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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.”
Well said. Homelessness is talked about frequently by politicians, but little is done about it. Sure, the state has a plan for more housing and congress is considering a housing bill but neither of these will happen tomorrow, nor do they address the issue of housing cost adequately. Most of the homeless mentioned in the article aren’t going to rent a $2000+ a month appartment.
In the meantime the homeless remain homeless. Can something be done immediately? Yes, but it’ll cost the taxpayers money. Since housing is in short supply an alternative is to house the homeless in vacant storefronts. There are plenty of those Downtown, Acushnet Ave (north end) and the Kings highway shopping area. I suggest that local legislators take this proposal to Beacon Hill and ask for immediate funding. A solution can’t wait.
Thank you for this.
I Really appreciate your words ☺️, it’s so true a lot of people just judge the the homeless I’m not going to say our house I am right to the point the undead of the unhoused they just brothers and sisters from other mothers that just you know fell on hard times and we have a responsibility to take care of them I know what it’s like and I do outreach and I try to do whatever I can whenever I can the only thing I can’t do is get through to either the Fall River City council I’m recently just moved back to New Bedford and the people that I’ve had the honor to deal with out here that that Homeless it’s a different vibe and they’re not violent or hostile it’s but I get it you know we have to address the city council and get the the funding back I know myself through the community advisory board MassHealth just needs a major cuts and I can’t get any answers either and trust me I I asked everybody all the tough questions and I even challenge to some of the city council to trade for $30 with the homeless people in the community go out there with no shoes or no no jacket no blanket no phone no money no code but of course not that I haven’t heard back and I don’t think that I will but I understand where you’re coming from honey and if there’s anything I’ll stand up I always do for anybody especially homeless people and some of the businesses I found too they just don’t want to be bothered but I read the story and I think it’s pretty cool that the New Bedford Police kind of leave them alone in that respective than that causing a problem they just would like a place to sleep and rest their head with a little bit of dignity I don’t think that’s too much to ask and I wouldn’t pick up somebody’s tent or I will kick them out anywhere but that’s just me thank you again for your article that was amazing and God bless you Bernadette T💯💜🙌🌷🪻
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.
I’ll follow this up by saying another week went by and no politicians ever arrived. However, I did meet two new homeless men who have taken up sleeping in my business’s entryway and there was a massive OD next to my parked car by Custom House Square last night. Heads still in the sand over at City Hall as the world spins on.
The two men in my entryway are really decent people down on their luck and I always make sure to chat a little before giving some water, snacks, and closing up for the night. I wish our elected officials cared even half an iota as much.
I’ve got about 10 people ready to fill up the City Council meeting on 8/20 at 7pm. These two men will be among them. We will keep growing that number, but it would be nice to hear from at least one elected official of this city government before that. I’d hate for someone’s future state rep campaign to get derailed by a media circus when there’s real problems and suffering. We’ll be at 211 Union Street waiting!
“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.
So someone who lives in NB for two years doesn’t get to comment on decades of corruption that they in fact live and deal with the byproducts of said corruption? Given your lazy talk and requiring to use labels.. I’d say it is you projecting your own “ranting”.
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?
The only realistic way to improve business is to clean out this Custom House Park.
If no local services are readily available, then transportation to an area that has same is logical.
Services take time to develop and implement. New Bedford has neither enough services or time or money to develop same.
As with Mass&Cass (Methadone Mile), Custom House Park was allowed to develop by the current New Bedford administration and it will continue to exist for a long period of time to the detriment of our residents and the declining volume of visitors.
Receivership may not be that bad, as it will have to address this particular problem.
Homelessness doesn’t really pay attention to political borders of a city or town. People are congregating in downtown New Bedford BECAUSE it has the most concentration of services in the region – health clinic, food pantries, etc.
You talk a lot about how this is the current administration’s fault and how they “let this happen” …how would you prevent it or fix it?
PREVENTION (PAST TENSE): Enforced laws against illegal drug distribution. Reduction of our local supply of illegal drugs and enforcement of illegal possession laws, especially at the Custom House Park, would have mitigated or precluded homeless addicts from taking up residence here. This would have included frequent “drug sweeps” to find drugs stashed for future use. Police foot patrols in this area would have been another valuable tool for prevention of this habitation. This opportunity was missed.
Despite seeing this addicted, homeless population taking over Custom House Park and downtown New Bedford, Jon Mitchell did nothing to prevent same or attempt to help these unfortunate people.He still has to publicly address this situation that has generated many reader responses. As it is currently in place, this “MASS & CASS” of the South Coast will be present and problematic for all for a very, very long time.
The article clearly states that resources in New Bedford are strained and unavailable in many instances. If appropriate resources are not available locally then transportation to available resources, especially rehabilitation facilities for those wanting treatment, is in the best interest of the addicted homeless.
