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A friend of mine who had not been to New Bedford in about five years recently asked me what the heck is going on in Custom House Park.
She happened to be in the city and said she was shocked to see unhoused people living in tents in the beautiful park where they first staged DATMA’s fine-art installations. It looked rough, she said.
My friend is not the only one who’s noticed.
A colleague of mine at The Light had not been down to the historic district lately and told me he was horrified to drive by and see the tents and unhoused folks living in the park. A second colleague who lives downtown said she never frequents the pretty little spot because of the challenging population there.
Slowly but surely over the past few years, Custom House Park, which was designed and built 13 years ago by an internationally known landscape architect, has become home during the warm months to about 20 unhoused folks. This year some of those folks began to pitch tents and spread their blankets and belongings over much of its hilly lawns.
So what started out as an oasis of pastoral beauty in the middle of the downtown, replete with tables and chairs for downtown workers to eat lunch, or revelers to listen to music at summer concerts, has now become an all-day resting place for the unhoused and unbusy.
It’s not because the park, which was partially inspired by the very successful pocket park at Post Office Square in the Boston financial district, was not a good idea. It was. And Mayor Jon Mitchell should be admired for building it.
But unlike Post Office Square in Boston, there is no robust office/retail district surrounding Custom House Park. Well over a decade after it was built, vacant buildings and lots continue to line the adjacent Acushnet Avenue and even Freestone’s, the city’s first successful downtown restaurant of recent decades, closed in the wake of the pandemic. The handsome mixed-use housing development at 117 Union St. on the Barker’s Lane side of the park has been a big success but the overall area is still a long way from thriving economically.
The problem of Custom House Park is the problem of America in 2026. In a word, housing has become so expensive in post-pandemic New Bedford and most everywhere else, and cutbacks to government-funded behavioral health and housing programs have become so great, that the numbers of unhoused in the city is on the rise.
Carl Alves, the longtime director of PAACA, is one who has noticed.
In January, he wrote a letter to The New Bedford Light, about a “silver tsunami” of chronic homelessness among older adults. He recommended that Greater New Bedford establish a coordinated system of regional shelters, find a way to fund medical respite care, and expand community engagement for hot meal and housing services.
The mayor and City Council, however, have so far passed up on a chance to move toward dedicated homeless encampment spaces where the unhoused could legally pitch tents and avail themselves of services. Understandably, the fear is that no neighborhood would want it, or that it might attract folks from outside the city.
There simply is not enough help for these folks. And whether you are a religious person or not, I think a good number of us would agree that these people are our brothers and sisters, our fellow community members, whom we have a responsibility to try to help.
And please do not believe those who peddle the bogus story that they are mostly folks from outside New Bedford. They are not. And really, in the end what difference does it make whether they are originally from here in terms of solving the problem? They are living in New Bedford now and they need help. There has to be a way for the region to step up to address the situation.
There literally is no day-care type place in New Bedford for the unhoused to go during the day. Sister Rose House, the principal shelter in the South End of the city, is frequently full. Like many shelters, it requires folks who do not live there to leave during the day. House of Hope, a shelter in the North End, has a very mixed reputation among the unhoused folks and advocates I talked to for this column.
Let me be clear. The unhoused and others hanging around downtown New Bedford are not just at Custom House Park. Anyone who frequents the center of the city knows this. Take a walk by the sidesteps of the downtown post office, the side entrance to City Hall on Pleasant Street, the grand staircase to the downtown library, and it’s all the same. Tens of people, sometimes more than a score, sitting outside, completely dominating many of New Bedford’s public spaces. It’s not uncommon to see folks who have brought collapsible chairs, suitcases and carts and set up house for the day or evening. It just is the way it is these days.
By the way, this co-opting of public building steps raises the issue of what happens to these structures when you close an entrance to the public. But that’s another column.
What’s going on with the folks living at Custom House Park strikes me as something different from the historic unhoused population that you see sleeping in the morning in many of the sheltered doorways in the downtown. Those are people in the most acute throes of addiction but at least some of the women and men that I talked to at Custom House Park were sober. I’d describe them as folks like many of the rest of us but who for one reason or another are not able to take enough charge of their lives to figure out how to obtain affordable housing.
