At least 200 residents gathered in the Somerville Community Baptist Church for a meeting on public safety in the Seven Hills and Davis Square area on Wednesday. Amid rising concerns about homelessness and public drug use in these communities, Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne, newly-appointed Police Chief Shumeane Benford and other city leaders tried to balance public safety concern with compassion for unhoused individuals struggling with addiction.
Ballantyne began the meeting with opening remarks.
“I know a lot of you are here or have contacted us because of related safety concerns around the city and Seven Hills Park [and] Davis Square,” she said. “We are fully focused on both these community concerns. That [means] ensuring that we’re doing our best to connect our vulnerable populations to resources … and … ensuring that our neighborhoods are safe for all youth.”
Benford and Acting Deputy Chief James Donovan then took to the floor. They provided details about recent arrests made and said that, since Aug. 22, the department has instituted 24-hour “direct control,” or increased police presence, in areas including Statue Park and Seven Hills Park, which have seen some of the highest number of encampments used by unhoused people in Somerville.
Steve Craig, the city’s director of constituent services, spoke next about the 311 non-emergency line being a way for constituents to express their concerns. Finally, Karin Caroll, Somerville’s director of health and human services, spoke about the city’s efforts to better understand the needs of unhoused people and support this population through projects such as an overnight winter warming center in Davis Square.
Caroll explained that Somerville is experiencing the effects of recent statewide spikes in people entering the shelter system.
“We are in an unprecedented time ongoing, regionally, statewide and nationally,” she said. “We are seeing numbers that we have not seen in both our street numbers as well as our family shelter system and our state shelter system. So all of these things increase the pressure here, locally.”
The floor then opened to questions from residents.
A common point of concern among those in attendance was public drug use among the unhoused. One resident presented a “Letter of Principles and Requests,” signed by around 120 Somerville residents, which expressed grievances about how public drug use is currently being handled by the city. The letter demands that Somerville develop a more comprehensive public safety plan and requests that Somerville police “act with compassion but report to the law and protect the public.”
“We need to have zero tolerance for opioid use in our public spaces,” the resident said. “Our spaces need to be safe and accessible to all residents.”
Residents also voiced objections to the Somerville police department’s policy of deprioritized drug arrests. With the goal of improving public health and safety, a 2021 general order was issued guiding officers to send people accused of minor drug offenses to rehabilitation programs instead of prosecuting them.
“Open permission for use has created an environment where we have people who are not part of our usual unhoused population coming to Davis Square to consume drugs openly,” one resident said. “Open drug use in our public parks, in our schools, is still illegal and should not be tolerated.”
Benford responded by reassuring residents that the policy does not mean that laws around drug possession and distribution are not enforced.
“We always enforce drug distribution and we always enforce possession, but there has been a compassionate and a balanced approach to those who are struggling with substance abuse disorder,” Benford said.
Although some community members call for zero tolerance policies around public drug use, experts warn against excessive criminalization of drugs. Caroll and Ellen Shachter, Somerville’s director of the Office of Housing Stability, explained in an interview with the Daily that arrest is not a long-term solution to housing nor drug use problems.
“[Low-level drug arrests] might make a park look better short term, but long term, it is not helpful,” Caroll said. She explained that arrests often lead to brief detainment followed by release, after which the unhoused individuals, still struggling with addiction, frequently return to the same area.
Schatcher highlighted the detrimental effects criminal records have on unhoused people trying to get jobs and housing.
“The best antidotes to substance abuse are the combination of medical treatment with housing and jobs,” Shachter said. “[Arrests] really will impede the long-term ability of so many homeless residents to ever get back on their feet.”
Several residents at the meeting offered other ideas about ways to combat drug use in Somerville, pointing to policies such as supervised consumption sites. Proponents of these policies pointed to the increasing adoption of overdose prevention sites on the East Coast and said that they are a proven strategy to combat drug abuse.
Ballantyne reassured residents concerned by this concept that although Somerville is currently pursuing a supervised consumption site, adoption is still in an early stage.
“There’s still a tremendous amount of hurdles to overcome, including protection to whoever operates the site and protections for those who use them. We’re working with partners, including those at the state level, to continue looking into this,” Ballantyne said.
Currently, law enforcement officers are pursuing strategies around drug use and homelessness that focus on community building while reinforcing public safety. Since August, the police department has completed 156 “Park Walk and Talks,” a program where officers exit their vehicles and engage with the public in an effort to make the police more of an accessible, friendly presence.
Somerville is also working with the Somerville Homeless Coalition to address homelessness through outreach from community health workers, a “Health Care for the Homeless” clinic and the overnight winter warming center in Davis Square.
Shachter said that the most effective way to get drug users sober and off the streets is through more affordable housing.
“We can’t see much work, growth or improvement in someone’s mental health or substance use issues until they are housed until they are stable,” she said. “They are in a constant state of survival, essentially.”
