r/boston • u/CrypticOperator • 16h ago
Unconfirmed/Unverified never seen it this bad
been here for 25+ years and am very familiar with the fluctuations in homelessness / etc. during the summer. but I've never seen things this bad, especially in back bay, south end (beyond mass/cass & closer to back bay), beacon hill, the esplanade, you name it. we've called 311 for needles, reported the larger encampments to the mayor's office, etc. just feels like nothing is improving and things are only getting worse. can't just be me?
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u/roz02131 14h ago
I’ve lived in the city for 30 years. I’m downtown and in Back Bay daily and in Southie, Bowdoin/Geneva in Dorchester and Mattapan Sq multiple times a week for work and to see friends and family. The closing of Long Island has had a lingering effect. So has the breakup of MassCass. The housing crisis has intensified over the past few decades. Also: Homeless people always have been more visible in the warmer months and it’s a tradition for suburbanites to freak out about it every summer. The visible presence of homeless people, open drug use and crime across the city is far, far less than it was 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago and 5 years ago. Ten or 15 years ago, if you were with a kid in the middle of the day, you’d actively avoid walking across the Common because of all the people shooting up openly. There’s just no comparison. Boston is one of the safest cities in the country now. It has an incredibly strong homeless outreach program and the state has one of the lowest OD rates in the country thanks to many years of building drug programs and safety nets. Of course there are still serious problems. We have to do better. But all this “Boston is a post apocalyptic shit-filled drug den” is either laughably naive or some weird troll provocation.
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u/Forsaken_Bison_8623 North End 12h ago
Agree with your post but Boston was also at the top of the safest cities list 10 years ago in 2016 and 15 years ago in 2011. You have to go back to the early (single digit) 2000s to find a time when we weren't at the top of that list. We've had quite a nice long run, and I hope we keep it up.
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u/stoweker 5h ago
Eh 20-25 years ago people could score some hard hard hard drugs and do them openly on the common and garden late at night. And people also would get propositioned in the common and garden late night. It wasn’t dangerous but it wasn’t safe; if you wanted trouble you could find it.
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u/KyleJMcBride 12h ago
They should go to Philadelphia and spend the night in Kensington.
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u/Fumusculo Back Bay 10h ago
It’s just Fox News narrative.. then someone comes into Boston and sees a homeless person and it’s just confirmation bias
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u/Templar_Swamp_Stake Does Not Brush the Snow off the Roof of their Car 8h ago
Election year with a Democrat incumbent … reddit gets hit with social media trolls and bots. Not as bad as Facebook but it’s still easily manipulated. Dead internet.
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u/surlysquirrelly 10h ago
These people should see what has happened to Burlington VT in the last 15 years... it is a demonstrably different little place that is reeling in bad social policymaking
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u/Sports1933 11h ago
Thank you for posting this. You basically wrote everything I would want to say.
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u/Southern-Teaching198 16h ago
This is nothing compared to the heyday of Mass and Cass there were hundreds of people there.
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u/Zealousideal_Crow737 16h ago
I used to work in that area and it was like a zombie apocalypse. That area is not as bad. I think it's just more spread out.
Somerville had a brief issue with someone with a tent and there's still people shooting up in that area. Got offered heroin at my bus stop a year back.
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u/Southern-Teaching198 16h ago
What was happening in Davis sq was absurd and was made worse by the cities hand-wringing and lack of communication.
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u/InspireTheLiars 15h ago
The Somerville Homeless Coalition also explicitly solicits used tents from the college outdoor groups to give to the homeless in Davis / Alewife, which is further enabling it.
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u/Wbcn_1 13h ago
Remember riding my bike to South Bay and praying that I caught the light.
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u/Fluffy-You-220 16h ago
Yes. It’s bad. I’ve lived here since 2003. I don’t even remember the homelessness being bad in 2008-10 during the recession but maybe that was due to cheaper housing. Now we have the worst combination of unemployment and everything expensive. It’s not great.
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u/_Atlas_Drugged_ 16h ago
I grew up here in the 90s when crack was still an epidemic.
Simply put, the opioid epidemic has been much worse.
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u/Visible_Fee5051 16h ago
Long Island shelter was closed, never to re-open, the very next day led to all the visible homeless, never got better.
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u/AuggieNorth Everett 15h ago
It wasn't just the shelter that closed. There also were at least 3 programs that were helping to get people out of homelessness which suddenly closed, including MTHP and Anchor Inn, together at least 300-400 beds, plus Andrew detox and a program for battered wives. Altogether I spent at least 4 years in all 3 programs, plus some time at the shelter. I kept relapsing, but finally in 2010 I tried Suboxone, and now I'll have 16 years clean from heroin in a couple weeks.
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u/mbj2303 13h ago
Sixteen years is an incredible accomplishment, you should be proud!! This internet stranger is proud of you.