One woman, five months pregnant, talked about her fears that she would not be able to find some place to live as her time draws near. Another young man, burned out of his rooming house by fire a few years ago, continues to struggle with psychological stability.
Danielle Brown, an advocate for the unhoused who visits the folks in the park every day, told me the story of an older man dying of cancer whom she arranged to transport to Boston for his medical visits. He was a veteran but like some troubled unhoused folks he could be very difficult to deal with. She helped him anyway. In another case, she found the $60 necessary for a young man to travel to Providence to visit relatives for a few days.
There are certainly a number of programs and shelters in New Bedford to help the unhoused and folks who may be housed but who are nevertheless on the street all day with little to do. But there are not anywhere enough housing solutions or even enough regular meal services.
New Bedford, for all its progress in recent years, remains a largely low-income place. When there are housing and social service crises nationally, those problems are exponentially greater in post-industrial cities like this one. This seems especially so since the pandemic — when the economy has roared back for those at the very top but muddled along for everybody else.
Everything is a challenge for the folks in the park and on the stairways.
Mercy Meals & More at Pilgrim United Church provides breakfast Monday through Saturday, and the Salvation Army does lunch. Grace Episcopal Church provides some meals and Brown does what she can to fill in gaps.
Medical care is another challenge. South Coast Health provides some care and the Community Health Center serves folks. But there is no end to the problems.
Brown, a woman who was formerly unhoused herself and who works for Steppingstone, confirmed that the unhoused population is changing. It’s no longer just folks struggling with addiction or mental health challenges, she said, but people who have simply been priced out of their apartments.
Brown generally visits the folks at Custom House Park three times a day. She knows them well and every one of them is on the Bristol County Continuum of Care’s “coordinated entry waitlist” for housing. Most everybody in the park has been waiting for housing for over a year, she said. When there is money available, there have been rooms in local motels in the winter, but some of the state financial assistance for that program has now dried up.
Two weeks ago, as the city got ready for its annual Fifties Night, folks at Custom House Park told me that six or so police officers arrived the night before and moved them out. I witnessed several park dwellers with their belongings in the vacant lot across the street as they talked to several officers that night. Fifties Night and the concert in the park then took place without a hitch but the unhoused were all back the next day.
Police had also apparently instructed folks to remove the tents and stop occupying the park lawns with their blankets. Since that time, the unhoused folks and those hanging out with them, have limited themselves to the Fifty-Fourth Regiment plaza directly adjacent to the park.
Last week, the Whaling History Alliance, a friends group for the nearby National Park, apparently were able to co-exist with the folks occupying the plaza. Their Custom House Park concert by Wild Nights and the C & B Horns went off while the banners of their sponsors conveniently screened the concertgoers from the folks on the plaza.
The National Park has also been gracious enough to let the unhoused folks use their rest rooms, though city workers told me they’d also had to clean up human feces from the park.
There’s a lot going on in this little park these days.
New Bedford’s forward-thinking new police chief, Jason Thody, was good enough to spend an hour with me a few weeks ago talking about the folks living on the downtown streets and others who make the center city parks and public steps their summer homes.
He’s a thoughtful guy and explained that people, no matter who they are and what their circumstances, have a right to use public spaces. But when they use them, they have to adhere to certain regulations, he noted, such as not blocking others from using the sidewalks and passageways. And no-one can set up a tent in a public park. It’s against the law.
A few weeks ago the city set up its new Flock camera – which captures detailed images and loads them to a database, outside the library steps when they were getting crowded with people staying all day. The city maintained it had nothing to do with the people there, or a brawl that took place recently outside a nearby pub, but the people on the library steps quickly disappeared once the camera went up.
After folks were kicked out of Custom House Park, Brown said she was able to find a parking lot where the owner let them sleep, and some of the people at the park told me they moved to Griffin Street Cemetery, just south of downtown. At least one of the tents is still at the cemetery.
It’s an ongoing cycle.
The Flock camera later turned up on Acushnet Avenue at Custom House Park, where Brown said folks didn’t even care. They looked right at it and waved. In all honesty, I think the folks at the park have much bigger problems than who’s watching them on a Flock camera or putting them in a database.
