Massachusetts
I visited supervised consumption sites in six cities. Here’s what I found. – The Boston Globe
In Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City, and New York, and in Philadelphia where sites are proposed, I spent hours walking the neighborhood streets and alleyways, sitting at bus stops, talking with people, and lingering in parks and doorways.
In Montreal, at dusk on a Saturday night, I sat on a bench across from a storefront site. Clients of all ages arrived by foot, car, and bike, mostly indistinguishable from the patrons standing in line at a restaurant just down the block. A few waiting restaurant patrons walked by, some with children, seemingly unaware of what was behind the door to the site. Those who stopped and read the information displayed in the window casually meandered back to the restaurant line.
A site in downtown Montreal was different. On a side street, it was marked by a nondescript door. People quietly came and went until after midnight. The neighborhood featured a busy commercial road at the end of the street and newer, higher-end housing throughout.
In contrast, the Downtown Eastside neighborhood of Vancouver can only be described as jarring. Hundreds of people were wandering the streets and alleys, with many encamped at the time in a nearby park. Old and worn apartment buildings, rooming houses, and hotels fill the area. There are several nondescript supervised consumption sites in the neighborhood, practically invisible among the busy street life.
In New York, I went to scope out the East Harlem site the day before I was to formally visit, but on my first pass, even with the address, I couldn’t find it. A pastor at a local church told me the site was helping those in need with minimal — if any — negative neighborhood impacts.
In Toronto, people loitering outside a community health center hinted that a site was located inside, but it wasn’t entirely obvious within the context of the whole neighborhood. A staff member said they were looking at alternatives to sharing the health center entrance. A police officer working a detail for a movie filming next door was not sure how he felt about such sites but felt location was key in terms of access and limiting neighborhood impacts. In Quebec City, the new site looked like nothing other than a storefront.
Indistinguishable. Nondescript. Practically invisible. Supervised consumption sites blend with their neighborhoods.
How they look from the street contrasts with how they look inside. In Canada, the rooms appear clinical, almost sterile; in New York, a little less so. All have cubicles with a chair, clean counter, mirror, disinfecting wipes, and a disposal container. Some have rooms for people who inhale drugs, and all have rooms in which clients can relax. They offer clean needles, pipes, and other supplies. Each is staffed with qualified and caring staff, paid and volunteer, ready to respond to an overdose with oxygen or naloxone, a medication used to reverse an opioid overdose.
From what I observed, they treat clients with dignity and respect and develop easy rapports with them, determined by the comfort level of each client. Friendships form, making it easier for clients to access health care and to ask for treatment, something I witnessed in East Harlem.
Viewing the sites and what they do must be put in context. I had heard that some who visited the Vancouver sites on official trips, for instance, were shocked by the neighborhood, concluding that the supervised consumption sites attracted drug users and dealers and were responsible for the jarring conditions.
A police officer with whom I walked the neighborhood after spending a full day there myself said it looked this way long before the sites opened. For years, the officer explained, it was a place where people with untreated mental health conditions ended up after losing jobs and housing. He said he believes untreated mental illness is at the root of the neighborhood’s problems and that while supervised consumption sites are not the full answer, they do save lives.
By walking the streets and visiting the sites, I also learned how these facilities can lessen the strain that drug use puts on local first responders and hospitals. Just off Kensington Street in Philadelphia, within moments of arriving to view an area proposed for a site, I saw fire apparatus and police cars pulling out of a side street. Two firefighters remained to try and help a woman, while the man with her said, “You OD’d girl. You’re purple.”
In contrast, at a Vancouver site a couple of weeks before I visited, 14 overdoses occurred in a single day at one injection site due to a bad batch of drugs in the neighborhood. Nobody died. Some of those 14 people might have died on the streets if not for the site. There might have been several 911 calls, several police, fire, and ambulance responses, and several transports and emergency room stays. Instead, having trained personnel on hand meant each case could be handled swiftly and appropriately, while simultaneously sparing health care and emergency response resources.
Massachusetts has successful needle exchange programs. At a Montreal site, the director referenced how it originally had been a safe materials site, i.e., a needle exchange program. They knew when they provided a client with clean needles and supplies that the client was walking out the door and to a nearby alley or park to inject. Or, as I thought, to the bathroom of a gas station. Instead, she said, why not let them walk through the door into a supervised setting, eliminating the risks of overdose, needle litter, and infection.
The number of overdose deaths in Massachusetts suggests that, however well-intentioned, signs in gas station bathrooms are not enough. Supervised consumption sites can help bring drug use out of bathrooms, alleyways, and parks, and into safe places.
What I saw and learned in Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Quebec City, Philadelphia, and New York leads me to believe that Massachusetts should allow any community that chooses to host a supervised consumption site to do so as a pilot program, using the experience and data to better inform Massachusetts policy makers and residents of the role such facilities can play in efforts to combat the drug epidemic. They can save money, and they will save lives.
Senator John F. Keenan represents Norfolk and Plymouth counties in the Massachusetts Legislature.
Massachusetts
New Bedford MS-13 Member, Illegal Alien Pleads Guilty to Role in Brutal Murders In Massachusetts, Virginia
Frankli
Police shot and killed a man who officials say rushed officers with a knife during a call in Lexington, Massachusetts, on Saturday.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said the situation started around 1:40 p.m. when Lexington police received a 911 call from a resident of Mason Street reporting that his son had injured himself with a knife.
Officers from the Lexington Police Department and officers from the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council (NEMLEC), who were already in town for Patriots’ Day events, responded to the call.
