By David Abel
The city in the next few weeks will begin building a new shelter in Boston’s Newmarket area for the hundreds of homeless displaced from Long Island, Mayor Martin J. Walsh told reporters on Monday.

The squat, brick building at 112 Southhampton St. will require significant upgrades, as it currently lacks showers and may require a host of other renovations to prepare it for more than 450 people who relied on the refuge on Boston Harbor. The Long Island Shelter was closed in October after the city abruptly condemned the bridge that connects it with the mainland.

Read more at BostonGlobe.com

by David Abel
Mayor Martin J. Walsh said on Saturday that the city intends to open a new shelter within the next three months that could serve as a permanent refuge for the homeless who lived on Long Island before engineers condemned the rickety bridge there in October.

Walsh said his staff was working through the weekend to ensure they have a viable plan to house more than 450 homeless people displaced from the island in Boston Harbor.

Continue reading at BostonGlobe.com

by Katie Johnson

More Boston residents are living in emergency shelters than in any of 25 major cities surveyed nationwide, according to a report released Thursday (PDF) by the US Conference of Mayors.

The survey provided a detailed snapshot of Boston’s homeless population, including the revelation that a quarter of the city’s homeless adults have jobs. In Trenton, N.J., by comparison, only 4 percent are employed.

Read more at the BostonGlobe.com

By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Columnist

Kathy and Bonnie aren’t surprised some people in Roxbury want them to stay as far away as possible.

“I can’t take it personal that they don’t want people like me walking around their neighborhoods,” Kathy said, sitting in a cozy, rose-walled living room at a transitional home on a recent morning. “There’s a stigma, that we’re dirty. I dealt with that stigma a long time.”

Read more at BostonGlobe.com

By David Abel
City officials on Wednesday nixed the leading proposal to house many of the recovery programs that have remained in limbo since the bridge to Long Island on Boston Harbor closed in October.

The decision to abandon the proposal to move more than 200 beds to the former Radius Hospital in Roxbury, which closed this year, came after neighbors raised concerns about the impact on their community.

Read more at BostonGlobe.com

By Sonali Y. Salgado and Caroline T. Zhang
Weeks after Boston officials closed a major homeless shelter located on a island in Boston Harbor, local homelessness service providers said they are already struggling with increased demand before the onset of winter. 

The Long Island Shelter was the Boston area’s largest, housing more than 700 people a night. When Boston city officials closed the only bridge servicing the shelter on Oct. 8 due to concerns about its stability, these people were left without a place to live.

“There’s an increased demand for services across the board,” said David K. Tang-Quan ’15, a Harvard Square Homeless Shelter administrative co-director.


Read more at thecrimson.com.

THE PLIGHT of the city’s homeless population has taken on a new urgency in Boston this Thanksgiving, after the sudden closure of the city’s main emergency shelter on Long Island. Inspections last month revealed that the only bridge reaching the island was unsafe, forcing the city to shut the facility and several other related social-service organizations. That decision, while necessary, has taken a severe toll. Without the beds, other shelters in the city hastily took in hundreds of “Long Island refugees.” Some former residents are now sleeping in hallways and lobbies — or on the streets.

But the crisis has also created an opportunity the city should seize: it’s time to permanently relocate the city’s homeless beds to more convenient locations in the city, closer to welfare agencies, churches, and public transportation, in order to give the residents better access to services, build stronger pathways to permanent housing, and eliminate the possibility of a single freak accident again cutting off the range of services that were housed on the island. The city is in the process of doing that anyway, as it plans a temporary shelter in the South End, and should start studying permanent mainland locations, too.


Read more on BostonGlobe.com

On a Wednesday in October, the tumbledown Long Island bridge was closed. And the lives of the homeless and addicts who sought refuge and recovery there were thrust into disarray.

This was their first Thanksgiving off the island.

Here are four portraits, of those seeking help, and those who give it.


Continue reading at BostonGlobe.com

BOSTON -- On October 8, Mayor Martin J. Walsh – under the advisement of various City departments, agencies and leaders, and the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) – made the decision to close the Long Island Bridge and evacuate the programs located on Long Island.   

 “This was a difficult, but necessary, decision that was made in the interest of public safety. This bridge has been a source of grave concern for many years, and I was not willing to risk the possibility of disaster for one more night, with the data presented to us about the serious condition of the bridge,” said Mayor Walsh. “In the weeks following the bridge closure, a light post fell down and crashed onto the bridge, directly where vehicles traveled to and from the Island. My team made a series of tough judgment calls in the interest of public safety, and we are confident that we made the right decision.”   