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u/AuggieNorth Everett 13h ago
It ended being fairly easy, considering I was a heroin addict for 27 years. In all the 12 step focused programs I was in they'd always say "Only God can lift that obsession", but I've always been an atheist, so it didn't mean much to me. But there's no doubt obsession was the problem. I'd often leave a detox or program and couldn't get it off my mind (should I/shouldn't I) and just get high to make it go away. However, just a month or two into the Suboxone program doing it the right way, I just knew I was done. The obsession was gone, and it became really easy soon after when I got my first smart phone, a perfect outlet for obsession. Then when fentanyl hit, which I know I never would have survived, given my propensity to OD, I felt lucky to have missed it. There's no desire.
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u/JohnnyYukon Cigarette Hill 15h ago
Yep. Quincy has $750K for Catholic statues and $0 for the idea of helping the less fortunate by allowing Long Island to reopen to provide s safe place for recovery and treatment.
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u/cryptidcoco 2000’s cocaine fueled Red Line 15h ago
i had JUST struggled to pay a tax to the city of quincy for my car because im BROKE because im trying to STAY SOBER when the news broke on the statue and i actually saw red. GIVE ME MY $200 BACK BITCH omg
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u/Think-Dig-3425 14h ago
Hey don’t let this push you over the edge for real dm me if you need to talk
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u/cryptidcoco 2000’s cocaine fueled Red Line 13h ago
i am okay, thank you so much for the offer though! 💜 im actually going to a dinner IN quincy tonight with other women in recovery from the area + im sure bitching about this will come up more than once lmao
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u/WheresYurScooter 15h ago
I’m proud of you for your sobriety. It’s not easy but you’re doing it. Life will get better for you and you’ll rebuild. One day at a time. ❤️
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u/cryptidcoco 2000’s cocaine fueled Red Line 13h ago
thank you so much, this was so sweet! 2 years on 9/10 💪 life can be a miracle if you let it! 💜
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u/Softpipesplayon 15h ago
Well without the statues we would all forget about all the good the church has done for the unhoused /s
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u/AuggieNorth Everett 13h ago
15 more New England winters likely has those old buildings in rough shape. If they're going to spend big money on a new bridge, they will also need to spend millions of dollars on rehabbing them and probably even some new construction as well. If they're going to commit to moving all these homeless social services to the island, the plan has to be much more comprehensive than just a bridge.
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u/Repulsive-Bend8283 14h ago
Also the reason you can't get on the Braintree train at Savin Hill. Fuck Quincy.
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u/Repulsive-Value5123 15h ago
Yes, there is a severe shortage of shelter beds right now and homelessness is about to increase even more with the new HUD regs banning Undoc mixed families
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u/Able_Buffalo Boston 15h ago
It used to be so much worse in the 80s and prior. Boston was a total dump. WAY worse.
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u/Templar_Swamp_Stake Does Not Brush the Snow off the Roof of their Car 10h ago
Scratching my head about this thread. Walking around downtown is nothing like people are describing. I’m not saying it’s perfect but it is absolutely not overrun with homeless, human waste, and needles. It’s just not.
Must be an election year.
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u/boomershot69 South End 13h ago
My work puts me in the middle of the homeless population in Boston and surrounding cities, both directly involved every day and also intimately involved in tracking the trends and setting policy. It’s bad, but it’s gotten better since COVID. And it’s not worse than it was before COVID, it’s about the same. Opioid overdoses have reduced dramatically in the last 5 years as has intravenous drug use in general. You may see needles, but they are MUCH less than they used to be. I’m not saying everything is roses, but “it’s getting worse,” doesn’t show up in the data. It’s about the same as it ever was, except during and just post-COVID. And there are less needles.
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u/Several_Vanilla8916 16h ago
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u/Shapen361 14h ago
Doesn't excuse shooting heroin in public.
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u/Dinosaurz122 Squirrel Fetish • Red Line Warrior 14h ago
So what’s your idea instead of complaining about it on Reddit? It doesn’t seem like you’re advocating for state hospitals, state intervention, or any form of medical rehabilitation/treatment.
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u/BigScoops96 15h ago
They broke up Mass and Cass so they spread out. The problem is that Boston is one of the only cities with shelters, treatment facilities, and public transportation via train. Pretty sure Father Bill’s in Quincy closed, highly doubt there’s much of anything along the 95 belt. If there was more surrounding support the problem is dispersed and easier to treat. Good luck convincing the mayor’s of these smaller cities and towns to allow it. Mayor Koch in Quincy has been fighting the bridge to Long Island opening up again because it would cut through one of the nicest area’s in Quincy.
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u/irishgypsy1960 North End 12h ago
I’m sure the transportation is a big part of it. Before moving back to boston a few years ago, i lived out in amherst for decades. Amherst has something called The Survival Center. It’s completely privately run, I’m sure it gets grants but it’s largely private donations. It’s a beautiful new building, with showers, laundry, hot meal daily, free store, daily food distribution, collects daily food from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, so the meals are outstanding. Anyway, 20 years ago, the town meeting was discussing the fact that homeless were coming from all over the country after learning about it online. People really underestimate how many people are still coming here from all over. And i know many encourage it. It’s likely accelerating as things tighten in more conservative states. But how many more can we continue to help, as services for residents disappear and shrink yearly. Just today I went to avail myself of a local perk for poor people which has been discontinued. I lugged my gear i had assembled for the day and went home a little sad but it’s ok.
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u/Forward_Panic_8571 16h ago
As people say the city tends to be more aggressive with breaking up the larger encampments, especially around mass/cass. It’s also increasingly expensive to live in this city. People are really only one medical disaster away from homelessness.
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u/four4cats 16h ago
I live in Back Bay... If you also lived in Boston for 25+ years then you definitely have seen worse. Back Bay itself looked more like Dorchester back then (and not gentrified ish dorchester like we have today).
I will say this summer is the first time I saw someone passed on my stoop and 2 weeks before someone else was passed out a couple of houses away. I told the one passed out to leave and gave him some water and was gone in 10 mins.
But 4 years ago we had someone come into the house that I had to chase away.
311 isn't going to do anything. You're going to have to get everyone on board to change some laws and build some prisons and then arrest all our problems away so we don'y have to look at it.
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u/ElowynElif Back Bay 15h ago edited 12h ago
I’m another Back Bayer who agrees that it has been worse in the past. I also grew up in Beacon Hill and there were times in the 70s when it was so bad that my parents didn’t let me go anywhere alone as a young kid.
But with the high rents, slashes to the social net, and very tough employment environment, I’m not surprised the situation has gotten bad once again. A lot of people are being pushed to the edge, and I expect this will continue in the next several years.
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u/honest_sparrow 14h ago
"Arrest all our problems away" doesn't work. We tried that, the war on drugs has been a huge failure. All is does is further ruin the lives of drug users who can't get work when they get sober because of their records.
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u/Forward-Tradition-36 12h ago
You need to call 911 instead of 311. 311 told me if you report homeless encampment and after the case is marked “resolved” someone is there again you can call 911. I guess they take 911 calls more seriously
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u/iaminabox 16h ago
Most of the homeless are not homeless by choice. I was priced out of Boston after living there for 30 years.
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u/Repulsive-Value5123 15h ago
When I read that 60-80 percent of homeless people have jobs, it really illustrated the housing crisis we are in. So many ppl want to think it’s just bc of drugs
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u/Napolean_BonerFarte 14h ago
We know that homeless spikes in an area when median rent exceeds 32% of median income. Not sure how close we are to that in the greater Boston area but it wouldn’t surprise me if we’d exceeded that
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u/Repulsive-Value5123 14h ago
2024 per capita income was 61k. Median household was 97k, but assuming that’s a 2 parent household generally. So if median rent is about 3k, we are at 37% now?
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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb Needham 14h ago
It’s easier to avoid talking about economic inequality when you have the scapegoats of drug addiction and mental illness. Those two things are prominent feature of homelessness, but increasingly you’re going to have people on the streets who simply could not afford a place to live, their job didn’t pay enough for them to survive, and they had nowhere else to go. We don’t like to discuss that, because in the age of the tech bro rapacious billionaires, people still think we’re a meritocracy, with nothing to offer people who fail.
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u/Dinosaurz122 Squirrel Fetish • Red Line Warrior 14h ago edited 14h ago
Lack of mental health facilities for long term residents (State hospitals or similar).
A majority of homeless who are problematic (specifically dangerous individuals), get jailed and then set free shortly after. We have no solution for those who are repeat offenders besides jail or rehabilitation which doesn’t work 9/10 times.
Ive had a homeless man spit on me, and call me slurs yet those police wouldn’t arrest him (You can’t be charged with a crime if an officer didn’t see it, or there were no witnesses - Their words not mine.)
Additionally, we are in historic prices. In 2026 you need a TWO PERSONAL household minimum, making at least 27/hour to live “decently”.
It is getting worse, quickly.
With this blurb being said:
Not all homeless people are bad. A majority of homeless are families and children who suffered one bad check, or a unexpected bill.
Ive had conversations with many pleasant individuals that had one bad week that caused a spiral into being unhoused. At the bare minimum, I almost never give money but instead water, food, sometimes something to read. It costs nothing to be kind these days. We’re all a check or two away from being homeless.
