Boston’s New Mayor Tries a Different Tack on Homelessness

Homeless encampments don’t have a long history in Boston — the city’s often-frigid climate can be awfully hostile to rough sleeping.

So the tent city at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, a site known as Mass. and Cass, stands as a testament to the brutal tenacity of the affordable housing crunch, Covid-19 pandemic and opioid epidemic. At its peak size, about 300 people called Mass. and Cass home, and even during the depths of the New England winter scores of tents remained.