Some Somerville candidates are invited to address homelessness in Davis Square by upset residents

A group of residents led by MIT history professor and Somerville resident Kenda Mutongi brought together City Council and mayoral candidates Saturday in Somerville’s Seven Hills Park to speak about dealing with homelessness in and around Davis Square.

“This is not a meeting for the current mayor, police chief, housing advocacy or Ward 6 councilor, all of whom have had over one year to make a difference; it is a meeting to learn about the new candidates and their plans,” Mutongi wrote in an email to Somerville residents the day before the event.

Speaking first during the meeting to a crowd of fewer than 80, Mutongi said she had called the gathering after seeing a city Public Works employee harassed and intimidated by a large group of people near Davis Square KinderCare, supposedly after asking the group to help clean up litter.

Somerville councilor and mayoral candidate Jake Wilson and candidates for council Kristen Strezo, Wilbert Pineda and Emily Hardt were listed as speaking – and on Saturday this group swelled to include council candidates Jonathan Link, Holly Simione, Ben Wheeler and Jack Perenick. Strezo was unable to attend.

A meeting with mayor Katjana Ballantyne, police chief Shumeane Benford and other city staff is set for 6 p.m. Oct. 6 at the square’s Somerville Community Baptist Church, 31 College Ave., to discuss “public safety and homelessness in the Davis Square/Seven Hills area” and take questions and comments from the public.

Solution-oriented conversation

Speakers Saturday considered actions taking various forms.

Councilors were tasked with responding to a single question posed by Mutongi: “How do you plan to help local voters and taxpayers feel safe again so that we can enjoy Davis Square and our public parks?”

Wilson spoke first and said that as mayor he would “make sure that Davis Square is a place with a positive narrative,” noting that unhoused individuals had to be treated with dignity, but also had to be held to a certain standard.

The issue had arisen as a result of the closing of Boston’s Long Island facility in 2014, then hosting and treating 800 unhoused people who moved to an open-air camp in Boston’s Mass and Cass area, then to Cambridge and to Somerville, Wilson said.

He cited a “zero tolerance” policy in Cambridge for the unhoused based on remarks by Benford on Monday to the Davis Square Merchants Association; Cambridge, which has the highest per-capita number of emergency shelter beds for homeless people in the state, has no such policy, said Cambridge’s vice mayor, Marc McGovern. A request for comment was left Sunday with a police department spokesperson.

Wilson stressed working with regional partners such as Cambridge’s government and the Somerville Homeless Coalition to address the challenges, a point mirrored by other speakers. In November, Cambridge rolled out an outreach and health services van funded with $500,000 to serve both communities.

The final point by Wilson was also reiterated by others: “We can not arrest our way out of this, that is clear. When you arrest someone, they are released almost immediately,” he said. He welcomed collaboration with residents on the issue, saying, “My office door will always be open.”

Complex issue

Several people emphasized the need to address homelessness’ complexity. “We are in the midst of a public health crisis, where so many services to people in need have been slashed, and we have a housing affordability crisis,” said Hardt, spoking after Wilson.

Pineda proposed a citywide ordinance to pick up trash and remove encampments; Link mentioned bringing in unarmed response workers to handle the problem with a lighter hand and criticized the framing of Mutongi’s question because all affected deserved dignity.

Simione, following Link, proposed a strategy of using plainclothes police officers to match an approach being taken in Cambridge, another policy that was not recognized by the city’s vice mayor, McGovern – a social worker – in a conversation Sunday. She additionally promoted a new policy of “lighting [Seven Hills Park] up like Fenway Park.”

She, like many others, supported helping those who wanted it, but not imposing help on unhoused people who resisted. She also underlined hidden homelessness in the city, referring to people living in their cars, crammed into homes beyond their capacity or other precarious situations.

Wheeler stressed that “there is no magic wand” when dealing with the problem at hand, and that it was necessary to solve issues on the ground and making sure everyone’s grievances are heard and respected.

Going last, Perenick pointed out that the homelessness problem in Davis Square is geographical, and that he wants to work on “getting people to help as most effectively as we can.”

The nearest community behavioral health center is at Cambridge Hospital, he said, arguing that the service is virtually inaccessible to Somerville’s unhoused population.

Perenick also brought up petitioning the state for “special legal procedures” to be able to implement automatic court discharge, which he pointed to as a useful tool to bring individuals help when they are arrested.

Hearing from residents

After the candidates were done speaking, a few questions and comments were taken from residents.

“Is it okay to have an encampment right outside of J.P. Licks?” one resident asked.

Wilson, Hardt and Wheeler handled the question, all agreeing that such encampments should not be allowed, but that people’s property had to be treated carefully and not confiscated.

Another resident said the City Council and mayor had deprioritized drug enforcement and asked, “does this not expose all of us as residents to huge liabilities for failing to enforce the laws that are on the books?”

Simione responded, agreeing that police have been told to respond lightly to drug offenses, and stated that the situation called for a new mayor and “new blood” on the council.

The facilitator of the conversation, Kathleen Keegan, asked about refuse and rodents around the area, with Perenick answering by pointing out that the city did not have a proper incentive system. “Right now our penalty for not ordering sufficient collections is less than it costs to add a second dumpster collection a week,” Perenick said.

Private residents face escalating penalties for noncollected trash outside their homes, but businesses do not, Perenick said.

Including the unhoused

A final question was about the gathered candidates’ support for a zoning petition that would allow homeless shelters to be built and expanded by right throughout the city.

Link confirmed his support, if shelter residents are provided services: “People who are living out here will settle down and begin to operate their lives in conformance with societal norms if they get a place to live.”

After the event, many of the speakers reinforced the importance of including the public in similar future discussions.

“We have to be talking to each other. It’s always more illuminating to hear many perspectives on something,” Wheeler said.

Some speakers voiced concern about the exclusion of the mayor and Ward 6 councilor – “If we are going to have this conversation, we should at least invite everybody,” Link said – and said it was important to include the unhoused in conversations about their own well-being and behavior.

“We can bring the young people to the table, we can bring the elderly to the table, but the thing that no one talks about is that we should bring the unhoused population to the table, or the people struggling with substance abuse,” Pineda said.

Mutongi said she was pleased with the gathering. “It’s good to get together,” she said, “but its tiring.”

This post was updated Sept. 28, 2025, to remove a reference to a person asking a specific question as identifying themselves as working for somerville’s antipoverty agency. A different person asked that question.

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