Worcester Homeless Camp Sweep Exposes 'Cracks' In System

WORCESTER, MA — On a cold, wet Monday afternoon, a man named Shawn was celebrating his 48th birthday by asking for donations from drivers leaving the Walmart in Worcester off Route 146.

He was wearing a threadbare blue poncho and a Patriots hat, and nearby a few plastic bags were filled with some of his possessions. He was standing about 1,000 feet from a muddy patch of woods along the Blackstone River directly behind Walmart where he used to live in a tent with a group of other campers.

On Oct. 20, city police and outreach workers appeared at the camp and told everyone they had to leave. Then, heavy construction vehicles hired by the state and a private railroad company began clearing possessions, trash and other detritus that were left behind.

Shawn said the campers knew the removal was coming, but never got an exact date. When members of Worcester's Quality of Life Task Force showed up to move them, the residents were rushed to pack up and go, Shawn said.

"We were one big family over there," he said. "People lost everything; it was bad."

The camp was cleared due to public health concerns and complaints from the nearby Walmart and people using the trail along the Blackstone River, city officials said. The campers are also technically trespassing. But the solution — moving homeless people along and, in some cases, trashing their belongings — is far from perfect, and cuts homeless residents off from services they desperately need, according to outreach workers.

Worcester Health and Human Services Commissioner Dr. Matilde Castiel acknowledged there are "cracks in the system." The city does as much outreach as it can before a sweep, but no one can force homeless residents to accept a shelter bed or treatment. The city also has to listen to the needs of property owners and the public, Castiel said.

"Our goal here is to unite all the different agencies and provide the best services we can," she said.

Joint effort

According to Castiel, MassDOT notified the city that it wanted to clear the land in early September. Walmart was key in asking for the removal, but the city had also received complaints from people who use the Blackstone River Bikeway, which runs near where the camps were located.

A MassDOT spokesperson said the agency learned about the camp from the owner of the Walmart plaza, RK Worceter Crossing LLC — part of Needham-based RK Centers real estate company, which owns dozens of shopping plazas in New England and Florida, and whose founder is a part-owner of the Miami Heat.

With the removal afoot, the Worcester Quality of Life Task Force visited the camp six times between Sept. 16 and Oct. 14, task force leader Dan Cahill said. The residents were offered services and shelter each time. The Rev. Richie Gonzalez of the Hotel Grace shelter, also visited in early October to offer beds to camp residents. and about three accepted, Cahill said.

It's unclear how many people were living at the camp. Shawn, the former camp resident, said there were 15 to 20 tents between a MassDOT property and another one nearby owned by the Providence and Worcester Railroad. Cahill said there were about 14 people in 10 tents at the camp on the day of the sweep.

Shawn said the city was "vague" about exactly when the camp would be cleared. He also said camp residents sometimes miss outreach visits. Some people leave the camp during the day or for longer periods, others may fear leaving their tent.

According to Cahill, some possessions left behind were thrown into a Dumpster by crews working with the state and railroad (the city will store possessions for 30 up to days for people whose belongings are removed from public property like parks and schools). Shawn said he wouldn't know where to look if the city was storing his possessions (he did have complimentary things to say about some of the city's efforts, specifically those of Homeless Projects Manager Evis Terpollari).

Signs of the camp are still visible from the river trail. On a recent day, possessions and trash were strewn in muddy tracks left by backhoes. Winter boots and sneakers could be seen among the debris. On one side of the river, several flat, empty tents were hanging off a concrete retaining wall.

As MassDOT spokesperson said the agency will return to do "selective thinning of the vegetation" near where the camp stood.

Sweeps 'sever ties'

Dr. Hugh Silk, a family physician and professor at the UMass Chan Medical School, is part of a team of volunteers who provide direct medical care to homeless people in Worcester. He and others had been in the Blackstone River-area camps recently performing wound care and providing opiate addiction therapy like suboxone.

