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Boston officials tour Long Island recovery campus, outline vision for future

The campus was closed in 2014. Officials hope to have services up and running there again in the next four years.

A weathered sign is seen outside of the Long Island Shelter. Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe

August 24, 2023

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, other city officials, and various health care professionals toured the dilapidated Long Island recovery campus Wednesday, highlighting their vision for its revival weeks after the city secured a “critical” license for the bridge that will reconnect it to the mainland.

In a press conference afterward, Wu told reporters that the city is planning to have services on Long Island operational in four years.

“It’s a moment of great momentum and excitement and gratitude, as we’re together with all of the provider community here who have been working very closely with the city and each other for a long time,” she said. “Now, we’re looking very concretely at a resource that will be available hopefully in a four-year timespan.”

The campus shuttered in 2014, when the Long Island Bridge was deemed unsafe. Restarting services there and rebuilding the bridge have been ongoing since at least 2018.

Billiard balls are seen atop a pool table inside a recreation room on Long Island. *– Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe*

Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, said that this week’s tour was important not only to spotlight the future of the campus, but to show what the city has been missing in the years since it closed.

At the same time, Ojikutu said that she is viewing the Long Island revival as an opportunity to bring the different services into lockstep with each other. In the past, she said, many of these services were “fragmented” and “siloed.”

“What we’re looking to do is truly reimagine and think about what we can do differently going forward to make sure we actually have a coordinated system of care,” she said. “What we’re looking for is to create something that is truly synergistic with what is available on the mainland. We want to build a continuum of care for people.”

The need for the services that would be offered on Long Island is being desperately felt in the city this summer. Earlier this month, Wu said that safety concerns had spiked at Massachusetts Avenue and Melnea Cass Boulevard. All sorts of illegal activity was occurring both in the open and inside tents there, she said, and some non-city partners had told her administration that their outreach workers were in danger. Multiple elected officials called for police to execute warrant sweeps there.

Boston police responded to 170 incidents at Mass. and Cass last week, just above the average of 157.4, according to the city’s data dashboard. There were 186 BPD incidents during the week of July 16, the most since January. The number dropped notably at the end of July and in early August before rebounding last week.

But a long road still stretches ahead before Long Island’s campus is fully functional again. Boston secured a license from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection earlier this month for the Long Island Bridge, but two final reviews were still needed from the state government and the U.S. Coast Guard. The city is issuing a request for proposal to find a management firm to oversee the project, and a bid process for the construction itself will follow.

The city set aside $38 million in its most recent capital budget to rebuild the campus, which spans 35 acres and includes 11 buildings. An extra $81 million was earmarked for rebuilding the bridge.

Wu stressed the idea of the campus representing a big “front door” for those that need help, rather than a series of individualized providers who do not work in cohesion with each other.

“We envision this as a comprehensive, coordinated, and very cohesive, seamless flow of many providers and many helping hands envisioning what that whole spectrum of services looks like,” she said.