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“Police are here all the time. People are overdosing. There’s needles all over the place. It’s not good for the community. It’s unacceptable and I’m sick and tired of it,” said Clifford, 39, who said he’s been homeless off and on for over a decade, and asked that The Boston Globe not use his last name to protect his privacy. He’s now housed in Chelsea, but the Somerville native still spends his days in Davis because it’s the place he knows best. But things have changed in the familiar crossroads. Whether they are housed or not, many who spend time here are confronting what they described as an unprecedented surge in the number of people on the streets, including many who are struggling with mental illness or drug addiction, or both. “The numbers have increased significantly,” said Michael Libby, the homeless coalition’s executive director. “The visibility is different than it’s ever been.” The scene at Statue Park, the brick plaza near the Davis MBTA stop, can be unpredictable. On a recent morning, a dozen or so people huddled in groups. One man, in a T-shirt despite the October chill, writhed and groaned in a wheelchair, scratching a leg covered in sores. “That’s my nephew,” said Karolann, who looked on from a few feet away. She said she had just come from a methadone clinic, and was keeping an eye on him. When he dropped a sweater, she knelt down to pick it up. “It’s hard for drug addicts. We didn’t ask for this disease. We just have it,” she said. Karolann, whose last name the Globe is not printing because she worried about the impact media coverage could have on her family, said she grew up in Somerville. She lived in supportive housing for 12 years in Boston until an eviction, then was outside in Davis Square for nine grueling months before she found shelter through the coalition. Time on the street took a toll on her psyche. “You lose your mind‚" she said. “It’s like . . . ‘How did this happen to me?’” Advocates said closures of area homelessness programs have pushed more people into the square. Regionally, drug and mental health service providers are overwhelmed, and it can be difficult for many to get the help they need. People have also been forced to leave more secluded areas — in Arlington, or next to the Charles River — and wound up here, at a major T stop and bike path, in the center of a vibrant business and restaurant district. “There’s just no space in Somerville to go that isn’t in the limelight,” said Libby, the coalition director. Police, under pressure from neighbors, have sent officers to the square more often, said Chief Shumeane Benford. “We’ve increased our patrols and engagement threefold in some instances,” Benford said. They prioritize drug dealing arrests, Benford said, but don’t go after someone for using drugs unless they see it happen. Even then, he believes arrests wouldn’t help much given the complexity of addiction. “This is a deep social issue,” he said. The city’s approach hasn’t been enough for Paul Malvone, who owns Boston Burger Company, where sales in Statue Park dropped nearly 25 percent in the past two years, he said. Malvone can’t believe the transformation of the area since he opened 17 years ago. “The square was electric. It was inviting. People would come with their kids and hang out,” he said. “That’s gone.” People block the doorway and panhandle to customers, sometimes scaring them away when fights break out or when people can be seen openly using drugs. Malvone has considered closing, he said. “You have to have empathy,” Malvone said. But “there has to be some accountability.” City workers try to place people in treatment, and officials installed what they said was a first-in-the-nation outdoor kiosk for throwing out used needles. But Davis Square has suffered from “a clear lack of attention to what was developing there,” said Lance Davis, who represents the area on the City Council. The issue looms large in a city where voters Tuesday will pick a new mayor. Two councilors, Jake Wilson and Willie Burnley Jr., routed incumbent Mayor Katjana Ballantyne in September. Both candidates said the city needs more shelter beds and supportive housing. The coalition agrees. “Housing is the answer to homelessness. It just is,” said Hannah O’Halloran, its homeless services director. It made all the difference to Stephen Picard, 56, who was formerly homeless but has an apartment in Malden. Picard, who still spends days here, has had a rocky past and spent time in jail, but said everything changed now that he’s found a home. “My attitude, my outlook. It’s nice to make the right decisions. It feels good,” he said. As the colder months approach, others wait. Like 70-year-old “Butchie,” who rested his weight on a cane in Davis as he watched the morning go by. He wouldn’t identify himself by any other name. He has been staying on a friend’s porch until the coalition finds him an apartment of his own, he said. As he sees it, the way to make the square less dangerous and chaotic, and get the people who show up here on the right track, is to give more of them housing. “Once you’ve got a place to live, that’s number one. You can say, ‘I’m going home.’”
