The Federal Government Sets its Sights on one of Boston’s Most Vulnerable Populations, the Unhoused

Homeless Veteran on the Streets of Boston, MA. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

For years, a stretch of a Boston road has vexed city leaders, public health officials, and police.  Despite efforts to find a solution, the dual issues of homelessness and public drug use that coalesce at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, better known as Mass and Cass, continue to persist.  However, despite a long association with crime and disorder, the area has recently shown signs of improvement under Mayor Michelle Wu’s policies. Yet just as Boston has begun to stabilize one of its most persistent humanitarian crises, new federal policies from the Trump administration now threaten to reverse this hard-fought progress. 

Mass and Cass represent the devastating toll that mental health, substance use disorder, and a lack of affordable housing can have.  This strip of asphalt is often seen as a place where public safety, health, and quality of life are all severely strained for its residents and neighbors. However, this past September, Mass and Cass looked almost “abandoned" and where it was typically crowded with unhoused residents, in their place an unfamiliar quietness had settled in. State Representative John Moran (D-Mass) was among those who noticed this change, commenting that, “Surprisingly, over the last five days, we've had a bit of a turnaround in terms of the number of people on the streets.” What was historically a hotbed for drug use, drug dealing, and sex trafficking looked vastly different, a change largely attributed to Mayor Michelle Wu’s new plan to clean up the Mass and Cass corridor and extend more city services to its residents.  “It was the first weekend in many, many months that I haven't gotten outreach from constituents. I see that as a positive trend,” State Representative Moran said. “I do hope that this trend continues -- but I don't think we're out of the woods, by any means.”

A key part of Mayor Wu’s plan for Mass and Cass began in November of 2023, with the dismantling of the tent encampment on Atkinson Street, a side street near Mass and Cass.  The area had been described as an “open-air drug market,” where violence festered within the confines of the tents; it was a public health crisis.  In response, a new city ordinance went into effect, allowing police to remove temporary structures from public property.  With mounting public concern over deteriorating health and safety in the area, Mayor Wu, armed with both public support and newly granted legality, undertook the process of breaking up this encampment.  While city officials discarded former makeshift homes in the background, Mayor Wu reported the importance of connecting formerly unhoused residents to social workers to help guide them to services. 

However, praise for Mayor Wu’s actions at Atkinson Street was far from universal. Critics lambasted that her crackdown displaced individuals struggling with substance use disorder and homelessness, pushing them further into new neighborhoods and ultimately scattering individuals farther away from the outreach and services.  “This has escalated — even when the tents were removed, the problem remained. The problem was spread out,” Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn (D), an outspoken critic of Wu, said about the removal of Atkinson's encampment.  However, despite Flynn’s concerns, in the year after authorities dismantled this encampment, police did not log any homicides in the area of Mass and Cass, and violent crime, including rapes, attempted rapes, robberies, and assaults, all dropped. It appeared as though Mayor Wu’s plan was working to address an issue that had haunted Boston for years. 

To sustain these advancements and prevent new encampments from filling the now emptied space, Boston’s Coordinated Response Team, established by Mayor Wu through an Executive Order in October 2021, was a key part of Mayor Wu’s strategy and a primary driver of the recent improvements at Mass and Cass.  The team coordinates city agencies to enforce laws that prevent outdoor camping and respond to constituent calls reporting public drug use and related concerns.

In conjunction with this team, Boston has implemented the Housing First model, with the core goal of providing permanent housing to individuals experiencing homelessness without requiring prior employment or sobriety. “Housing First is an approach that has been around now for 25 years. Data shows this is an approach that works,” Joyce Tavon, the CEO of the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance, a public policy organization committed to expanding access to stable housing, said. 74-year-old Boston resident Jim Murray who stands as a success story of Boston’s Housing First approach, having transitioned his life from the brutalities of life on the streets to the comfort of a one-bedroom apartment, which he has decked out with a colorful exhibition of framed photos and paintings.  Stories such as Murray’s reinforce why Boston’s Housing First Policy remains ‘central’ to the city's efforts in ending homelessness. However, this policy is now under attack by President Trump.  

In July 2025, President Trump announced an executive order that marked a major shift in the federal homelessness policy.  The order urges cities to crack down on encampments and “urban camping,” referring to the often illegal practice of camping or sleeping on public property.  This order simultaneously commands cities to move away from “Housing First” programs that prioritize stable housing before treatment. The Trump administration has criticized Housing First policies as "deprioritizing accountability and failing to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency,” and is seeking to dismantle their use across the country by siphoning federal funds away from communities, such as Boston, that have implemented them. Already, Boston is beginning to feel the effects of Trump's policies and the financial squeeze on its resources. 

In September 2025, Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, a healthcare network that provides healthcare to unhoused individuals, announced it would be laying off 25 employees and closing a recovery facility. These reductions were deemed necessary steps to offset the anticipated financial challenges from Medicaid policy changes prescribed by Trump’s sprawling domestic policy legislation, the Big Beautiful Bill, which is projected to slash federal Medicaid funding by $326 billion over 10 years. Because Boston Health Care for the Homeless receives 75% of its funding from Medicaid, it anticipates a $7 million loss in revenue in the coming year.  

Despite Trump’s insistence on the need to roll back Boston’s homeless policies and striking out Housing First, Boston is beginning to see improvements in its efforts to address the homeless crisis. Boston ranks as having the second-highest rate of homelessness among major cities, but it also boasts one of the lowest national rates of unsheltered homelessness at 4% compared to the national average of 35%. Housing First is among the cited reasons for this gap.

Mass and Cass is a shameful area of the city for many Bostonians, as it represents a very public and painful depiction of our government's failure to provide tangible solutions to some of our city’s most vulnerable members. Recent improvements offer a positive outlook for Mass and Cass, although it remains unclear whether  Boston’s model for addressing homelessness can withstand political headwinds from Washington, as the effects of federal funding cuts will likely continue to erode the city's ability to deliver change. But for now, the quiet streets of Mass and Cass offer a glimpse of what progress could look like.