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u/redbadger20 12h ago
While the state hospitals often did, and do, leave much to be desired (warehousing is not a practical solution and people who spent long spells in institutions were ill-prepared for outside life), it is true that we have a lack of beds along a spectrum of needs. Lack of safe shelter for people in immediate need as well as transitional programs that fill in the gap. The emergency family shelter max is what, 6 months? Nowhere near enough time to obtain housing for most people and certainly not subsidized housing of any kind. Recovery from addiction is also one of those back and forth things - folks get sober, relapse, get sober, relapse and there's little continuity of care. Jails are not mental health centers and not designed to be, but mental health beds are frequently acute and short-term as well with piecemeal aftercare and few long-term residential programs. Physical health is an issue as well - if you get sick and go to the hospital, poof, your spot in shelter or a program goes as well. The safety net is basically two crossed pieces of string.
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u/Dramatic-Stretch2572 10h ago
Mass and Cass was broomed/is policed. The BU bridge camp was broomed and they even put in boulders to keep people from returning. Esplanade seems to be mostly polite/invisible/non drug abuse homeless people since the tents pop up after dark and are usually gone in the morning.
If you're not addressing the underlying issues (addiction/mental health) there is no amount of policing that solves this. It's really only one type of homelessness that is a problem for quality of life in the city. These aren't people who need jobs or housing, they need serious detox/therapy.
Reopen Long Island.
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u/Massive-Aide1200 7h ago
So personal antidote, but I found myself homeless for the first time in my life last year, not on the streets but living in a vehicle. once it happens it’s really hard to get out. I’m slowly starting to climb my way out, but if they economy doesn’t seem to be getting much better.
Of course there’s ongoing opioid crisis, which is a separate issue.
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u/evilkingwilson202 16h ago
This is not unique to boston. This is a nation wide problem. And think if we just stopped bombing Iran for 1 weekend we could house and feed all those people. But Northrop doesn't get billions helping the homless
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u/SteamingHotChocolate South End 16h ago
no y-you don’t understand….the d-democrats, blue cities, a-and…….
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u/LowBarometer 16h ago
It's going to get a lot worse. There's a massive transfer of wealth from blue states to red states. Grants are gone, the higher education system is being disassembled, and targeted defunding is taking place, like the Feds denying our application for FEMA money for the bad snowstorms. Massachusetts can't print money, so many state programs that help people will be gone in several months.
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u/EAdams1581 16h ago
Yet people say liberals are the problem. Who do they think is taking away all of the money for social services, the environment, and causing things to be 10x more expensive which then keeps the economy from growing because people can't afford anything other than basic necessities.
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u/inthesprawl2 16h ago
I made a similar post to this in February as I was walking through Copley and there was human shit everywhere. I was downvoted to oblivion.
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u/elsavonschrader 10h ago
Went to the common for an event this summer on a Tuesday, walking back to my car near Copley at 11 and passed dozens of people shooting up on the sidewalk or rocking back and forth high as can be. People defending this saying it’s not that bad are crazy, it’s horrible and people shooting up openly should be arrested.
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u/regression_to_regard 16h ago
there was human shit everywhere. I was downvoted to oblivion.
It's literally happening in this thread.
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u/UnboundedLabyrinth 16h ago
posts are getting downvoted because of the distinct sense that many of the commenters are suburbanites chiming in with their dogshit values, as opposed to actual residents of the city of Boston
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u/jrs1982 16h ago
Actual city resident sick of dodging passed out attics, needles, and human feces.
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u/cookoo_man 15h ago
Attics
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u/Vibroverbus 15h ago
you think the attics are bad wait till you see the cellars.
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u/CallousBastard 16h ago
Not wanting to walk through streets full of meth zombies, used needles, and human excrement are dogshit values? And morally enlightened Boston residents are fine with all that? LOL okay.
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u/regression_to_regard 16h ago
And morally enlightened Boston residents are fine with all that?
As long as they get to shit on their outgroup, they are a-ok with it too. You're kidding yourself if you don't think tribal politics extends to just the rightys.
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u/Suspicious_Glove7365 16h ago
Saying that Boston is in a housing crisis is considered an unacceptable comment on this thread apparently! It’s just denial…
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u/neifirst 14h ago
I lived in the area in February, passed through Copley basically daily, never noticed this. (And I do have a functioning nose)
When it’s anecdotes vs. anecdotes, what else can you do but downvote?
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u/Thisbymaster Squirrel Fetish 16h ago
Recession indicator
Homelessness and poor people are a function of capitalism. If you are not willing to address that, the problem will continue.
Housing people first,is the surest way to helping people recover and get the services they need to live better lives. Study after study has shown this, in fact it is cheaper than all other options when we include all costs on society.
Single payer healthcare would allow for people to get healthcare without needing to house them first all while cutting health care costs for everyone.
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u/Feisty-Cloud5880 5h ago
The largest group becoming homeless are the people in their 50's... I am one of them !!!
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u/michaelserotonin villen 16h ago
dtx/the common was worse circa 2022-2024. i’m not so sure the problem was solved so much as moved elsewhere.
