The tents are gone, but the crowds and drug use are back at Boston’s Mass and Cass

The warmer weather has drawn the crowds back to the city’s open-air drug market at Mass and Cass, which one city councilor says is alarming the community despite the mayor’s insistence that the area is much safer since last year’s tent crackdown.

City Councilor Ed Flynn said roughly 70–80 people have been gathering and openly using and selling drugs at Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard on a daily basis for at least the past month.

Flynn said he visited the area on Thursday and observed an “organized system of drug dealers on Melnea Cass” in Roxbury. He described the situation as a danger to people in the area, saying that he went on to speak with residents in South Boston, which is part of his district, who are “very concerned about the significant escalation of drug dealing and drug use in the neighborhoods.”

“I talked to several Boston police officials today and expressed my concern about the area and requested enhanced police presence in the impacted neighborhoods and to arrest drug dealers,” Flynn told the Herald Thursday. “It’s a significant issue impacting the quality of life of residents.”

The criminal activity has also spilled over into other areas, Flynn said, with more people gathering throughout neighborhoods in Roxbury and the South End, Andrew Square in South Boston, and at the South Bay mall in Dorchester.

The South Bay mall drew attention last summer for juvenile mobs committing violent crime, leading then-Councilor Frank Baker to partly blame the example set for youth by the Mass and Cass inhabitants who go through the stores there to “rob the place blind and shoot up drugs in the sidewalks,” when the matter came before the City Council for discussion last September.

Flynn said that not only are businesses at the South Bay mall concerned about the crowds returning at and around Mass and Cass, but those located in the Newmarket business district are as well.

He said people are drawn to the Mass and Cass area because public drug use and dealing has long been “tolerated” there by the city, but emphasized that should not be the case, and is calling for city officials to “revisit and redouble our efforts” that began with last fall’s crackdown on tent encampments and crime.

“I don’t believe we should allow people to use drugs openly on the streets of Boston,” Flynn said. “I believe it’s a public health crisis.”

Mayor Michelle Wu implemented a three-pronged plan to address crime and homelessness in the area last fall, following City Council approval of an anti-encampment ordinance that empowered police to remove the tents that officials said were shielding crime, sex trafficking and weapons.

On a Wednesday appearance on a “Java with Jimmy” podcast, Wu was asked about the uptick in gathering that’s been occurring at Mass and Cass, and how the city planned to address it.

The mayor spoke to the importance of the ordinance, saying that not having the tents there permanently has put the city in a “different and better, safer position than we were a year ago this time.” Last summer, more than 200 people a day were flocking to the area.

The Herald requested an interview with the mayor on Thursday afternoon, but her office declined to make Wu available nor provide a statement, saying in a Friday evening email that it deferred to her comments on “Java with Jimmy.”

Wu’s office did provide statistics shedding more light on her remarks around enhanced safety in the Mass and Cass zone.

The year-over-year data compared Jan. 1 to April 8 of 2023 to the same time period in 2024, showing that robberies were down 40%, aggravated assault was down 14%, residential burglary was down 78%, motor vehicle theft was down 38%, total crime was down 22%, and violent crimes overall were “significantly down.”

What remains to be seen, however, is data capturing the warmer months that have already resulted in larger crowds in the area.

On her podcast appearance, Wu spoke to the city’s efforts to connect longtime inhabitants of Mass and Cass with shelter, housing, drug treatment and services.

She also mentioned the city’s long-term goal of rebuilding a bridge out to a future addiction-recovery campus on Long Island, which has faced staunch opposition from the mayor on the other side of that bridge, Quincy’s Thomas Koch.

While the mayor says the situation at Mass and Cass has improved, she said this year has brought new challenges, particularly the influx of migrants straining the city’s adult shelter system.

City Councilor Henry Santana, who chairs the body’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice committee, said the new challenges there will require new solutions.

“This has always been an issue of intersecting and evolving crises — housing, opioid addiction and mental health — and now, the increasing influx of migrants,” Santana said in a Thursday statement.

“Many of the issues of a year ago have improved with actions taken by the city,” he said, “and the people and some of the issues that we’re seeing today are different, and require new solutions in partnership with the state, particularly to address the strains on the state shelter system and resources for mental health.”