There was not one incident, injury, or any bridge collapse that led to this decision. The decision to close the Bridge was made in an abundance of caution, following long-running concerns about the structural integrity of the Bridge.  Following the decision to close the Bridge, the City activated its Continuity of Operations Plan to ensure that all needs of the clients who utilize the programs at Long Island are met while the Bridge is closed. Since the bridge closure, the City and partners have maintained an equal, or greater, number of beds for our homeless and recovery guests.  

The following is a comprehensive update on the status of the Long Island Bridge, programs, and operations. 

Radio Boston 9 minute interview with Jessie Gaeta, medical director of Boston Health Care for the Homeless.
Listen at wbur.org.

Lawrence Harmon, Globe Columnist
THE BRIDGE to the homeless shelter and drug rehabilitation programs on Long Island — the largest island in Boston Harbor — is structurally unsound and out of commission. Also unsound are the longstanding policies that have led to the shuttling of homeless men and women across the decaying steel structure while barring the general public from enjoying the 214-acre island.

Long Island is part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area that includes popular spots such as Georges Island and Spectacle Island. But the general public can’t get there from here. Guards blocked access to the roughly 3,000-foot bridge to Long Island even when it was safe to pass. There is no ferry service to the island, no tours, no public toilets, no camping, no picnic areas, and no refreshments. For many decades, the island has served as an almshouse, chronic disease hospital, and more recently as a domicile for the homeless and addicts in need of detoxification and treatment. Since 2007, several hundred kids from Boston’s poorest neighborhoods have been attending summer camp sessions on the northern end of the island.


Read more at BostonGlobe.com

by Jaclyn Cashman


All the fury over the closing of the Long Island homeless shelter spilled out at a South End forum last night with one woman declaring: “We are not dogs!”

Hundreds packed the Blackstone Community Center to get answers from city officials about the future of Long Island after the bridge was abruptly shut down last month after being deemed unsafe to travel on.
This move has displaced about 700 homeless people living on the island.


Read more at BostonHerald.com

by David Abel

On a city lot beside the Southeast Expressway, somewhere between massive piles of rock salt and rows of garbage trucks, city officials have found a site to house hundreds of homeless people who have lived in limbo since engineers last month condemned the bridge to their shelter on Long Island.

The unsightly spot on the edge of the South End where the city used to run a methadone clinic is the leading candidate among a range of facilities that city officials have vetted in recent weeks to provide the homeless with a “temporary long-term solution.”

Read more at BostonGlobe.com

By Deborah Becker and Lynn Jolicoeur
... Jim Greene, director of Boston’s Emergency Shelter Commission, says condemning the only bridge to the island has created several problems.

“This has made the precarious nature and the plight of the lives of homeless people very palpable and vivid, in a community that doesn’t always see that in part because of the services that we provide,” Greene said.


Listen to the 4 minute interview with Jim Green at WBUR.org. 

by David Abel

In the hours before dawn, when five layers of clothing, two blankets, and the crucifix around her neck no longer blunt the cold, Lisa Jenkins rises from the faux leather couch she has hidden in the woods and paces in the dark.

Sleeping alone outside stirs other concerns, aside from frostbite. She has set booby traps to protect against potential stalkers and feeds the possums, raccoons, and other wildlife to keep them friendly.

Read more at BostonGlobe.com

by David Abel, Globe Staff
Trailing the flashing lights of a police escort, the city bus completed its journey in front of a bleak building in the South End, where more officers and guards were waiting.

Out filed some of the 700 former residents of Long Island, where the city’s largest homeless shelter operated until earlier this month — before officials condemned the only bridge leading to the refuge on Boston Harbor.

Now, the city’s homeless pack into a former fitness center, while city officials hastily seek a more permanent solution to the loss of about one-third of the city’s available beds.

They live in cramped, disorienting conditions with fewer amenities and social services than they had on Long Island. Instead of beds, they sleep on pillowless cots, set inches apart in a windowless room. Bright lights stay on all night. There are long lines to use the two bathrooms. Fans swirl humid air.


Read more and watch the video at BostonGlobe.com

by Rachel Riley
Mayor Martin J. Walsh is closing the Long Island Bridge, the gateway to myriad social services for hundreds of disadvantaged individuals, his office announced Wednesday.

The bridge to Long Island, which is located in Boston Harbor, is likely to be closed for an extended period of time as a precautionary measure following concerns about the span’s structural stability, according to a statement from Walsh’s office.
Read more at BostonGlobe.com