There was a time city councilor Judy Pineda Neufeld could roll out her picnic blanket and take her toddler to her closest Somerville park relatively worry free. Now Neufeld joins her Ward 7 constituents in expressing concern around open drug use and harassment seen in Davis Square and Seven Hills Park.
The council’s Public Health and Safety Committee met Wednesday to discuss six motions for solutions around improper drug needle disposal, safety concerns and open drug use that were proposed at an Aug. 22 council meeting. Charles Femino, interim chief of police, also gave attendees a summary of what his officers have seen in the parks this summer.
Since the council’s meeting last month, the police department has conducted 379 activities, including 300 patrols in Seven Hills Park and Davis Square and on the Community Path up to the Cambridge line, Femino said.
Police efforts follow an April 2021 council order prioritizing treatment over arrest for drug possession and incarceration, Femino said. But in the past two weeks, police have added uniformed and undercover officers patrols of unhoused encampments in Davis Square and Seven Hills Park and spent close to 100 hours observing the area, acting each time they saw drug distribution regardless of the amount, Femino said.
Two arrests were made Sept. 5 for drug dealing, one after police saw a “hand-to-hand transaction of a small amount of drugs.” Another person was seen conducting what appeared to be a drug deal on Sept. 7, Femino said. The sale was stopped, but the person was arrested a few days later on a warrant.
Neufeld said she was keeping her promise to her constituents to voice their concerns and frustrations with the “all-hours-of-the-day problem” of open drug use, harassment and inappropriate behavior.
Constituents have sent videos of Somerville police officers being “nice” when patrolling the area, and Neufeld questioned if people return to Davis Square and Seven Hills Park because they feel the police are lenient.
One policy discussed was to “establish guidelines that will assist officers and supervisors in understanding the benefits of diversion versus prosecution for minor drug possession offenses.” Neufeld asked police officers if a more forceful message is within the policy’s guidelines, since she feels the policy is “being interpreted in a way that allows for open drug use, open selling and use and distribution of drugs in our parks, which is surrounded by youth and families.”
Compassion over “terrorizing”
People in the park may have complex histories leading to their current circumstances, Femino reminded the committee. “I believe they don’t want to be there, whether it be using drugs or as part of an encampment. What we’re trying to do as a city is to address this in a way so that we can look beneath the tip of the iceberg and address some of the issues for these people who don’t want to be there. We’re trying to provide services. But again, if there’s something that is a violation of law, that is an arrestable offense,” Femino said.
Residents such as Rivka Lapidus, a doctor, commended the city for taking a compassionate approach to combating substance use disorder. “I absolutely support resources and not pushing people out or stigmatizing or imprisoning them,” Lapidus said. After moving to Somerville in 1980, Lapidus worked at a methadone clinic, when stigma around drug use was at an all-time high. Her experiences have led her to believe that pushing people out and “terrorizing them” is not the way forward, she said.
Neufeld urged her fellow committee members to avoid conflating homelessness with drug use, since not all people experiencing homelessness use drugs and vice versa. Items on the agenda acknowledged that distinction, councilor Lance Davis said. “We’re on the same page,” Davis said. “The primary safety issues are related to substance use.”
Influx of homeless
Homelessness did get some discussion, with Femino saying that police finding an unhoused person in a public park would likely extend resources and compassion. The Somerville Homeless Coalition is doing outreach as well.
Hannah O’Halloran, director of homeless services for the coalition, said its engagement center sees 35 to 40 visitors each day. “Our team is continuing to develop relationships with everybody, get people connected to public benefits whether it’s food stamps, health insurance, as well as getting them on housing wait lists,” O’Halloran said.
An influx of homeless to Somerville and Cambridge was blamed for a time on Boston’s efforts in 2021 to break up its “Mass and Cass” homeless encampment. People sleeping outside in Somerville now say something else: They are here after being uprooted from Cambridge’s Central Square, where Carl Barron Plaza is being renovated and “they’ve started to, as defined by some people, crack down on homelessness,” O’Halloran said.
While most residents hold compassion for those experiencing homelessness or substance use disorder, speakers said, it ends when behavior becomes too disruptive and they feel their safety is threatened. Like Neufeld, some constituents are afraid to walk through the parks and said the wanted a return to days community spaces could be used for their intended purposes.
Residents speak
While the meeting wasn’t a formal public hearing, more than 100 residents logged on hoping to speak directly to the committee, making Wednesday’s crowd the largest the committee has experienced, councilor Matthew McLaughlin said.
Blair Galinsky lives along the bike path and said he’s “seen contorted unconscious people every day, heard screaming at nighttime, heard cursing at all hours, seen the stealing of Amazon packages, seen the breaking into of cars, public intoxication and passed-out bodies.” He calls these instances “scary and unpredictable.”
Stefan, an 18-year-old high school senior, detailed the needles he’s seen littering paths, feces on the ground and fights breaking out, creating a sharp contrast to the park he remembers visiting as a child. Stefan told the committee he felt less safe visiting the park now than he did at 12.
The committee didn’t discuss plans for an overdose prevention center, as councilor Lance Davis said there’s “no real movement at this stage.” However, the city plans to continue providing resources to help treat the root causes of addiction.
Kimberly Hutter, legislative liaison for Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, assured councilors they’ll get written updates as needed, especially about container for used drug needles. The city’s goal remains “being compassionate and acknowledging the underlying root causes of issues and while also addressing the short-term effects that are having on the community,” Hutter said.
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Sounds like a whole lot of nothing and political theater.
Most homeless are mentally ill or otherwise unable to care for themselves ‘in the wild,’ so to speak. The compassionate thing would be to take them into custody and give them services there.
It’s a fair point that treatment should be prioritized over arrest. But these “compassionate” policies are not actually delivering treatment at anywhere close to the necessary effectiveness and scale, they are simply instructing the police to turn a blind eye. This is the worst of both worlds
Lawlessness is becoming the norm in Somerville. We now have groups of masked, biking teens, shooting people with pellets from so-called air-soft guns, including someone who was reportedly shot in the eye while walking in Argenziano Park. Time to RE-fund the police and to rethink the policy of “compassionate policing.”
Correction: The person shot in the eye was not in Argenziano Park but rather outside the Star Market on Broadway.