the nonprofit community that it was cutting off this vital program. It is my understanding that the Dept of Public Health has found another sponsoring organization but still, this is very bad behavior on Fenway’s part.
I know several doctors who have left Fenway as well. It seems to be a disaster over there.
This is one of the businesses that the bike lanes caused to close. Central Square is like a crowd scene from “TheLeftovers”.
Peace Be Unto You
What happen to all the federal money that the city was offering central square businesses,nonprofits,etc., to help keep them afloat. Boomerang,etc., should actually be still afloat, because of government funding in the public Treasury. It doesn’t surprise me to witness underclass businesses being dropped by upper class entities after they have secured their confidence. Cambridge is no exception,it’s happening all over the nation, that is the poor being trashed after the upper classes has gained and secured their confidence.
The cities policy makers don’t and won’t bail poor business entities out of their financial crisis, boomerang,etc., is proof of what I’m stating here. A Lot of members of the Black community and others of the poor minority community use to shop there. I’ll go as far as to eat my hat if the city find a way to use some of its federal funding stored in it’s Public Treasury to bail another poor business entity out of financial crisis. It, the city has a primary responsibility to do so,that interfaces with the Public Trust.
Yours In Peace
Hasson Rashid
Deeply Concerned Citizen
Cambridge,MA
people really will blame any and everything on bike lanes huh?