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Council Pushes Back On City Hall’s Plan To Oust People Living In Pittsfield Parks

The Pittsfield city seal
The City of Pittsfield, Massachusetts
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City of Pittsfield

In its last meeting of 2020, the Pittsfield, Massachusetts city council unanimously passed a petition challenging a city plan to evict unhoused residents from public parks.

City Clerk Michele Benjamin read out Ward 7 City Councilor Anthony Maffuccio’s petition at Tuesday night’s virtual meeting, “challenging the city’s policy of evicting homeless individuals and the policy the parks commission and the mayor have in place.”

The petition came in response to a mid-November decision by the city’s parks commission to evict unhoused people living in public parks on December 1st. Maffuccio said that with 30 of 50 beds in city-provided shelters taken and around 60 unhoused people living rough in Pittsfield, the policy is cruel.

“That’s 40 homeless people who have nowhere to go except for the wilderness, and you’re trying to push them out of Springside Park,” said the councilor.

He claimed it was also illegal, citing a 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the Martin v. Boise case the Supreme Court let stand in 2019.

“And that case says if there’s not alternative housing for these individuals to go to, they are violating their 8th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America,” said Maffuccio.

Maffuccio’s petition opened the door for his fellow councilors to question Mayor Linda Tyer about the city’s plan to oust park residents.

At-Large City Councilor Earl Persip asked about the December 1st deadline, which came and went without any visible action from the city.

“Where are we at on the city side of, we’ll call it evicting the people from the park?" he asked. "Is there some sort of plan in place? Is it just the parks commission made this ruling and we’re still trying to figure out? Where are we at with that?”

“Well, we continue to have the case workers engage with the people who remain in the park," responded Tyer. "And that’s all people who are in outside encampments, not just Springside Park. We have a team of caseworkers who engage on a regular basis and encourage the people who are still living outside to take advantage of options that are available to them.”

Tyer said that while she was concerned for their safety during the cold winter months, she accepted that the city’s unhoused have the right to self-determination and acknowledged that there were many reasons why they would reject moving into city-provided shelter.

“I’m not going to forcibly remove anybody from any location or forcibly put anybody in any location they don’t want to be in, or arrest anybody, or criminalize the situation,” said the mayor.

The item immediately followed another petition from Maffuccio that the council also unanimously accepted. It called for an investigation into city homeless shelter Barton’s Crossing, alleging abuse and human rights violations. Ed Carmel of the city’s Homeless Advisory Committee called in to the meeting to detail the claims.

“Number one, residents eating food that was freezer burned and grossly out of date," he said. "Two, kitchen was always dirty with food residue everywhere. Three, bathrooms had urine all over the floors. And four, residents had an animal that was against policy and there was feces and urine everywhere that the staff just walked around.”

In WAMC’s reporting on Pittsfield’s unhoused population, residents of Springside Park shared their own horror stories with city shelters, ranging from the threat of assault and overdoses to sexual solicitation from staffers.

The shelters are managed for the city by health and human services provider ServiceNet.

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