Chief Thody noted that rounding up people on vagrancy charges is usually a losing issue in court, not to mention one for which there are no meaningful penalties. He has some downtown police visibility plans to try to keep spaces open to the public as much as possible, but in the end, he correctly noted that this is not a police problem but a societal one. The proper way to address the issue, I think everyone would agree, is through our elected government.
One thing I am sure about. We have to address the problem of the growing numbers of unhoused and behaviorally challenged people in downtown New Bedford. The time is past when we could just shrug our shoulders and say it’s always been this way.
No. It’s getting worse.
Jack Spillane is a New Bedford Light news and opinion columnist. You can reach him at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org
Before the complex issues of the unhoused can be addressed, we have to find a way to get over
1. the public apathy
2. the false narrative that it’s “all their fault
3. the stereotyping of the unhoused
4. “This is the least of my problems,” mentality.
5. The “Our city cannot afford to do anything for them,” attitude.
I’ll start with #5.
With the growing number of this population, we really can’t afford to ignore the problem.
The costs to taxpayers for increased medical/social/law enforcement, mental health/ city services will only get worse.
# 4 No matter how much you try to ignore the issue, it eventually hits you in the face.
#3 and #2 Until it happens to someone you care about, it is just too easy to label an unhoused person as an undesireable or paint them all with one broad brush.
And that brings to #1, which in my opinion is the biggest deterrant to finding a solution.
Like Jack Spillane said, even if you don’t see these folk as your brother/sister, they are human beings and do not deserve to have to live like this. Can you imagine having no place to relieve yourself, wash up, brush your teeth, have clean clothes to put on your body.
Some people want to punish the unhoused. Some want them to disappear from sight.
New Bedford has a unique history. We welcomed, gave food and shelter to fugitive slaves on the run.
Not one institution can do it all, but I believe that if we join forces and cut the rhetoric, we could make a start.
But this requires a common sense approach and the willingness to listen and genuinely care.
Dawn, you presented the picture very succinctly and thoughtfully. I don’t know what the answer is but it will need to be multifaceted and, as you said, involve multiple agencies. I volunteer in the area and see tourists from American Cruise Lines, tourists from all over the state and country and think, unhoused people in that area do not present a favorable view of New Bedford. My heart broke for them when I walked by and began thinking about what could we do and “there but for the grace of God, go I.”
100% New Bedford is a mess, it’s real sad that this is going on, especially when all you hear from Mayor that City is in great shape. Friends had family visiting from out of town, they hadn’t been back to New Bedford in a few years, and were curious about downtown. So they decided to take a trip with their children and parents. Well the trip didn’t last long, on their way down Williams Street they experienced a problem with a group of homeless people that were acting aggressively, asking for money, when all of sudden the police arrived with sirens and lights blaring (they had already been called by someone else), but it was scary for them as they watched in amazement as the Police took control. One thing for sure is that their never going to visit downtown again and the next day they drove to Newport spent the whole day, it was very clean, felt very safe, went shopping, went out to eat, and had no problems at all. 100% New Bedford is in need of change, we need new leadership, the current mayor and city council are failing this city badly, all we hear is lot of talk, but nothing is getting done.
I moved my business to Downtown New Bedford this past weekend – no doubt exactly what the city wants and encourages as it seeks to revitalize this beautiful and historic town. What was curious to me was that there were no elected officials from any level of city government at our grand opening on Saturday or at any point Sunday or Monday when we were open 10am-6pm. No congratulations or welcome to the neighborhood or anything like that.
What did greet me all three mornings of our first few days downtown was a man who introduced himself to me only as ‘Felix’. He was camped in a tent in front of my doorway when I arrived each morning. I exchanged pleasantries with him and he graciously packed up to begin his day. I hope he is doing okay.
This, to me, is the true problem. A city government that builds big bridges from trains expecting exuberant praise, dramatically fights like petulant school children over pennies in a city budget that serves who I’m not sure, and then packs it in to go about their lives like none of this is happening.
I voted for James Roy because he talked a big game about fixing all this from his “lived experience”. I guess we just have to keep waiting.
My Ward Councilor, Ryan Pereira, is the City Council President. I live on the corner of Rivet and County Street in the South End. This part of town is Custom House Square with an extra special dash of human despair and addiction. But I imagine the City Council President bypasses this human misery via JFK Highway on his commute from the Clark’s Cove peninsula to look for photo ops in other areas of the city. I am reminded every day as I drive by this travesty to open my small business why I have never voted for this man who now holds a position of power.
