Submitted by the Coalition for Regionwide Services
On Dec. 18, the state announced the termination of its plan with Boston Medical Center (BMC) to redevelop Franklin Park’s Shattuck Hospital site into an opioid treatment and housing campus. The decision was a sound one, given the limited community input into the best use of the land. The plan would have blocked use for parkgoers and disrupted surrounding neighborhoods, which are predominantly Black and Brown.
Our previous experience with 54 low-threshold beds on that site with no sobriety requirements raised serious concerns. Billed as “temporary” by the state, these units were open for two-and-a-half years. While only 6 percent the size of the proposed 850-bed living facility, there was a documented and dramatic increase in needle use and encampments throughout the park during that time.
As shown in numerous studies, there is little evidence that the proposed “housing first” model – housing before sobriety – actually helps with recovery, and no evidence to suggest that large size has any benefit other than to warehouse people and make treatment more profitable for those delivering it.
We have seen what the impact of 200 people actively using fentanyl and concentrated on Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Blvd (Mass. and Cass) looks like. Multiply that times four and locate it in the woods of a 500-acre park with confusion among state, park, and city police as to who has jurisdiction as a way to begin to understand the wrongheadedness of this plan.
There is a pervasive narrative, perhaps driven by racism, that Franklin Park is underused. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the heart and lungs of our city for Black and Brown residents.
People come to Franklin Park for gatherings with family and friends, to celebrate their heritage, to exercise, to commune with nature and to de-stress. They enjoy jazz and other performances, festivals like the Puerto Rican, Caribbean, and Kite and Bike festivals, hold civic events such as Juneteenth, play basketball, tennis, baseball, and golf, visit the zoo, picnic, walk their dogs, and more.
Residents and organizations surrounding Franklin Park, who understand the vital health benefits of the park, quickly united to oppose the plan. We fought for full community engagement in the use of this parkland as was intended by its designer Frederick Law Olmsted and as defined in state law—to improve the health and wellness of Boston citizens.
The group that formed—the Coalition for Regionwide Services (CORES)— includes members who live in Roxbury, Mattapan, Jamaica Plain, Dorchester, and Roslindale. We have lived experience absorbing a disproportionate share of treatment facilities and advocate for a broader regional response rather than continuing to concentrate services in certain city neighborhoods.
By its own calculations, Boston Medical Center estimated a need for 425 supportive housing beds to serve a 20-mile radius of Boston as part of their original proposal for the Shattuck redevelopment. An assessment in April 2024 determined that at least 398 units have either been created or are in the development stage in Boston. Less than a half mile from Franklin Park, Pine Street Inn just opened the largest permanent supportive housing development in New England, with 140 of its 202 units serving people who have been chronically homeless.
In the meantime, these beds are serving residents from Wakefield, Concord, Lexington, Burlington, Woburn, Waltham, Wayland, Sudbury, Newton, Brookline, Milton, Natick, Framingham, Needham, Holliston, Medway, Medfield, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Canton, Randolph, Dedham, Canton, Brockton, Abington, Rockland, Norwell, Weymouth, Quincy, Hingham, Hull, Cohasset and Scituate. Many of these cities and towns have no substance use treatment facilities or supportive housing.
Opioid overuse does not discriminate by income, race, or gender. It affects every community. Despite repeated requests, we have never seen a regional plan or comprehensive strategy. The time to develop such a plan is now, and we stand ready to help.
On the renewed use of the Shattuck Hospital property, we cannot afford to repeat the previous process that led to the flawed design that was just terminated. As the governor’s own environmental justice policy and laws mandate, the state needs to work with surrounding communities to determine what the best solutions would be for them.
During CORES’s years-long effort to push for community-driven solutions, the following ideas were put forth: a community swimming pool, a community recreation center, recovery of the parkland as originally intended, urban gardens and fruit tree groves, a nature center, a camp for kids, or a senior living village, to name a few.
CORES is reaching out to the governor, and to agencies and organizations committed to environmental justice to support the appropriate use of the Shattuck Hospital site on Morton Street.
This is an exciting moment for the entire city. We have a chance to change the trajectory of the health and wellness of these communities and all of Boston if we make citizen-informed decisions.
— CORES executive leadership group.
Co-signers include Beth Abelow, Jerry Abelow, Rory Coffey, Jamie Cohen, Michelle Davis, Louis Elisa, Sarah Freeman, Marti Glynn, Melissa Hamel, C. Caliga, and Renee Stacey Welch.
