In below freezing temperatures, around one hundred demonstrators marched along Commonwealth Avenue early on the morning of Feb. 5 demanding an end to the sweeps of homeless encampments on state land, a practice advocates say criminalizes homelessness.
Organized as a “rally to stop the sweep” by local mutual aid group Warm-Up Boston, the protest came as a response to a scheduled sweep on an encampment the group has been servicing for the past four years that same day. The sweep is the second since December, in what organizers say marks an increased frequency of sweeps over the past few months. According to a social media post from Warm-Up Boston, the encampment was swept six times last year.
“We are here today to protest the sweep that DCR has imposed on residents of the BU Bridge encampment,” said Miguel Maron, an organizer with Warm-Up Boston. “You know, they say it’s a public health approach, but where I come from, public health doesn’t start with a bulldozer.”
The Department of Conservation & Recreation (DCR) manages state parks in Massachusetts, overseeing more than 450,000 acres of land which includes the BU Bridge encampment area. Originally scheduled for Feb. 3, the rally was rescheduled for two days later following a DCR postponement of the sweep, a move organizers claimed was in response to the action.
DCR has not responded to multiple Beacon requests for comment regarding the sweep and accompanying protest.
On Oct. 5, 2023, Boston passed a citywide anti-camping ban that effectively bars tent encampments from being located on the city’s property. In a December 2023 press release from Mayor Michelle Wu’s office regarding the new ordinance, the city claimed it would “use a combined public health and public safety approach to address the complex issues of homeless encampments.”
In regard to the city’s anti-camping ban and the increased frequency of sweeps, Scotty Davis, an organizer with Warm-Up Boston, said that “those things lining up is not a coincidence.”
However, Davis explained that DCR has its own regulations regarding camping that apply to the land they are responsible for as it is regarded as state land.
Davis says the increased attention the encampment has received from state officials is due to a fire the encampment suffered in October 2023. In response, DCR filled the former encampment space with hundreds of jagged rocks in order to “fight erosion,” a claim advocates do not fully “believe.”
“We are done letting this happen. DCR claims that they are doing these sweeps for public health and safety, they often cite trash as a cause for sweeps. If this was about the trash, they would take out the trash and leave the residents alone,” said Davis.
“We don’t have control of our housing, and that’s why we are here today,” a speaker at the rally with the Greater Boston Tenants Union said, “even though our living situations look very different right now than the people at this encampment, we know. We know it’s just a couple bad months away.”
What began as a rally at the intersection of Commonwealth Avenue and the Boston University Bridge became a march as protesters chanted “Sweeps are violence!” before later dispersing.
While the rally took place, DCR completed the sweep of the encampment on the other side of the bridge. As the sweep took place, a few select organizers with Warm-Up Boston stayed back at the encampment, supporting residents by helping them move their belongings to their next spot as State Police and DCR workers enforced the sweep, Maron told The Beacon.
“I’ve seen way too many sweeps, I’ve seen what it does to the residents of the encampment. Increasing their stress, sometimes increasing drug use, causing conflict,” Davis said, “The amount of wear on their bodies when they are forced to move all their belongings is just way too much to deal with. It’s always a very traumatic experience.”
