Our next regularly-scheduled general meeting is 7 p.m. May 18th via Zoom.

Changes at the Atkinson Street Comfort Station
For the past three weeks, the Atkinson Street "Comfort Station," one of the only daytime alternatives to local streets or parks for many of the people experiencing homelessness around Mass and Cass, has been closed, due to escalating violence. The City is currently evaluating how and if it can be successfully reopened and operated--a matter with implications for all in our community and Boston's homelessness and substance use disorder policies generally.
Created a year ago at the start of the pandemic to offer outdoor socially-distanced access to COVID-19 supplies, restrooms, health care and social services, the Atkinson Street Comfort Station soon became a place where many of the most challenged people in the neighborhood spent some or all the day. Uniquely, in addition to offering services, the Comfort Station tolerated people actively using drugs around the site. It became, in effect, an experiment in offering a very low threshold space, a place that accommodates people who are not able to meet the rules and norms of most communal settings. A positive was that where overdoses occurred, help was at hand: Comfort Station staff reversed about 1.5 overdoses a day during Summer 2020.
Unfortunately, the presence of drug users attracted drug dealers to the Comfort Station and, with them, violence, including, recently, multiple stabbings and two homicides. As a result, some within the City and community are pressing for the permanent closure of the Comfort Station. Others, by contrast, argue that closing the Comfort Station will only further disperse drug use and accompanying public safety problems into the surrounding South End and Roxbury neighborhoods while lessening access to services. As of this writing, the City has yet to announce what action it will take.
Note: Residents may recall that last year there were actually two Comfort Stations: Atkinson Street, as discussed above, and another on Massachusetts Avenue just below Albany Street. The latter was discontinued for 2021 due to construction in the adjacent Woods-Mullen shelter for women

BFSNA 2021-2022 board elections
BFSNA will have its annual election of officers and directors at our May member and community meeting, to be held on May 18 via Zoom. As mentioned at our March meeting, persons interested in serving or finding out more are asked to reach out and make themselves known at bfsna@blackstonefranklin.org. Our current board members have all expressed interest in continuing to serve. They are: Jonathan Alves, Vice President; Toni Crothall, Secretary; Heather Govern, Director; Matt Mues, Treasurer; Mark Ott, Director; and David Stone, President.

BFSNA meeting recordings are now available on YouTube
Zoom recordings of recent BFSNA member and community meetings and other public events are now available on YouTube, a practice we began last fall and plan to make standard procedure going forward. You can find our channel by searching BlackstoneFranklinSquareNA on YouTube, or by going to this link:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgBZxoHYMBSniTDoZqj1I6Q/featured
@blackstonefranklin