Police were able to escort two other residents out of the home, initially leaving a 26-year-old man inside. According to Ryan, while officers were setting up outside, the man ran out of the home and approached officers with a large kitchen knife.
She added that police tried twice to use non-lethal force, but it was not effective in stopping him. The man was shot by a Wilmington police officer who is a member of NEMLEC. The man was pronounced dead on scene and the officer who fired that shot was taken to a local hospital as a precaution.
The man’s name has not been released.
Ryan said typically in a call like this where someone was described as harming themselves, officers would first try to separate anyone else to keep them out of danger, which was done, and then standard practice would be to try to wait outside.
“It would be their practice to just wait for the person to come out. In the terrible circumstances of today, he suddenly rushed the officers, still clutching the knife,” Ryan said.
The investigation is still in the preliminary stages and more information is expected in time. Ryan said her office will request a formal inquest from the court to review whether any criminal conduct has occurred, which is the standard process.
This happened around the same time as the annual Patriots’ Day Parade, and just hours after a reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, which drew large crowds to town.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Massachusetts
‘An impossible choice’: With little federal help to combat rising costs, Head Start looks to Massachusetts for more help – The Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, roughly 1,300 slots for children across Head Start’s 28 agencies have been eliminated in the last three years because federal funding has plateaued over that time, while the cost of running the program continues to rise, according to the Massachusetts Head Start Association. Nationally, Head Start enrollment dropped from 1.1 million kids in 2013 to around 785,000 in 2022, according to research by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
“If they didn’t get into a Head Start program, they would be sitting at home,” said Brittany Acosta, a Head Start parent in Dorchester.
It’s teachers are drastically underpaid, and there’s a serious need for a rainy day-type fund should the federal government shut down again, the association says. As they’ve done in years past, state lawmakers have offered to provide financial relief, but the Massachusetts Head Start Association’s request for 3 percent above the amount it received last year, an additional $4.6 million to help its staff keep up with the state’s rising cost of living, so far has not been allocated.
Last year, President Trump’s leaked budget proposal revealed he considered eliminating Head Start entirely. Then, in the summer, he cut off Head Start enrollment for immigrants without legal status. And during the fall’s government shutdown, four Head Start centers in Massachusetts closed because they couldn’t access their funding.
Trump’s latest budget proposal shows a fourth year without increasing funding for the program, which was established in the mid-1960s.
Michelle Haimowitz, executive director of the Massachusetts Head Start Association, said the program doesn’t want to eliminate more child slots than it already has, but paying teachers a competitive salary is equally important in order to keep them from leaving for higher paying jobs. Head Start teachers make under $50,000 annually compared to over $85,000 for the average Massachusetts kindergarten teacher.
“It’s an impossible choice,” Haimowitz said. “When we reduce the size of our programs, we’re not reducing the size of the need.”
Massachusetts is one of few states that supplements federal funding for Head Start, and last year it increased the program’s state grant from $5 million to $20 million, adding to the $189 million in federal aid it receives in this state.
“We can’t run a program without giving staff a raise for three years,” Haimowitz said. “Our next fight now is not just for survival, but it’s for thriving and growth.”
The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday released its budget, which doesn’t grant Head Start’s request of a 3 percent boost. But state Representative Christopher Worrell filed an amendment for additional funding. Worrell, whose district covers parts of Dorchester and Roxbury, said he loves Head Start’s embrace of culture, recalling one visit to a center where he could smell staff cooking stew chicken, a traditional Caribbean dish.
“I’ve been to dozens of schools throughout the district, and you don’t get that home-cooked meal,” Worrell said. “[The state is] stepping up and doing the best we can with what we have.”
At the Action for Boston Community Development’s Head Start and Early Head Start center in Dorchester, the children of Classroom 7 arrived one Monday morning and dove into bins of magnetic tiles before their teachers, Paola Polanco and Leolina Rasundar Chinnappa, served breakfast. Acosta dropped off her 4-year-old daughter, Violeta, before reporting to her teaching position at the center, where several other Head Start parents also work.
“It’s important for all Head Start parents to have the opportunity to give their child an experience in a learning environment before they actually start kindergarten,” Acosta said.
Beyond providing early education and care to children of low-income families, from birth to age 5, the program helps them access other resources, including mental health services, SNAP benefits, homelessness assistance, and employment opportunities.
It also serves as daycare for parents who might not be able to afford it, while they’re at work.
Research has shown the importance of preschool in a child’s development with one 2023 study, focused on Boston public preschools, finding that it improves student behavior and increases the likelihood of high school graduation and college enrollment.
For Rickencia Clerveaux and Christopher Mclean, the Dorchester Head Start center is the only place they feel comfortable sending their 3-year-old son, Shontz, who is on the autism spectrum. Shontz’s stimming — repetitive movements that stimulate the senses — has reduced, and his speech has improved since he joined the center in 2024, Clerveaux said.
His parents say he’s also come out of his shell. Mclean now drops his son off and gets a simple “bye” as Shontz joins his classmates, he said.
He and Clerveaux said they appreciate the specialized attention Shontz can receive from teachers, such as when staff identified that Shontz might have hearing issues. His parents were able to follow up with their doctor and get Shontz to have surgery to improve his hearing.
“It’s a safe net for parents,” Clerveaux said. “There’s so many ways that him being here helps him grow better.”
Without Head Start, Clerveaux said a lot of pressure would be put on parents to find care for their children, “knowing that they’re already struggling or not getting the ends to meet.”
“That’s a burden for everybody in the community,” she said. “If there’s no funding, there’s no daycare and parents cannot work.”
Lauren Albano can be reached at lauren.albano@globe.com. Follow her on X @LaurenAlbano_.
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