Issues around the unhoused and drug use returned to the Cambridge City Council on Monday, with attention in policy orders shifting to Porter Square and citywide from Central Square, where there are more social services and a concentration of street people and clients.
One order asks the city manager, police department and Department of Community Safety to monitor the garden space at St. James’s Episcopal Church near Porter Square, which has “become a site of increasing overnight occupation and problematic activity.” Mayor E. Denise Simmons exercised her “charter right” to postpone a vote on the order until the council meets again – it is on break for the rest of August – after the church engages in mediation with neighbors.
The other order asks for the installation of more boxes citywide where used drug needles can be thrown away safely and for the distribution of naloxone, which prevents overdoses. It was approved unanimously by the eight councillors present.
St. James’s has had a long-standing policy of letting unhoused people spend the night on its porches. “St. James’s has offered sanctuary to individuals who feel unsafe or unwelcome in traditional shelters,” Simmons said at the meeting, describing a phone call between herself and St. James’s Rev. Matthew Stewart.
“The pastor and I were in full agreement that no one should be criminalized simply because they have nowhere to sleep,” she said.
The order, however, comes after increased complaints from neighbors about illegal activity near the church, and in a garden space between the church and surrounding condominiums, called Saint James Place. That courtyard on Massachusetts Avenue is open for public use only during daylight hours but has been experiencing increased illegal overnight use, the order says.
Health and safety concerns
The order asks the city manager to report back “with an outline of what additional enforcement tools may be needed to allow the city to better respond to this matter, and to similar situations involving overlapping public-private spaces where significant health and safety concerns are being raised.”
Response was mixed. Simmons, with several residents who spoke in favor at the meeting, described open drug use at the site, along with the finding of more drug paraphernalia and disorderly behavior that created a “quality of life” issue.
Michael Flier, who lives in the condos, said he’d found needles and alcohol bottles in the garden and seen screaming matches and violence. Cheryl Hammond, another resident, described an “encampment” and a “drug ring” outside her window, and said she had called the police at least once for noise complaints. “I want to feel safe walking to and from my home,” she said. Both also said they felt that enforcement at the space by the church and police had been ineffective.
One resident estimated about a dozen police or EMT visits and two arrests at the site in the past month.
Policing or services
Other residents spoke out against what they viewed as an unnecessary extension of police presence.
“If we’re a welcoming city, we need to curb that impulse” to involve police, resident Kit Haines said. “The police won’t stop anyone from using drugs. It will likely contribute to the shame and isolation that drives people to continue drug use in the first place.”
Ayah Al-Zubi, who is running for City Council, also spoke against what she described as “criminalizing” homelessness, especially after the recent closing of a homeless shelter in Cambridge. “[The policy] is not dignified as it stands and does not approach our residents with care. In this way you prolong homelessness instead of addressing it with actual systemic advances like housing and services,” she said. “But I mean, how can we even do that when we close the homeless shelter or haven’t even expanded services?”
Simmons pushed back against criticism that the city is being overly reliant on police force. “This order doesn’t ask for a crackdown,” she said. “I do get a little bit miffed at people saying … there were arrests and strong arming by the police, because that was not happening.”
“Having said that, though, good intentions do not grant immunity for misuse,” she said. “When word spreads that a space is sort of hands-off for the law enforcement, it can attract bad actors and people who are not there for rest or refuge, but are there for the commerce of fentanyl and methamphetamines or taking advantage of those who may be susceptible to addiction.”
Limited church input
Two people who identified themselves as members of the St. James’s congregation also expressed frustration that the city had moved forward with the order with limited input from the church. Andrea Saltzman said members of the church work regularly with city agencies as well as unhoused people directly, and that they have a mediation session planned in September where residents will be able to voice their concerns.
“[Given] our sincere desire to find a shared path forward, we were disappointed that the policy order was introduced without input,” she said. “It was shared with our rector just a day before it was finalized, and despite his suggested edits, the order proceeded as written.”
Simmons said she had had a positive conversation with the rector, and emphasized the city’s commitment to working with the church throughout this process. “Cambridge can and must walk and chew gum,” Simmons said. “Uphold the church’s humanitarian outreach while preventing our public private spaces from becoming corridors of illicit activity. That’s the balance that is the hallmark of our government.”
Needle drop boxes
The other order, on needle drop boxes, provoked less discussion before passing with full support from the council. Vice mayor Marc McGovern, the order’s author, said it was in response to resident concerns about finding stray needles on sidewalks, in parks and other public places around the city.
A drop box in Central Square collected 85,000 needles in the last year, according to the order.
Resident James Williamson spoke at the meeting and described the policy as “basically enabling, encouraging and enabling injection drug use.”
McGovern called the boxes only one part of an effort to combat drug use and Williamson’s concern essentially a myth. “I’ve been working with folks struggling with substance-use disorder for 30 years,” he said. “I can assure you that no one is going to say, ‘Hey, the city just put a drop box in this park. I think I’m going to start shooting up.’”
