Shantytown demolition: wrongs and rights
Even as the IMF continues not to expel Robert Mugabe’s slow-genocidal dictatorship, I found myself the other day returning to shantytown demolition because of a Boston Globe story that took place literally under the wheels of our cars:
State Police and Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) [Respective owners of the land — Ed.] crews, accompanied by officials from homeless shelters, swept through the
During their four hours under the Massachusetts Avenue bridge, underneath the Bowker overpass, and at Charlesgate East, crews removed four garbage boxes full of debris that included scrap metal, mattresses, blankets, boxes, and assorted personal belongings.
A man who found police had cleaned out his spot under a
If Mr. Mugabe’s wholesale demolition of spontaneous communities is indeed slow genocide, what happened under
Legitimate threat to the community. It’s tempting, when living cheek-by-jowl with the underclass, just to call in the bulldozers and shoo them away as if they were so many flies. Here there was causing a crime problem:
City Councilor Michael Ross said he encouraged state agencies to do the sweep after his office was flooded with calls expressing concern over what he called “extremely dangerous” conditions. Ross said someone was sexually assaulted in one of the shantytowns last weekend.
Aside from the liability aspect (negligence, anyone?), there was always the potential for something worse, because the people who live under shelters are often not in control of their faculties or their potential for violence:
“We could no longer turn a blind eye to the drug and alcohol use going on there,” Ross said. “Students at
The scale of the displacement. Despite the ominous lead verb swept, the number of people affected by is very small:
Of the three dozen or more homeless people whose encampments were torn down yesterday, only a handful were present when work crews arrived.
Three very small sites, thirty-five people total
Thirty-five people in a city of 600,000-plus. 1 out of 15,000.
A far cry from the 3.0 million Zimbabweans (1 in 4!) rendered homeless and indeed stateless by their ‘government.’
Alternative homes for those displaced. As you might expect given the very large sums devoted to addressing homelessness, all of the displaced individuals can if they choose avail themselves of an extensive support network:
A homeless shelter official estimates that [of Boston’s homeless, estimated to number about 6,000 people], half that number [3,000] spend at least some time under bridges to escape the elements, while the rest spend most of their time in shelters. The number of homeless living in encampments is believed to be far smaller.
Notice, due process, and the rule of law. The state and city were careful to provide warning and to act in concert with support agencies.
“This is a pro-active approach,” said [Lieutenant Sharon] Costone, a State Police spokeswoman. “This wasn’t just kicking people out …. We had a place for them to go.”
Although let there be no doubt: what was destroyed had some element of construction in it:
[Shepley Metcalf, spokeswoman for the Pine Street Inn, a homeless shelter in the South End], said many lost “highly constructed [shanties] with living areas and many layers for shelter from the rain …. It’s not like it’s just a tarp and a blanket.”
Self-built housing in a slum in Mavoko,
Sometimes that is all someone can have.
Indeed, there are some who complained that not enough government was involved:
“It’s tragic that there aren’t, primarily, state and federal resources [Says the elected member of city government! — Ed.] to do what needs to be done. You’re talking about the shutting down of methadone clinics and shelters,” Ross said. “This is a problem that comes right down to health and human services … especially for substance-abuse treatment.”
Was it indeed a ’spontaneous community’? Here we arrive at the rhinoceros in the room about homelessness in
Who lives under the bridges, in preference to living in a shelter?
- They are men, almost exclusively.
- They have no families.
- There are no children with them.
- None of them have any visible means of support, no evidence of any living other than begging.
That is not a community. That is a squatter’s camp. It will never grow into a community, it just exists, temporarily, in the economic leeward.
A dozen winos (as we would have called them in my youth) frequent the sidewalks between my subway stop and my office. Perhaps it’s because the adjacent St. Anthony Fraternity, they are usually found across the street, drinking Listerine, eating handouts provided by the local 7-11, and urinating in loading docks.
St. Anthony’s Shrine, on my walk to work
Sometimes a friar is earnestly trying to break through the inebriated shell to find the divine spark within. Occasionally the
I don’t know who is helped by this cycle.
Not only do the same bludgeoned faces recur, they are present only on weekdays. Weekends when I come to the office, the winos are gone. Their personal hell runs a route though hazy.
I’m a tall guy with a long stride and I can step around these folks … but if I were small, and a woman, and my route took me under those bridges, I too would favor forcible relocation. But I take some comfort in knowing those men have help available, even as I wonder whether they want the help, will use the help, or if the help is in fact doing them any good.
