Which do you want more, Boston: A new, state-of-the-art stadium for a professional women’s soccer team (and Boston Public School students), or an addiction recovery center in the city?
Choose wisely; because as it stands, the city can’t have both.
At least not right now, when federal funding cuts are already affecting Boston and the state, and city is wrestling with a revenue shortfall.
Mayor Michelle Wu has signed up Boston to foot the bill for half of White Stadium’s reconstruction, a price tag that’s soared from $50 million to around $91 million for taxpayers. Costs could, and likely will, go up.
Meanwhile, we’ve seen the nightmare that is the Mass and Cass drug crisis for far too long. From addicts shooting up in broad daylight, children stepping on discarded needles, local businesses struggling with the fallout and the moveable feast of misery spreading to other parts of the city.
Action can’t wait.
The Boston City Council gets it, and unanimously approved a resolution in support of bringing an addiction recovery campus “for the City of Boston and Greater Boston area.”
“I do think we, as a city, need a structured environment such as Long Island — or another location if Long Island is not going forward — but we do need another location where people dealing with substance use challenges have the resources, the treatment, residential programs that they need and deserve so that they can get into detox, so that they can get into recovery,” Councilor Ed Flynn said.
A refurbished Long Island shelter (and bridge) may or may not happen, but we can’t wait for Wu to win or lose that battle. The city needs a solution to the drug crisis, stat.
And that takes money.
Councilor Liz Breadon said the city needs to “push the state” and feds “to step up” and provide funding.
Sorry, but the feds are not going to ride in on white horses anytime soon, not for a sanctuary city, nor for a state that has made suing President Trump’s administration a resume highlight.
We’re on our own, and we need to make some hard choices.
Opponents of the plan to rehab White Stadium for a Boston Unity Soccer Partners pro soccer team and BPS athletes proposed a high-school-only facility this summer. This, according to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and park neighbors joining in a lawsuit, could be built for $64.6 million.
That would leave a nice chunk of change to at least get the ball rolling on an in-city recovery center. Or we could wait until all that revenue-sharing from White Stadium kicks in past the city’s break-even point.
It will take a while. Addicts are living lives of degradation now. And it’s spreading.
Councilor Julia Mejia said the quiet part out loud at Wednesday’s meeting: “If we really want some money, you know, there’s $150 or $200 million being spent on White Stadium that we can easily transfer over to this recovery center if we’re really serious about meeting the moment, I would just say that there is money out there to do just that. So if we’re looking for dollars to make it happen, we know where it is, so we’ve just got to go out and say we have the political will to transfer some of those dollars into the recovery center, because it is a priority, right?”
It should be.