People at Mass and Cass will be offered a ride to temporary housing, but will not be allowed to camp there any longer. The tents and tarps they use for shelter, Wu’s team said when announcing the ordinance, are also used to hide drug use and other crime.
City Council President Ed Flynn expects people will keep coming to the Mass and Cass zone when enforcement begins on a new tent ban next week, to test how serious police are about eliminating the area’s open-air drug market and violence.
The city’s permissive attitude toward open-air drug use and violence occurring in the Mass and Cass zone will drastically change on Nov. 1, when authorities begin enforcing a new anti-encampment ordinance, Police Commissioner Michael Cox said.
The Boston City Council approved an amended version of the mayor’s anti-encampment ordinance for the Mass and Cass zone, setting off a seven-day clock for enforcement that would begin once Michelle Wu signs the measure.
Ricardo Arroyo will ask his City Council colleagues to vote Wednesday on an amended anti-encampment ordinance he’s filed, saying that the changes strengthen the legality of what the mayor proposed in late August for the Mass and Cass zone.