Fixation Process: A similar, yet, less effective approach than prevention is outlined.
Choke off the illicit drugs feeding this misery, arrests of drug dealers and those in possession of illegal drugs. Also, the use of “drug sweeps” to reduce both drug storage and possession.
Removal of all tents in Custom House Park to reduce “sex emporiums” and the trafficking of sex (male and female) for monies and drugs. A full time police presence will be required as the illicit drug trade is a 24/7/365 enterprise that has well paid distributors.
The addicted will then be facing an ongoing major reduction of physically required drugs and will need to decide themselves between personally accepting treatment or moving along to other sites with readily available drugs.
The decision to engage rehabilitation services must be personally made by the addicted homeless individual as the current laws preclude “forced rehabilitation”.
If no local facility is available for or cannot accept those requiring treatment, then transport to facilities that can should be facilitated.
Action needed to be instituted yesterday to police (pun intended) this human disaster, offer assistance to those requesting same and prevent its continued proliferation. It is not simple “vagrancy” as NB Police Chief Jason Thody implies, it is open criminal activity that needs police intervention on the supply, distribution and usage of illegal drugs.
Well, that approach might help un-housed addicts, but does nothing for the many who are homeless due to circumstances beyond their control. Mental health issues, P.T.S.D. and other combat related issues often hamper a Veteran’s abilities to navigate life upon returning home. There are many women who become homeless fleeing abuse, they would rather be homeless than lifeless. And finally many of us are just plain priced out of any non-subsidised housing,even if the rent is affordable, the 1st,last,and security deposit make it impossible. NOT ALL HOMELESS ARE ADDICTS!!!
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
Thank you for this.
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.
Ty jackie!
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.
If NB had a tax rate that was the average of of MA cities NB would have a budget surplus
As usual, your comment is tangential and irrelevant to the topic being considered.
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.
$60.00 to go to Providence to visit relatives for a few days??
Could’ve gone to Providence and BACK for only $4.00 round-trip: FREE SRTA bus from New Bedford to Fall River then the RIPTA bus from Fall River to Providence ($2.00 or $1.00 with a Medicare card).
This makes no sense. If you don’t believe in religion, fine. Get rid of government, then total chaos. Constructive discussions can garner a better direction.
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.
I usually refrain from responding to other comments because everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I must thank “Ira,” for proving each of my five points precisely.
Disagree, the majority of readers would not agree with the 5 points.
…and I agree with “Ira”. There’s only so many times you can go the the well of empathy and turning out your pockets for others at your own expense (or the expense of your city). I’m sure everyone gives what they can and feel is appropriate. The state is taxing us to death, we have kids in college and groceries to buy. A tent city in a public park is a black eye for the city and any small business trying to make it down town. Sometimes you have to pull yourself out of the quicksand and not wait for a rope.
The problem is that so many people in New Bedford, especially those who have gravitated toward the political right(Ira for example), care more about having somebody to demonize and look down upon to feel better about their own failures, insecurities and unfulfilled lives than helping their fellow man. They can’t look at these people and see friends or family because deep down they know that they’re one lost job or health crisis from being there themselves. Bashing these poor people is nothing but a defense mechanism.
Everyone is welcome to their opinion, but this is paragraph is a bunch of total nonsense, Trying to assign the blame with a political slant is a complete joke.
Not at all. The GOP as it exists today has been successful largely because it has marketed itself as the party of lower middle class white grievance(even if those folks are only useful idiots and end up suffering further in the end). In nearly twenty years of doing business with HNW and UHNW individuals and families I’ve never heard the kind of ignorant derision of the poor, homeless, addicted and mentally ill that’s pervasive in places like New Bedford.
Let’s help these people for Christ’s sake!! Food and water need to be dropped off daily a few times! I’ve seen it down there and it plain out bucks. It’s horrible people have nothing to do but be homeless and do nothing. Let’s stop with the crap about these expensive new apartments and Let’s take so.e action already. No new building permits for any any at all developments unless it’s from the poor. Try that
I live right across the street from Custom House Park and watch this out my front window every single day.
Half these comments are from people who drive through once a month or live far enough away to never deal with it. What I see daily is not just working folks down on their luck because rent went up. It’s open fentanyl use, people bent over on the sidewalk, caps stashed in the light pole electrical utility panels to dodge possession charges, and open sales on the street.
And this is not remotely new. I’ve watched this cycle for years. I’ve seen a national park ranger leading a tourist group past the signage while someone was screaming and throwing chairs in the background. I can tell you whether it’s a meth year or a fent year based on what I see from my window. Right now it’s fent.
To this day I watch masked pushers roll up on electric bikes and the entire “community” scurry over to collect their goods. Anyone could sit back for an hour or two and easily gather enough to act on. But nobody does.
Every time there’s a downtown event or a photo op, the city sweeps them out for 24 hours and then acts like they solved something. Working people and small business owners who actually live here have to step over open drug use on their doorstep while local politicians and comment section activists argue over optics.
Shuffling people around three blocks at a time while ignoring the actual street-level reality and the drug supply feeding it isn’t compassion. It’s just policy failure.
Alex, thank you for your personal insight and perspective on the daily usual and customary activities at Custom House Park. I feel badly about your personal situation and the total disregard of Mayor Mitchell to your plight and that of your neighbors. Mitchell built it and they came and came and came.
Custom House Park is, without any doubt, the “MASS & CASS”(METHADONE MILE) of the South Coast. Electric bikes also deliver drugs at “MASS & CASS” and the tents are portable sex emporiums—-for a price. As with “MASS & CASS”, the population of Custom House Park and the surrounding area will continue to expand exponentially over time.
New Bedford’s “forward-thinking new Police Chief” Jason Thody, “a thoughtful guy” only sees vagrancy and prefers to overlook the criminal activity and its subsequent misery. This particular progressive leadership style bodes ill for any reasonable and legal assistance from this municipal department. He abrogates his legal responsibilities by generically saying this is a “societal problem” and does not want to openly address the illegal drug and illegal sexual activity to procure drugs that exists in Custom House Park and throughout the City of New Bedford.
Completely choking off the drug supply will go a long way to motivate those addicted Custom House Park residents to either go elsewhere or seek services. Also, it would enforce laws and pressure those that earn a living in the drug trade to rethink that particular venue. This should be a priority in “Snitch City” given that the Port of New Bedford and its nationwide commercial distribution system has been available for illicit trade since Prohibition.
Since the article reveals a paucity of readily available services in New Bedford for these individuals, transporting them to areas with available services is reasonable and humane. Regional, private organizations on the South Coast could facilitate this process by engaging their resources as a public service.
Excellent points, Alex. This homeless crisis is just a symptom of societal rot in general. But when the Trump administration takes action to stop cartels from importing their poisons, bleeding hearts have a fainting fit. We’re too divided politically to solve these problems.
If there was an easy solution to this problem do people believe that “ politicians “ would not use it. As the police chief noted you can legally just round people up in public spaces whether you like it or not.Known drug dealing is a separate issue that should be more aggressively policed. Substance abuse treatment is not readily available and you can’t force people into treatment. It’s difficult to provide housing for people with no steady income – building housing for “the poor “ isn’t any cheaper than building it for people with more income, even public housing which has years long waiting lists require some income.
This is not a New Bedford problem this is an America problem- walk any city in America and the unhoused are found .
I don’t have a magic wand or an answer to be truthful but I would be interested in hearing from folks that have concrete recommendations that include community engagement,I’m embarrassed to admit I don’t know how to help and would be willing to spend time and money if presented with some solutions beyond the drumbeat of blaming the local officials.
100% the Mayor and the City Council continue to fail this city. Our city parks are funded by taxpayer dollars and homeless encampments should not be in any of our parks. After all the homeless issues at the bus terminal, the library, and other locations around downtown to see a tent city at the Custom House Park is a complete and total disgrace. After decades of trying to revive downtown to see this going on is a complete failure of our city leaders. Time for our city leaders to stop walking the fence, enabling bad behavior, and clean downtown up. More than ever our city needs new leadership.
Addiction is endemic and is not limited New Bedford. Recently, I entered Stop and Shop and witnessed a young lady injecting a drug into the arm of a young man inside the enclosed entry room of Stop & Shop. Both looked healthy and able to hold a job; yet in the middle of the day they were slowly killing themselves. Driving past the New Bedford bus terminal towards the end of the work day, are a camaraderie of young men, who in past generations would be working in bustling factories or enlisting in the military. The sorrow is that the majority of this healthy looking group will most likely be dead in five years from fentanyl overdose. The homeless even sleep and defecate under the open roofed entry to the Quaker Meeting House. One Sunday, during the meeting I heard the sound of a metal pail clanking, smelled the splash of ammonia and heard the footsteps of a member washing the feces off of the front entry stairs. Walking across the street to Abolition Row – Frederick Douglass Park, a young man was sleeping in the gazebo in the late afternoon. He awoke and looked at his phone as we sat on a bench overlooking the metaphoric currents and sand bars of the pavement awaiting the constellation of stars to twinkle in the pavement as dusk approached at this most beautiful, brilliantly conceived gem of a park.
Many of those whose lives are ruled and ruined by addiction have unresolved physical, emotional, and mental health issues that require individual interventions. Many are unwilling to be housed as their additions will be monitored each day by staff, so they sleep outside. Federal and state funding have been cut for many social services as funding is now channeled to the military industrial complex for endless wars of choice instead of funding desperately needed social services, education, infrastructure modernization et al. We are witnessing the decline of the social fabric of America in slow motion. Each person has a gift that can be encouraged by family, friends and councilors if we take the time to awake their better side. If they grasp the opportunity to cast off their addictions they will live. If they don’t they will die, poisoned by drugs and alcohol. Each is someone’s son or daughter, who will be buried by their grieving parents.
Incorrect and disastrous personal choices, by those homeless individuals currently addicted to drugs, are the root causes of their individual issues (physical and mental health) that require personal interventions.
Those homeless that may require interventional treatment must accept it, if not, they have again made a disastrous personal choice. No amount of monies, “village angst” or our readership commentary will change this fact or the trajectory of their lives. Unfortunately, their death is, at times, the peace they seek and ultimately achieve.
Drying up the local access to drugs, by strict law enforcement, may influence the decisions of addicts about treatment. If so, transport those who accept treatment to facilities that can assist them. Our area is deficient and there is no time to delay treatment to those so disposed.
Non-addicted homeless must also personally accept intervention or contend with a hostile and dangerous living environment. These non-addicted homeless individuals have a better chance at rehabilitation. Again, if transport to intervention is required, so be it.
No slow motion here, this homeless population grows exponentially, especially if unfettered access to drugs is available. Some addicts even have their suppliers on “speed dial” for ease of replenishment. In many instances, these phones are provided, by taxpayers, through various social programs. Discontinuing these programs would free up economic resources for treatment of the addicted homeless.
Enough of the save the world crap, it’s time for our city leaders to start doing their jobs, stop enabling the homeless, and putting band-aids on city problems. We pay taxes for a reason, the downtown area is a disgrace, start moving the homeless out, and clean up our city.
Whining about property taxes while paying practically nothing isn’t going to alleviate the problem.
You need as much help as they do. Thousands of New Bedford taxpayers would disagree with this garbage opinion. When the city is trying to resurrect the downtown area and make it safe for residents, shoppers, and tourists having a homeless drugged fill tent city in the middle of downtown is a complete disgrace and failure of leadership. Time to wake up and stop with the nonsense.
Homeless Tents can be seen on beaches, in parks, near highways, libraries, the Market Basket, and plenty other spots around the city. This has been going on in our city for years, our city leaders (the mayor and city council) have done nothing to address this (just kick the can down the road). And now we are screwed because our city leaders have put us in debt to the tune of $32 Million Dollars and now every one has to suffer. We have heard all promises and excuses, but let’s call this what it really is Failed Leadership and it’s time for change in City Hall.
Simply put, drug addicted individuals go where they can easily access drugs to obtain at least their “minimum daily requirement” to satisfy their addiction. This is all a drug addicted individual cares about. Custom House Park provides easy drug access, with delivery service, in spades. Therefore, the drug addicted population expands as it is a “no hassle” buyer’s marketplace.
“Services” have no part in their residential decision making…only easy access to drugs.
Eliminate easy access to drug supplies in Custom House Park and the New Bedford Downtown. This will force the drug addicted to either move on, seek rehabilitation or physically withdraw and enter the healthcare system.
Failing this action against the illicit drug supply, by the New Bedford Police or other agencies, the “MASS & CASS” of New Bedford will expand beyond this area even more than it has already has.
Let us see what happens in the next six (6) months, either expansion or contraction of this homeless, drug addicted populaation.
Locally, there was a time in the history of New Bedford when the poor, sick, and vagrant would be cared for and put to work at The City Farm. The “alms house” and “poor farm” were located on 75 acres that stretched across Clark’s Point from Clark’s Cove all the way to the Acushnet River. Whaling City.net has the full story with photographs of the residential alms house, hospital and school. The land was farmed to feed the poor and a salt works provided income and work. The hospital helped smallpox patients from 1839-1840 and the school helped to educate children. It is a shame that the farm fields are now fallow and that the stately buildings were demolished. Why not today?
Federally, under the F.D. Roosevelt administration, visionary actions were taken to help during the Great Depression with New Deal actions including the creation of the Works Project Administration, WPA, which employed millions of job seekers to carry out public works projects. Men and women as well as youth, (National Youth Administration) trained, employed and educated in the process. Further, artists, writers, musicians, actors and directors were hired to document history to paint murals and create sculptures in government buildings, etc, which have stood the testament of time for their value and beauty. One day we may elect a future FDR with the vision to harness the talents of the citizens and channel funds to finance the WPA 2 as we approach a recession in 2026-2028. Why not today for a better tomorrow?
Again stop with the save the world nonsense, what happen years ago is not going to happen in today’s world. This city ahs spent millions on the Z, the old star store building is being renovated, and housing is being built in several locations. No one in there right mind should think it’s okay to have a homeless tent city in downtown. It’s time to clear out the homeless and continue to try to restore downtown to what it once was, a safe place that people loved to go, shop, eat, and socialize.