Worcester Councilors, Chamber Of Commerce Clash Over Homeless Camp Sweeps

WORCESTER, MA — Two Worcester city councilors are admonishing the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce over a recent letter the group sent to councilors opposing a pause of the city's policy toward sweeping homeless camps.

In back-to-back statements Tuesday, District 4 Councilor Sarai Rivera and District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj fired back at the chamber, calling the group's letter "dishonest, immoral, cruel, hurtful and divisive."

"Moving people from one district to another, one park to the other, is not a strategy to eliminate or reduce encampments. This strategy doesn’t get people housed or magically materialize more shelter beds," Haxhiaj said in remarks at Tuesday's council meeting.

The chamber's letter follows a petition submitted to the council in May by Maydee Morales, a local homeless outreach worker and a 2023 city council candidate, seeking an examination of homeless camp sweeps. Morales' petition requested the city find an alternative to encampment sweeps until there are places for the homeless to go.

"[E]ither issue a temporary moratorium on encampment sweeps or find a suitable site to properly and safely support individuals living in encampments throughout the city, while the city works on a plan to expand shelter beds, temporary housing options, and bring permanent supportive housing units online," Morales' petition said.

Alex Guardiola, a registered lobbyist and the chamber's vice president of government affairs and public policy, and a 2023 school committee candidate, wrote the chamber's letter to councilors. In it, he says the chamber supports the expansion of housing for the homeless, but also that homeless people living in encampments pose a safety threat.

"As we have seen in many other communities, unauthorized encampments on private property or public settings such as parks and recreation areas create unsafe and unsanitary conditions for residents and businesses and they also create safety challenges for our first responders," Guardiola's letter said.

The public clash between elected officials and the region's most powerful business group hovers above a complex problem that almost every U.S. city is grappling with — and almost no city has successfully solved. Homelessness has increased by about 6 percent nationwide since 2017, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

In Worcester, city workers regularly respond to complaints from businesses and residents about homeless camps. The response, according to city records, can involve a range of actions, from throwing away or storing abandoned possessions, to linking homeless people with services.

But in some cases, homeless camp sweeps result in moving people from one site to another. Records provided to Patch show that city workers repeatedly visit areas like Bell Hill Park, a vacant and blighted parcel behind the CVS on Park Avenue and along the Blackstone River and Providence Street.

In the chamber letter, Guardiola argues camp sweeps are helpful because they connect homeless people to services. At the same time, local public health workers have said camp sweeps sever ties when homeless people are scattered to new areas. Supplies like tents, clothing, food and medicine often gets thrown away during sweeps, wasting resources, outreach workers say.

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that sweeps can increase homeless mortality between 15 and 25 percent. The study was based on data from 23 U.S. cities looking at mortality rates among homeless injection drug users.

"This study indicates that encampment sweeps are the wrong approach to this crisis. We must provide street medicine, medical outreach, substance use treatment and harm reduction services, as well as focus on addressing the heart of the issue — these individuals need housing, not ongoing displacement," study co-author Courtney Pladsen said.

The chamber's letter also points to recent efforts aimed at boosting affordable housing — including the recent inclusionary zoning law and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund — as proof Worcester is working toward a solution for the homeless.

"With more resources and tools available, it is important to seize this opportunity and create more affordable housing units. Toward that end, we believe that by working collectively with its partners, the city should seek to reach a 15% affordable level threshold that includes supportive housing units for those in need of comprehensive services," the letter said.

But today, shelter beds and supportive housing units for people who frequently suffer from issues like mental illness and addiction are limited. There are two main affordable supportive housing projects underway in Worcester along Lewis Street and Oriol Drive. Combined, they will add over 100 new permanent supportive housing units — but the bulk of those units may not be available until well into 2024 or later.

"The chamber stated that housing is a solution, which I agree with, and that is being worked on, but it is not available today. While efforts are made to increase housing stock that will benefit the unhoused, we need to simultaneously prioritize and work through the emergent issues that the city is dealing with now within the unhoused population," Rivera said in a statement Tuesday.

Worcester has struggled to add new temporary shelter beds as well. A recent six-bed family shelter proposed in Greendale at a church faced wide opposition, as did the winter shelter at Blessed Sacrament church that replaced the now-closed Hotel Grace. Worcester is approaching the upcoming winter with no clear replacement for the 60-bed Blessed Sacrament shelter, called Seeds of Hope.

"Shuffling folks around the city, with no viable options, creates the temporary illusion we’re creating safety, or making homelessness go away," Haxhiaj said Tuesday. "But all we are doing is relocating unhoused people from one corner of the city to another, wasting taxpayer dollars and draining municipal resources. All this, isn’t the fault of unhoused people. This is a direct result of policy failures at the federal, state and local levels."

Morales' petition was first brought to councilors on May 2, and was sent to the council's Public Health and Human Services Committee. The committee took up the item on May 9, voting to ask City Manager Eric Batista to create a homelessness task force that would "explore possible solutions to address the homelessness situation in the city, including, but not limited to a temporary moratorium on encampment sweeps or establishing suitable temporary housing/shelter."

Batista has taken steps toward that request, convening a summit on Tuesday between his office and homeless service providers about encampments.