Boston's mayor discussed her plan to reopen the addiction recovery campus that once operated on Long Island in the Boston Harbor after visiting the facility Wednesday.
Mayor Michelle Wu, along with Commissioner of Public Health and Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, held a news conference to share the latest on the plan for the facility. Providers also spoke.
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"We really envision this as less so of a majority-overnight, just emergency shelter place to sleep and more of a comprehensive campus," Wu said.
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Several service providers who visited the island with Wu on Wednesday recalled how valuable it was to have a recovery campus on the island.
"I for one am thrilled to be part of this process," said Sarah Porter, executive director of Victory Programs. "Let's go, let's bring Long Island back."
Wu announced earlier in the month that the city is moving ahead with plans to rebuild the Long Island Bridge, despite major pushback from leaders and residents in Quincy. At the time of Wu's Aug. 10 virtual news conference, the long-proposed bridge plan just needed two more reviews — the mayor said Wednesday that the city was "finishing the last few steps" in lining up approvals for the bridge.
Wu hopes to have the 3,300-foot bridge reopened within four years, saying that the city has already set aside $38 million to rehabilitate the existing buildings on the island and an additional $81 million for rebuilding the bridge. Buildings on the island need shoring up for issues like water damage, she noted.
Officials said that, while the facility was useful up until the bridge closed on 2014, the Wu administration wants the new one to have programs that coordinate more closely together and with services on the mainland as well.
"Each program kind of did their own thing and had their own base of individuals and patients that they were working with," Wu said. "We envision this as a comprehensive, coordinated and very cohesive, seamless flow of many providers."
Dr. Sarah Wakeman, the medical director for Substance Use Disorder at Mass General Brigham, said that, despite the stigma that exists around addiction, it's treatable.
"We have to address the broader challenges that people need housing and community and purpose and meaning and opportunity and I left today visiting the island with that sense of possibility," she added, with an optimistic tone that the other providers who spoke at the news conference shared.
The final two reviews facing the bridge project include a federal consistency review by the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management and a bridge permit from the United States Coast Guard.
The next step for the bridge itself is a request for proposal for a project management company, and then the city will bid on the construction. Designs are ready to go.
Construction on the facility itself is expected to begin in the spring of 2024, and last for 16 to 24 months. The goal is to have services ready by the time the bridge is done.
The renewed push for the Long Island facility comes amid growing concern and upset over the situation at the Mass. and Cass section of the city, where many unhoused people live in tents and struggle with substance abuse issues.
"Give these people somewhere to stay so they can get off the streets," said Gwendolyn Jones, who lives at a neighborhood shelter and knows how dangerous the area can be. "It's really scary, they even get high in front of the shelter where I live at."
Richard Curcuru, the CEO of Gosnold, which treats about 8,000 psychiatric patients and those with substance use disorder in Massachusetts every year, hopes the mayor focuses on increasing housing, long-term services, and hiring the extra staff required to reach those in need.
"These are ill people who need services," he said. "And they don't just need detox or rehab. They need continuing care. We know that the longer you keep your arms around patients, the better chance of long-term recovery."