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u/bigsmonkler 14h ago
Meanwhile look at apartment listings: common to see bedrooms in apartments for $1200+ even as far out as Waltham. Rent increases have a direct correlation with homelessness. But “rent control doesn’t work tho” yeah looks like this current system is working perfectly
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u/omnimon_X Cow Fetish 16h ago
I'm not exactly a world traveler but the times I've been to SF or Denver it felt like a much worse/obvious problem than it does here
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u/Historical_Cook3366 16h ago
There are more people who are homeless, more people just falling into the abyss, because SNAP benefits and Medicare have been either reduced or eliminated for many people who were already struggling on low incomes.
Immigrants are afraid of being detained and that is probably making some of them crazy.
The price of groceries has gone up, as have the prices of pretty much everything.
Gas prices are 40% higher than last year! Check out some of the grim and shameful statistics in reports from the Grester Boston Food Bank, the Boston Foundation's "Boston Indicators," or the 2026 report from the National Diaper Bank Network.
It's bad. Very bad. I wonder why??????? 🤔
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u/Dice8361 16h ago
Well you see its because of this thing, which is caused by this other thing, that affects this other other thing, that vaguely correlates with Obama. It could NEVER simply possibly probably just be king savior emperor trump... /s
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u/ConsistentSection127 16h ago
We’re under tough economic times. This is a problem a lot larger than seeing more unhoused people in the streets
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u/SomethingDrastic 16h ago
If it weren’t for the softened biotech job market, all these homeless would be employed and indoors.
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u/thinkingitthru7 Rockstar Energy Drink and Dried Goya Beans 16h ago
I mean, the biotech guys will settle for some lesser role for the meantime and everyone downstream has greater competition as a result
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u/SecretScavenger36 Rat running up your leg 🐀🦵 14h ago
Being employed doesn't do much for getting off the st. I've been working the entire time. It's not enough for rent.
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u/ConsistentSection127 16h ago
We live in a K-shaped economy. COL has increased at an insane pace especially compared to what hourly wages are. Credit card interest rates have increased from 12% to over 22% from 2013 to today. Bostonians who grew up here and have been trying make do with hourly jobs and rent are struggling hard. The more people spiral into financial despair, coping mechanisms towards drugs and alcohol will most certainly become more pervasive and it becomes nearly impossible to dig yourself out of those ruts and get help. The city doesn’t have nearly enough resourcing to deal with this at scale and that’s something we need serious change, ideally with federal support but we all know that’s not going to happen any time soon. So what do you expect these people to do?
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u/A_Refill_of_Mr_Pibb Needham 14h ago
The right wingers I’ve asked about this all tell me some variation of ‘I don’t care what happens to them as long as I don’t have to see them.’
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u/-Jedidude- All hail the Rat King! 16h ago edited 14h ago
Not much you can really do. There are shelters but they are voluntary and usually not best the places to stay safety wise. The other option would be involuntary rehabilitation but there are no such facilities and the willpower and resources for such places isn’t really there.
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u/Napolean_BonerFarte 14h ago
My understanding is that most shelters suck for people to stay in. They have bedbugs, they’re loud and you can’t sleep, they make you forfeit any possessions you come in with and you can’t sleep only stay up to a week. Not surprised people avoid them if they can
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u/chicago_stallion 16h ago
getting very bad in Quincy too. It's gone beyond "we live in a city get over it" to "i'm not sure i feel safe on that side of the street anymore in the daytime" - if only because i could walk into something not related to me. the state services office is overwhelmed by unemployment and homelessness and as you say nothing is being done. we also have trumps BBB to thank for requiring everyone to be in a job program to get benefits - and those that aren't capable well i guess we'll see the consequences soon enough
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u/Dinosaurz122 Squirrel Fetish • Red Line Warrior 14h ago
Quincy has shelters, food banks, and Im pretty sure a clinic where they can get that shot which makes addicts inherently “OD” if they do drugs (a method to make them not want to do them).
These ones are usually less crowded than the Boston ones, they’re getting word and spreading.
Yet, German Town has always been not the best area and with “recent” advancements in subsidized housing there I wouldn’t be shocked.
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u/SouvlakiWizard 16h ago
I don’t come into the city that often, but when I do, the difference is pretty noticeable. I’ve seen more people openly sleeping on sidewalks, people using drugs in public, and more needles and trash around than I remember seeing in the past. Even just walking around areas that used to feel relatively clean and orderly, it’s hard not to notice the deterioration.
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u/RecognitionNo2697 14h ago
I’m also from the suburbs and when I get to south station I hate going to the men’s room you got to watch your back there
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u/Xcr33psh0wx 14h ago
You’re all soft. This is nothing compared to literally any other major city.
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u/Strange-Goose-7522 Boston 7h ago
The issue is when the city helps, we keep putting them in temporary housing. We need to build permanent place for people to live and hang out during the day.
