Public Health & Human Rights for Mass and Cass Coalition November 3, 2021

Dear Mayor-Elect Wu

Congratulations on your historic win. As the first woman of color elected to lead the City of
Boston, you have the opportunity to implement transformational change for all Bostonians, but
especially for the most vulnerable and least considered individuals in our communities. To that
end, the undersigned Public Health & Human Rights for Mass and Cass Coalition calls on you
to take a health-centered approach to the intersecting crises people are experiencing in the area
of “Mass and Cass” Our coalition, which is composed of public health, addiction, housing,
homeless, and civil liberties experts, has proposed policy solutions that protect human life and
protect human dignity through housing first and public health. Specifically, we call on you to:

1. Protect Civil Rights and Human Dignity in Encampments and Treatment Settings,
including by recognizing that requiring tent removal of the area will cause displacement
from services, belongings, peers, medical providers, temporary shelters, and more. The
City should meet basic needs for people living in encampments until people have access
to housing.

2. Conduct an Assessment of Needs of and Solutions for Unhoused People, including

by organizing a process to provide each unhoused person an opportunity to tell
policymakers what they need, the obstacles they face, and what would help remove
those obstacles. This should occur without any law enforcement involvement.

3. Eliminate Systemic Barriers to Housing and Provide Dignified Non-Congregate

Shelter, including by focusing on housing first. In the short-term, officials should develop
plans to expand emergency non-congregate shelter options, including using hotels and
motels to create more options that offer privacy and autonomy. Officials should also
reduce systemic barriers to existing shelter use, including by allowing people to possess
harm reduction supplies and allowing couples to utilize shelter together. In the long-term,
officials must build more affordable housing, including through the hundreds of millions
of unspent American Rescue Plan Act funds.

4. Prevent Overdose Death and HIV Transmission and Expand Harm Reduction to
Keep People Alive and Safe, including support for fast-tracking legislation to pilot safe
consumption sites at the state level (H.2088/S.1272) and implementing them throughout
Massachusetts, to be overseen by public health organizations.

5. Expand Effective, Low Threshold Treatment through Immediate, Sustained

Investment, including support for increasing capacity throughout the state in low
threshold care like same day initiation of medication for opioid use disorder or other
pharmacotherapy, outreach, psychosocial, and peer support services.

6. Support Efforts to Decriminalize Drug Possession and End the Racist Drug War,
including by fast-tracking pending bills to decriminalize simple possession
(H.2119/S.1277). Substance use is a public health issue and should not be criminalized.
Public Health & Human Rights for Mass and Cass Coalition November 3, 2021

The existing efforts currently being pursued (i.e. “jail court” and the current administration’s
Executive Order) are temporary approaches that do not address the root causes of the crises,
rely on coercion through law enforcement, displace people without providing meaningful
alternatives, and increase the risk of harm and death. We cannot arrest, coerce, or incarcerate
our way out of these crises. The conditions at Mass and Cass require bold action, not temporary
fixes that exacerbate the existing conditions and merely move the people living there out of sight
without truly serving their needs.

Please read our policy solution document that incorporates viable ideas and strategies that have
been on the table for quite some time, but have been largely disregarded by elected and
appointed leaders. The policy document also includes three immediate action steps for your
consideration: Establish non-congregate shelter and low-threshold transitional housing;
Rapidly increase targeted voluntary treatment offerings; and Improve sanitation for those
residing in encampments.

We welcome an opportunity to meet and discuss our proposal with you in more detail and as
always, we stand willing to work with you and your administration to implement these policy
solutions for the sake of the future of the City of Boston and those most in need.

Signed,

Massachusetts Society of Addiction Medicine

Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program

BMC Grayken Center for Addiction Medicine

FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard

Health in Justice Action Lab at Northeastern University

Judy Bigby, MD

Alice Bukhman, MD, MPH

ACLU of Massachusetts

Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

Material Aid and Advocacy Program

Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts