This February, Students Advocating Solutions for Mass. and Cass (SASMC) partnered with Warm Up Boston to host a clothing drive dedicated to aiding the unsheltered people of Boston’s Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard, or Mass. and Cass.
The clothing drive collected gloves, hats, thermal base layers, HotHands packets, new socks and underwear to help people facing homelessness get through the harsh New England winter. In return for each donation, students gained one community service hour in addition to an entry into a raffle for a 25-dollar Chipotle gift card.
Warm Up Boston is a survival program that provides direct aid, harm reduction and advocacy for Boston’s unhoused community. In the past, the organization has held donation drives, fairs and other events advocating and educating on behalf of the city’s unhoused population. Their mission is to provide direct aid and promote harm reduction strategies to prevent deaths from overdoses or infectious diseases.
Boston Latin School art teacher Ms. Elizabeth Walshak, who connected these groups to one another, comments, “It’s really inspiring to see young people who are mobilizing and organizing and doing these things. I think that we are learning that we can’t just sit back and do nothing and just expect things to resolve themselves.”
SASMC was founded by club president Berkson, who lives near the intersection between Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. Many of the unhoused people there deal with opioid addiction and live in tents that serve as makeshift shelters. Thus, this area has attracted attention because of the serious public health concerns, with citizens conflicted about how to deal with the ongoing problem.
The club’s goal is to create more direct and immediate solutions to the challenges that those living in Mass. and Cass face. SASMC believes that by looking at the issue through the unsheltered people’s perspective, students can effectively advocate for them and find better solutions to the challenges the community faces.
Vice president Max Haskell (I) remarks, “[SASMC] thought that the people in Mass. and Cass needed someone in their corner, and we sort of thought that we had a unique perspective and platform as students.”
Since the club was founded, SASMC has worked to understand the complexity of the problems at Mass. and Cass. In the past, SASMC has hosted educational panels with guest speakers, participated in the Winter Walk to raise money to end the stigma surrounding homelessness and held clothing drives for groups like the Woods-Mullen Women’s Shelter.
Looking ahead, they have also met with State Representative John Moran to advocate for safe-consumption sites and City Counselor Julia Mejia to discuss potential partnerships. They are also preparing to get their club Narcan-certified, which would allow them to administer the drug naloxone and possibly save a life in the case of an opioid overdose.
Jadon Berkson (I) shares a message to his fellow students: “It’s really easy to see [the unhoused people] as others, or even lesser, but really, they’re just like you and me, and it could happen to anybody.”