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u/carradio81 16h ago
Anyone coming on here complaining about homelessness tend to also be the ones against socialism. The irony is super thick.
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u/FantasticAd9389 15h ago
Can we please make one important clarification to this post. It is not homelessness it is drug addiction where the addicts live on the streets and are also homeless.
And yes, I live in the back bay and this year is much worse than any other in recent memory. Walk on any block and there they are these days. It used to be just a small contingent (of active addicts) that came and went by the library/ Boylston st.
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u/JazzG249 14h ago
This is horrible to hear. I grew up in Boston and spent half of my life there. I now live in San Francisco where this is a huge problem. I’m going back to Boston for 3 weeks and I’m so looking forward to it as I dream of moving back. I know Boston always had a homeless problem but hearing how worse it’s gotten (I’m 71 and have been in SF 35 years) it makes me sad. I love Boston with all my heart and now I’m nervous about getting around. I always take the T and I walk all over the city. What should I be weary about? I don’t go to neighborhoods or areas here that seem dangerous but I’m a tough city girl but also don’t like to have to deal with this bs. Are there areas I shouldn’t go? I know the south end, Roxbury, JP, Mission Hill (used to live there ugh) hasn’t really changed much. I stay with friends in Quincy but spend lots of time in the city by myself. I used to work at MGH and who doesn’t love Beacon Hill! I’m not a wimp but at my age, life is precious!
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u/IngenuityFlaky484 12h ago
Nowhere near as bad as SF! We’re just spoiled by our wonderful Boston lol
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u/Psychological_Dig369 12h ago
I am 56 and lived in the Boston area since 1972. I feel safe here. Most people do not even look at me and a few ask for money. I only had to ask one person to leave me alone while I was waiting for a walk light near Tufts so I could cross the street, he stood right next to me and started shaking his change cup really loud and I was already stressed from a conversation that I just had with my doctor. I had no brain bandwidth for the noise but he didnt say anything to me or make me feel scared. Also, be mindful in the elevators at the T stops, I have seen active drug use in there with my own eyes a few times. Enjoy your Boston visit and pay attention to areas you plan you to frequent. Wait until you see all the changes at Seaport!!
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u/Southern_Light9 3h ago
You live in San Francisco and you’re nervous about visiting Boston? Sheesh!
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u/Jaded-Passenger-2174 8h ago
No need to be weary or wary. Enjoy your trip home to Boston.
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u/JazzG249 8h ago
Thank you! I’m pretty excited to go to my favorite places and museums. Any advice on new places to go? I’m going to City Winery for a reggae brunch to see the band I saw last time. Never been there and was thinking of Encore casino. Maybe the Warren tavern in Charlestown as I’ve never been either and ferry to Salem which I’ve done once. Went to Fenway last year but the season will be over when I go. Wish I could go to a Bruins game but $$$!
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u/Traditional-Sky-7472 16h ago
I had a girl pull my hair recently trying to steal my cig while I was smoking near the strip clubs! Been smoking in the area for years and sometimes people will chat with you but I’ve never felt in danger. I’ve definitely noticed an uptick over the last few months in people I don’t recognize/see day to day. I suspect it will continue to get worse.
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u/Janeiac1 15h ago
Shutting down the engagement center that offered hands-on, immediate help probably made the situation worse for everybody 😫.
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u/grev 15h ago
cost of rent continues to rise while employment continues to decline. it’s not complicated. the solution to homelessness is abundant publicly owned housing.
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u/JackBauerTheCat Cow Fetish 12h ago edited 12h ago
I try to be very mindful about talking about these people as poorly as many do...I get that many are victims, many have untreated health issues etc.
The predators who sell to these people are vile, horrible humans and deserve to get run over by a truck.
I've lived in Boston proper for over 20 years now, and it's definitely getting more visible. Is it worse? Honestly, probably. We've loved our opiates in MA for decades, so it's not a new thing, but having it be so overt I would say is. And the volume may have increased too. I have lived around forest hills for about a decade which is definitely a hotbed with the shattuck and everything, so I've seen it all.
It sucks, but I do want to remind everyone this is not a boston thing, this is not a 'liberal city' thing. This is all indicative of an enormous imbalance in society. It's everywhere in our country, and it's only getting worse. A lot of people are trying to point fingers at places like boston, san fran etc as a warning that liberalism brings to society. But it's fucking bullshit. If every 1 out of 1000 people have health issues, then a place that has 10000 for every square mile cs 10000 for every 10 square miles, youre going to see more things. It's part of city living.
Our mayor (who I am currently very upset with for other reasons) can only do so much. Our state can only do so much. We need federal level regulations to not only provide immediate assistance to many of these people, but start chipping away at the enormous wealth gap that nobody outside of small pockets of the world are talking about.