“This is not about encouraging people,” McGovern added. “This is a complicated issue. We have to fight it on many fronts. But if you want to try and dissuade people from taking an action you don’t want them to take,” he said, referring to leaving needles around, “you need to provide resources for them to do something differently. And that’s what this does.”
This post was updated to remove the assertion that the garden is “co-owned.”
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Yes, it’s “complicated.” Many things are. No one should be expected to have to do justice to this horrific and growing set of problems in two minutes of public comment. It should be obvious that “needle boxes” themselves are not “the problem,” nor do they “cause” drug addiction. If that’s the “myth,” no one is saying that. But how does simply distributing more needle boxes throughout the city help address the underlying reality? At what point is the lack of rules and effective (and fair, and humane) enforcement of rules exacerbating – and, yes, enabling – the appallingly and serially threatening and, in many cases, unlawful behavior residents are rightly complaining about?? “More needle boxes!” Can’t this government and city administration do better than that?? The Central Sq BID report fishing out 6,000 used needles a month from the boxes in Central Sq alone! Good God, shouldn’t that be shocking to everyone?? How long will standards of decency in public spaces be completely ignored??
The low income Russell Apartments for elderly and disabled is located just down the street from Porter Square. We have an unrelenting issue of homeless folks attempting to get into our building. We have no security. It has gone so far that folks have defecated in our hall way and left needles overnight. Our tv was stolen off our community room wall. Though Management is responsive the area has most definitely become a problem area. We certainly want people housed and cared for but these incidents surely shouldn’t be part of our daily life. Complicated issues that need further attention, not just needle boxes. A public bathroom in Porter Square would be welcome!
Yes, public bathrooms – even just portable ones – would be a big help in this neighborhood and others. The special ones with showers in Harvard Square and elsewhere are very nice, but let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We need more public bathrooms in Cambridge.
Here’s the problem. If progressive governments like Cambridge can’t demonstrate that they can make public spaces clean, safe and inviting, they reinforce the neoliberal stereotype that the public sector is incompetent, shabby, and reserved for those too poor or marginal to buy the good things in life from the private sector. In the long run that destroys broad political support for anything resembling social democracy.
Refusing to enforce minimum standards of behavior in public spaces is also profoundly unfair to the people who don’t have the luxury of avoiding those spaces by retreating to their private yards, vehicles, schools. Every bus shelter that the city allows to become an encampment or a shooting gallery is one less bus shelter that is unavailable for people who actually need to take the bus to work or school.
This activity is the reason why Star Market is no longer open after midnight. The intense blue lighting in bathrooms and code locks on doors are additional measures to deter drug usage. It’s also the cause of locked-up product shelving in CVS stores. Anyone who has lived in Cambridge for a long time is well aware of the extent to which the problem of destitute and drug-addicted persons is escalating.
It’s a similar situation in North Cambridge where you find those from an encampment raiding textile recycling bins, littering needles and injecting drugs on public streets (including near McCrehan Pool where kids are playing and barefoot/flip flops). Sharps collection bins need to be placed in multiple locations. Laws need to be enforced for the welfare of all.
Is there a blue city with these kind of policies that is thriving? I think not.
Needles are where I draw the line. The City should not take on any other non necessary projects until this issue is addressed. Jail or rehab….let them chose. Either route is an option to save the life of someone in too much pain and addiction to be able to voluntarily decide to save their own. All the empathy is just allowing people to actively kill themselves while residents ineffectively stand by.
I think this article misses the point As a resident of 7 Beech St who is awakened at night by people who are disturbing the peace with noise, buying using & selling banned drugs violating public health rules by urinating & defecating, stealing public blue bikes & upsetting unhoused on porches
These behaviors are against the law. We who live here have to call the police to manage the situation. The church refuses to #1 visit the garden at night to witness the infractions #2 To enforce the 8pm-closing of the garden
Needle boxes aren’t the solution. There is a box next door at the Fire Station . The church tries to clean up every am. It is unclear if they get all of the needles or if crack paper residues. Children dogs visitors are in danger
The Church believes that it is ok for drug addicts & dealers to populate the entire area. They r enabling the city-wide problem of addiction. They say this is the Christian thing to do.
Christ didn’t say we should shelter those who harm others.
Please let me know where I can submit photos of what really goes on in the garden at night. I do not see the author’s email.
Regarding problems on the porches of St. James Church and the garden between the church and the St. James condominium, doing nothing, even for a month, is not an option. Until longer term solutions, like more housing and expanded services, can be begun, a more standard law enforcement response will be needed for the noise and illegal drug use going on now. As Mayor Simmons points out in this Cambridge Day article, an area that comes to be known as outside law enforcement will quickly become unhealthy and unsafe for the unhoused and everyone else.
>> A neighbor of St. James Church