Silk said the residents were warned about the sweep about two weeks before it happened, but none of the residents were given an exact date. More importantly, neither the city nor the state told Silk and his team when the sweep would occur (a city spokesperson declined to comment when asked about communications with Silk's team).

With campers dispersed, Silk can't reach residents to fill prescriptions or check on injuries.

"Our team had no idea that was happening that day," Silk said. "We can't find people now, to be honest."

Silk highlighted other problems the sweep caused. The people living in the Blackstone camps might now associate Silk and his team with the people who cleared the camp. The team needs the trust of homeless residents to gain access to their communities.

The sweep was also an incredible waste of resources, he said. Taxpayer-funded grants pay for a lot of supplies — tents, boots, food, medicine — given to homeless people. A lot of it got thrown away last week and will need to be replaced.

Shelter beds are also not always an option, Silk said. People living outdoors might not want to move indoors because, for example, they can't bring pets and may fear for their personal safety. Some shelters require people to be sober before entering.

Castiel, Cahill and Silk acknowledge that no one can force a person to accept a shelter bed, addiction treatment, or any other service — and that means they may end up in a new camp somewhere else after a sweep. Some residents in the Blackstone River camps were previously kicked out of the forest behind the American Legion hall along Providence Street, a site known as "The Mountain."

For property owners like Walmart and bike trail users, it can be difficult to perceive a camp as anything but dangerous and illegal, Silk said. But for the people living there, it was a home.

"I understand these are complex issues and nobody wants someone to stay outside if they don't need to be there," Silk said. "I understand it may seem unsightly or dangerous or what have you seeing people collect in tents in the woods. At the same time in life, we need to treat people with respect."

Housing factor

Shawn, the former camp resident, said he's now living under a bridge. At the same time, he has a $1,200-per-month rental voucher, but can't find a place to rent.

"That's absolutely true," said Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance (CMHA) Executive Director Leah Bradley said of Shawn's difficulty finding a rental.

The region is under a housing crunch, Bradley said, which means there aren't enough rental units on the market for anyone. People who use housing vouchers also have to take the extra step of having a rental unit inspected for safety before they can move in, placing another potential barrier in their way.

The CMHA is in charge of conducting Worcester County's annual point-in-time homeless count. Between 2020 and 2021, the region saw a 30 percent increase in homelessness, which may be due to evictions and job losses during the pandemic. As of Tuesday, there were about 160 shelter beds in use in Worcester. There were 20 shelter beds available at a South Middlesex Opportunity Council facility on the day of the encampment sweep, a city spokesman said.

There are also about 560 permanent supportive housing beds in the Worcester area, and those are almost always full, Bradley said. Those beds are often the best place for chronically homeless people because they come with wraparound services like drug treatment and mental health care.

To boost capacity, CMHA is asking Worcester to put 20 percent of the city's $110 million federal stimulus allotment toward building new permanent supportive housing beds. Spending that much could create 500 new beds, Bradley said.

"If you don't have a place to live, that's going to be your top priority," Bradley said. "Housing cures homelessness."

Under the bridge

A stone's throw from the former encampment behind Walmart on Monday, a homeless man was having a difficult afternoon.

He was lying under a bridge along the Blackstone River Bikeway. His few possessions — a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, a throw pillow, a hard-boiled egg and an almost empty bag of frozen shrimp — were strewn across the pathway. A handheld radio nearby was blaring the Red Hot Chili Peppers song "Give It Away." One of his boots had fallen off and he needed help getting it back on, and he couldn't sit up on his own.

After being helped into a sitting position, he said he's been living near the Blackstone River, including at the camp, for about 25 years. When asked about the camp's destruction, he only lamented that some trees had been cut down. He said he was used to being forced to move from one spot to another.

The man said his spot under the bridge is a good one because of a state law that deems all bridges as safe havens for people — although there does not appear to be any such regulation in Massachusetts.

"I'm safe here," he said before lying back down.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the day the Rev. Richie Gonzalez visited the camp to offer shelter beds.