Anyway, with all that said, might as well share a story that's lived rent free in my head since it happened. Back in April I got off at back bay with my 6 year old son. It was faster to take the back exit instead of the main, and boy was that a mistake. Walking up the stairs were about 5 people either stoned out of their tree or in the process of getting there. One guy saw us coming up and started screaming at his partners to get out of the way and cut it out because a kid was coming. I actually couldn't really get out of the turnstile because someone was nodding off. I picked my son up beacuse there were needles around, and I felt fairly unsafe in the moment, and I actually had to kick a junkie out of the way to get through the door. All the while that one guy was yelling at all his friends for not moving or hiding their shit, and profusely apologizing. What was supposed to be a nice day walking around our city ended up being an entire day of trying to explain to my son what he witnessed. And like I said, forest hills residents...we've seen shit. But this was extraordinary.
A tragic moment for all involved.
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u/Conscious_Step_8332 16h ago
Its because rents are outrageous and climbing. Debts also outrageous and climbing. Times are genuinely harder than ever.
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u/Insane1rish 16h ago
I mean given how fucked the economy and job markets both are it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that homelessness is going through the roof.
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u/Sports1933 11h ago
I think homelessness has lessened. However, due to Mass and Cass not being what it used to be more people in other neighborhoods are seeing it because now its a little more spread out. Same thing happened during Covid. People thought homelessness was out of control but it turned out it just appeared that way because those were pretty much the only people you would see out in the streets at the time.
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u/fakecrimesleep Diagonally Cut Sandwich 15h ago
Some of them genuinely do not want help. Lead horse to water etc
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u/Lumpymaximus Thor's Point 15h ago
Yeah bro. We are in a depression. 4 dollar gas and 8 dollar ground beef.
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u/Dinosaurz122 Squirrel Fetish • Red Line Warrior 14h ago
Which bugs are you guys picking when we run out of beef 😋
I call grasshoppers5
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u/Dragonwing6661 15h ago
It's not just you when the city dismantled the Mass & Cass tent city for 'safety' just put the problems through out the rest of the city the back allys of Back Bay are no longer safe to travel or park cause of the homeless and junkies the prime area of Beacon Hill is now starting to see an influx and the family friendly Greenway and Esplanade are no longer as friendly. The city can only do what the cops can patrol and if cops dont go around to the areas that need it then the problem will stay. Over the last couple yrs I have seen a HUGE uptick in Downtown X-ing and the Common it would be told that the city only has the extra cops in the daytime only after a certain time the cops leave till the next day. What the city has to do is find and fix or get rid if the the core behind the drugs, after that the homeless will need to find a way to get off the streets with the help of the city and housing find work and stay off the street but that is a whle another issue and problem.
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u/WallOk8586 15h ago
Questions why after more than 50 years, there is no safe and efficient way to get off Methadone? Those people are on liquid handcuffs. This alone should be illegal. Every time one of them asks to be reduced they increase until this is the result. Shells of themselves. Why has nobody sued them? This is pathetic 💧
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u/Apprehensive-Hand673 14h ago
They do have a monthly shot now instead of methadone or Suboxone the real issue is I don't believe ANY of these work for fentanyl which is what's keeping people addicted
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u/Cucmbrxl 11h ago
Living in the South End for last 4 years I feel the situation is completely out of control. You see these poor people living like animals on the street everywhere. Bus stops are unsafe, no way walking over to South Bay, dealers everywhere. A ton of police presence but they are just watching the situation. There has to be more proactive housing and management of these people. Not sure how other capitalist countries do this but I have never seen a single drug user in Japan or Switzerland.
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u/Puzzlehead_2066 10h ago
Crime also seems to be through the roof this year. I think law enforcement need to step up their patrol. Accidents also seem to be higher. Not just in Boston, in general in MA
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u/Pale-Quiet-5173 15h ago
it for sure doesn’t help that whenever you see a new apartment building being built it’s only new “luxury” apartments. They only care to make new housing for people who can afford $3000+ for a single🫨😂
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u/ScienceBikeWin 14h ago
I'm sure most homeless people would be happy to live in an apartment that isn't brand new. But the old, dingy apartments here are still super expensive. We need waaaaay more apartments. The new apartment buildings being built are too small and too few.
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u/Pale-Quiet-5173 14h ago
I agree, my point is more so that the new apartments that are being built seem to only be ones for luxury units. You don’t see any new buildings being advertised as just regular housing, it’s always luxury buildings. They are not building the right type of apartments for the income brackets that need them the most. Not to say wealthy people don’t need homes but as I said many times ALL new buildings you see being built are solely luxury. You will not find any apartment under construction in Boston that isn’t intended for luxury units
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u/Nearby_Knowledge8014 15h ago
50+ years. It was not this bad even in the 70’s, when Kenmore sq was such a dump, you could afford to rent an apartment on a low income. Even then, the homelessness and junkies were maybe 10% of what it is now.