I also live within a few blocks of Shane Burgo and Brian Gomes. Only one of them has earned my vote, but neither should be exempted from blame.
I spent nearly a decade of my life walking alongside people suffering from homelessness and addiction before I pivoted to this new small business dream. I have had the privilege of being allowed into people’s lives as they navigate their darkest moments and often turned to me for help. It is never linear nor is it easy, but it is being human to show up for your fellow neighbor. And we all should do it.
This city government should be ashamed of themselves. And we, as voters, should be ready to hold them accountable. We should show up to every City Council meeting, like when the downtown banded together to defeat the BID, and make our voices heard. More than that – we should amplify the voices of our neighbors who have none. We are a better city than this. We should show our elected officials we believe that.
Thursday, August 20th at 7pm is right around the corner. Let’s show up, shall we? And, in the interim, I invite any of the elected officials in this city to come to 211 Union Street to chat with Felix and I about how we do better.
“To listen and genuinely care”! That’s it. That last sentence from Dawn Blake Souza’s comment.
If too many people who are in positions to help continues to stay apathetic, refusing to listen and try to help, or to genuinely care about the plights of human lives, nothing about these human conditions will change, they’ll only be continuously replicated. Something about these conditions must be changed rather than just to be stared at with gawking scorns from passersby trying to hide their way around “unworthy lives who somehow must deserve less for one reason or another because they had it coming”.
Without real plans and serious intervention not much will or can be done to eliminate or even assuage these problems for the sake of this Historic City – for the City itself if only to respect New Bedford enough to love and care for those living in it with us.
Everyone, going back decades from the Mayors’ office to all the foolishness of those elected to years in the City council and along the many tentacles and branches of New Bedford’s City Hall – the stifling unchecked corruptions of those who’ve done businesses here for years – They’ve all failed this City one way or another through reckless mismanagement and incompetence and greediness.
No, this is not me blustering, I am seriously furious, and I am deeply saddened by this. I have been living here for 2 years and it’s been excruciatingly painful to watch how disgusting those with actual means to help continue to stubbornly refuse responsibility toward other living human beings, failing to intervene, but to mock and to be ignorant on purpose by continually devaluing this City by actions and inactions year, after year, after year, after year.
Thank you for the lens on this plague Jack Spillane, and hopefully same as I did, others perhaps yet uninformed will look at these devastating happenings around our City’s downtown areas, and perhaps even to those in other local community spreads around the outskirts and within the innerpockets of this Great City and begin to think differently about what it means to be in community with others and having empathy and compassion for other living souls whose circumstances could any day be our own just the same.
You have lived here for TWO (2) years and you authoritatively comment on “decades” of New Bedford’s “stifling unchecked corruption”?
You sound like either a resident of Custom House Park or a woke socialist finding their last venue to rant their flight of ideas as they fade into the sunset.
Before there are any judgements about “them,” or looking down on folks who are having to live in a tent in a public park for whatever reason, I think it’s important to remember that there but for the Grace of God go any of us. It’s up to those of us who are fortunate enough to have comfortable lives to solve problems like this, and step one is to elect people who are willing to go beyond finger-pointing and implement effective solutions.
What a bunch of socialists woke nonsense. I will not be emotionally manipulated into believing it’s my shared responsibility to help homeless drug addicts , How about they clean themselves up and stop being a drain on society.
It is a community’s responsibility to care for its people. If you want to, you can pay for it later when it’s too big to ignore. But there are people in here trying to think of solutions so perhaps you could either positively contribute or read a different article.
Some communities set up a business improvement district to help support social service outreach to the unhoused. Has that been tried in downtown?
We know how to solve homelessness. Our politicians just prefer to punish the poor.
https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/we-can-end-homelessness-in-america
This is just wrong, and Jack Spillane trying to normalize it by using the term “folks” ever third word to lessen the reality of it isn’t fooling anyone. “It just is the way it is these days”, is also an attempt to say, oh well, guess we’ll allow it, we have to be charitable. c
It’s a slippery slope for sure. The park is for the public to enjoy, not to navigate around and be afraid of for their safety. In the past, homeless have urinated in the fountain, impeded the ability of people to walk through the area, and acted out in a threatening manner. The park needs to be cleared and the people there need to be moved along. We pay taxes and should not have our access to the area impeded. What a great way to welcome the almighty tourist to New Bedford not to mention the people who pay taxes and actually have to live and move around here.