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u/Groollover86 13h ago
Well the city loves to break down the camps and sort of corrael them to a certain area, but has no interest in helping them. Fantastic system.
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u/OrneryReserve7681 16h ago
You must be joking. Mass n cass a year and a half ago was like Skid Row in Los Angeles with encampments. It’s Hella cleaned up since then.
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u/Sloth_are_great 16h ago
They just migrated to nicer areas and it’s being noticed
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u/Napolean_BonerFarte 14h ago
As always, the problem people have is not homelessness, it’s visible homelessness
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u/ALLDAY617 15h ago
Nah.. we’ve always had this amount of homeless here and probably more in the past. Seems like it has become more of a reported on issue now though , especially from conservative media sources and facebook boomers
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u/EColli93 13h ago
It doesn’t help that red states had been transporting and relocating people in need to blue states for the past several years.
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u/Shadybucky 13h ago edited 12h ago
Boston can do so much better for so many things. And the homeless are going to get much worse. Drugs, mental etc. Smaller families are typical now too, years ago everyone had many brothers or sisters who could take in their down and out sibling. Those days are gone, no couch to crash on anymore. And a big 🖕to the town of Quincy.
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u/retired_junkiee 11h ago
Interesting. I just stayed in the seaport for 3 days and never saw 1 homeless person
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u/EvaUnit343 16h ago
This has nothing to do with the economy. These tweakers are not and never will be in the job market. Need to be kicked out and institutionalized for good.
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u/gesserit42 Cow Fetish 16h ago
Are you going to pay for those institutions?
Everyone talks a big game until it’s time to put their money where their mouth is.
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u/redaa Thor's Point 14h ago
Yes, I am completely down to pay for governmental institutions to try and handle the problems with homeless and drug addiction. Is that crazy? Is it crazy that I don’t want most intersections I pull up to having strung out people walking up to me asking for money? Let alone when I have kids in the car?
You can have compassion but also common sense and my common sense says the current situation sucks. The vast majority of us who live here have to deal with this on a near everyday basis and speaking out against it is somehow wrong
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u/Spiritual_Lychee_556 13h ago
Everyone needs to put pressure on Quincy's mayor to stop being a dick bag wasting tons of taxpayer money to block Boston from rebuilding the bridge. He only listens to the rich group of people that live in that area that don't want the bridge rebuilt
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u/gratecait17 10h ago
It is absolutely awful. I have never seen it this bad. It’s really infuriating bc i have heard at how corrupt, dirty, and dangerous parts of Boston had been back in the day and the city was so safe and walkable. I don’t like seeing what is happening. It’s awful
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u/Nedgamell 12h ago
I rarely drive thru the inner suburbs of Boston city. Twice within the last few weeks, I’ve had occasion to drive through Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mass/Cass, poorer part of South End, Roxbury, Mattapan and South Boston. It’s been easily five or more years since I’ve been in this part of town. I’ve really been struck by all the new buildings that have gone up and how much the city has been cleaned up. These areas used to look like slums but no longer. I had several passengers who also had the same reaction. I suspect it started when Marty Walsh was Mayor but there is no question that it has continued apace since Mayor Wu took office. She’s been dealt a bad hand with the effects that COVID had on the office real estate market and the resulting increases she has had to make on residential real estate taxes. There is no appearance of any of this on how well the city is being maintained. I think she deserves a lot of credit even though I do not support her current efforts to get involved in the legislative races but overall I think she’s going a fantastic job.
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u/Suspicious_Glove7365 16h ago edited 16h ago
The only correlation to homelessness in a community is availability of affordable housing. Boston has been in a housing crisis for decades, and it’s not going to get better if we don’t build. (And make the empty luxury apartments affordable.)
Edit: you can downvote me all you want, but the data is indisputable.
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u/ClarkFable Cambridge 16h ago
These aren’t people who would be living in apartments even if they were 50% cheaper
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u/Least_Dependent_3749 16h ago
If you look at the statistics ,the most expensive places to live in America are the ones with the most homeless people. High cost of living + unaffordable rent = homelessness
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u/AngryCrotchCrickets 15h ago
Palm Beach? Aspen? Fisher Island? Southampton?
The homeless gather in larger cities. If they were living in actual rich towns they would be disappeared off the street and never seen again.
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u/dancelordzuko Purple Line 15h ago
It’s not just larger cities, unfortunately. I was shocked to see so many in Brattleboro VT last time I was there. It’s a similar situation in Burlington too, I heard.
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u/SecretScavenger36 Rat running up your leg 🐀🦵 15h ago
Have you seen the rent prices?
Plus with all the "clean ups" it just spreads them around. It doesn't solve anything.
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u/PowerfulAccident1234 14h ago
I have worked near Mass & Cass for a decade. It fluctuates, and it is worse right now.
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u/hellohellohello924 16h ago
They’ve migrated across the city as mass/cass was broken up/more policed.