With a $32 Million Dollar Budget Crisis, the homeless issue is just another issue that has been a kick the can down the road issue for years and should be added to the list of issues that will affect and impact residents and taxpayers for years to come.
-Closing Fire Station #9.
-Cutting Fire Dept Manpower on Fire Trucks.
-Spiraling Healthcare Cost.
-Rising Retirement Benefit Costs.
-A Police Department operating without a Contract for over two years.
-Government Expansion, Reckless Spending, and No Economic Growth.
-A Monstrous School Department Budget.
-An Ongoing Homelessness Problem.
Leadership in New Bedford has to be questioned and a prime example of this is how can creating a new position called (Assistant Superintendent of Green Space) make any sense at this time?
With all the issues listed above our city crawls closer to receivership and it’s clear the current mayor and city council continue to fail this city badly, all we hear is lot of talk, no actions, and nothing is getting done.
More than ever New Bedford is in need of major change and new leadership.
You evade govt housing regs that increase prices and decrease supply. Is that evasion a moral obligation?
Custom House Square and the surrounding downtown area is the “MASS & CASS”(METHADONE MILE) of the South Coast.
Court. This area evidences the downside of “build it and they will come”.
New Bedford has progressively declined in quality of life and the entire downtown, especially public areas, reflects this descent with “Nips and Needles” littering the landscape.
What is a city with a $32 million dollar deficit able to do?
Regionalization advocates could start by asking the town Marion, for example, to provide housing and associated services and have private, political organizations focus on this issue.
In the meantime, I will personally avoid this area and stay East of Route 18.
Just very sad. Millionaire Politicians need to be replaced by someone who isn’t in it for just the money but for the people.
This is troubling to see. I hear everyone talking about New Bedford, some lack empathy and sympathy and others feel bad and can’t seem to grasp this situation. The homeless population is growing. It is not just New Bedford. This is even worse in many other states and larger cities. If one studies history this looks like the prelude to Hoovervilles. Hoovervilles were created during the great depression, the stock market collapse. The term comes for the president at that time, Herbert Hoover, who is responsible for the economic collapse. This hasn’t happened yet, I am not saying it will, only the future will tell us the truth. But, the growing homeless population is a sign of the inability to afford today’s living. I know that many homeless people, and some are out there asking for money, actually work. They find day jobs, they live in cars. I’ve learned some have put their personal belongings in storage containers and pay that rent in hopes of reestablishing their lives. And yes, there are others who remain hopeless. I pray this is not a sign of something bad coming down the road. I keep telling others don’t get comfortable, be alert, beware, and budget your life and keep it simple. As for this city, yes, our leaders can come together and work something out, but that takes work, so all you elected officials, are you willing to do the work required to find a solution and make our city proud, or you just whiners and complainers.
Unfortunately, any attempted “solution” requires money that the City of New Bedford does not have and will not have.
The “bad down the road” is here in the present.
Those addicted individuals need to be separated out and given a chance at rehabilitation or face the judicial system, for whatever use that is.
Those that succeed at rehab (very few) get a chance that is not offered at present.
Those non-addicted homeless can then be offered services that help them readjust to employed society.
You need to want to improve your situation, failing this, nothing will help those that will not try.
In the meantime, this area is a detriment to the City of New Bedford and it’s residents in general.
Get rid of government and religion,,,then watch how fast our problems start getting smaller!! Have they EVER done anything for anyone other than themselves?
Please explain how…Aren’t both considered a safety net for the indigent? Without government hand outs and religious do-gooders the situation would be worse.
Read all the comments here, and for those that need help and will actually be willing to receive it, they should be able to get help. To the people that are bringing religion into this and feel so bad, open up your back yards, and let them set up their tents there. For decades downtown has been struggling to revive itself and to see a tent city in the middle of downtown is a complete and total disgrace. 100% this year our City Leaders have failed us and after people read this NB Light Article it will become a bigger disaster for business owners, no one (local residents or tourists) will be heading anywhere near downtown. New Bedford needs new leadership.