![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thefulcrum.us\/media-library\/the-boston-night-shelter-located-near-government-center-station-offers-anonymity-requiring-no-personal-information-for-a-nigh.jpg?id=55433068&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C36%2C0%2C36\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe Boston Night Shelter, located near Government Center station, offers anonymity, requiring no personal information for a night\u2019s stay\u2014a draw for many unhoused individuals.\u201d<\/small>Shandra Back<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n
As owners reunite with their belongings in the late afternoon, the sun vanishes, revealing the icy undertone of Boston\u2019s air. In the summer months, dusk barely kisses the concrete before the doors open. Now, darkness falls four hours before opening time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The routine is not new. Many sleep in the Boston Night Center night after night for months, yet the teeth-chattering and shivers remain unrelenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn my country, it\u2019s the Caribbean,\u201d says German Garcia. \u201cImagine, hot land, hot land. This is crazy here for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Garcia stands out on the darkening street like a traffic cone\u2014literally. As the lights flick on, they bounce off his reflective orange jacket. Dangling from his neck are a pair of white wired headphones, their port waiting for a connection. A subtle bouncing swagger and sturdy, slim build place him in his 30s, yet the silver atop his head brings this into question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He speaks with respect, yet as he explains his journey through one country, two, three, and four, an imploring tone bursts out, and his arm movements follow suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Traversing from his home in Caracas, Venezuela, through many borders, the Darien Gap, and the perilous Mexican freight train known as \u201cLa Bestia,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve heard of it,\u201d he explains, noting he had to ride it twice. His first two times, he was turned back at the border. On his third attempt in May 2023 in El Paso, Texas, he made it in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In Missouri, the pay was too low; New York was too crowded, and the process time for migrant support was painfully slow. When he heard that Boston was a sanctuary city helping migrants, he didn\u2019t think twice. From Venezuela to Boston, he travels alone. \u201cThere are also a lot of bad people, a lot of evil along that whole route,\u201d he says. \u201cYou also see so many things\u2026 so many ugly things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ugliness didn\u2019t stop when he reached Boston. His first roof was the Pine Street Inn. At the largest homeless shelter in New England, \u201chay de todo,\u201d he says\u2014\u201dthere\u2019s everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s not a man who needs much; after his journey, he feels he can appreciate a lot from a little. Yet this place is horrible, he says. Some people violate, they steal, he says. But the worst by far is the bathroom. He says men were trying to see him naked. Eventually, to defend himself, he raised his fists and was shown the door for a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet even when his 30-day suspension was up, he vowed not to return. For the last five months, the Boston Night Shelter has been his home. It\u2019s less comfortable, he says. There are no beds. But it\u2019s a worthy price to pay to undress without raising a fist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the murmurings of migrant support in Boston turned out to be true. Once a taxi driver in Venezuela, Garcia is now studying to take his license test to become a chauffeur or Uber driver in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As darkness intensifies, Garcia returns to his place in line, ready for a fluorescent heat that won\u2019t fill the yearning for home but will at least thaw him from the cold he never expects to get used to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 7 p.m., the sidewalk is packed to the curb. Some people are chatting and joking; others, are leaning and silent. The line shows many faces. Various communities convene each night behind the walls of the shelter\u2014migrants and Americans alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While grateful for the resources Massachusetts offers to the unhoused, Garcia feels frustration at some homeless Americans, whom he believes are not fully utilizing those resources to better their situations. In Venezuela, there are no resources like this, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I get so angry with these people who don\u2019t want to recover,\u201d he says, speaking about addiction. Each day, Garcia goes out and works to improve his life situation, he says. \u201cAnd these people? Look, no, no, they don\u2019t take advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few spaces behind Garcia, leaning against the brick wall, is Andrew G. He was the first to get in line this afternoon, and his shivers increase as night encroaches slowly over the alley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His quiet eyes peer out from the parking lot as he leans on a long metal bar, using it as a bench. In a red puffer jacket and brown leather shoes, he\u2019s sporting business attire on the bottom and casual on top.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew, 23, was raised in Long Beach, California. He says he ran away from home after high school, having endured abuse from elementary through high school. First coming to New York, he stayed with a few friends but soon got into trouble with one friend\u2019s landlord. This led to a period of couch surfing and unstable living situations in New York for about three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From New York, much like Garcia, Andrew heard murmurings of Boston\u2019s government assistance benefits and better opportunities for the unhoused. With nowhere else to go, he came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since arriving in Boston in early 2022, shelters have been his main home. Yet each night in tight, enclosed places, with curfews and rules about coming and going, he must confront the trauma of his abuse while suffering from claustrophobia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to increasing panic attacks, he begged his housing caseworkers to tell him all the documentation he needed to gather to apply for housing assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, after two years in the process, Andrew is signing a lease in December to move into his own apartment in Quincy. The rent is heavily subsidized by a voucher program through the Boston mayor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yet until he has a room to himself, he still shares one with 54 other people. It used to be around 40, he says, but the numbers keep creeping up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon entering the door of the home he hopes soon never to return to, he\u2019s patted down for weapons and sent downstairs to leave his bags for the night. Anyone with yoga mats or sleeping bags is allowed to bring them up to the main room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He describes the place as both quiet and joyful. Night after night, he says the food brought in is always the same revolving menu of spaghetti or rice with meat. He\u2019s not the only one who\u2019s sick of it. Yet, those with food stamps will sometimes order in and share a pizza or another treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, the dark room is filled with snores and the occasional gust of wind. The lights come on at 5 a.m., and by 6:30 a.m., everyone is out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Caseworkers have been working with shelters to help homeless Americans rehouse for decades. Yet, as migrant numbers continue to increase, the Massachusetts government is now getting resettlement agencies involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jessica Cirone, the director of community engagement at the International Institute of New England (IINE), is involved in a new pilot program that complements the existing shelter system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This pilot program, launched in March 2022, contracts IINE and other resettlement agencies to rehouse 400 migrant families living in Massachusetts emergency shelters. IINE specifically has a goal of rehousing 50 of those families over the course of the year-long contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the pilot began, Cirone says, as of November, about 23 families have been resettled, and they hope to have another 10 to 15 by the end of the year. The start has been slow because this work was unprecedented, and the bureaucracy and creation of a whole new department proved more difficult than expected. In an ideal world, the process of moving someone out of the shelter after identifying the apartment would take three weeks at most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three weeks maximum. Andrew shakes his head. \u201cMigrants get housed automatically, while we as American citizens would be out here freezing in the cold waiting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Three years. That\u2019s how long the average subsidized housing wait time in Boston is, according to the Public Health Post: an all-time high. \u201cThey\u2019re getting more special treatment than us,\u201d says Andrew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTickets! Tickets!\u201d calls out a Bay Cove employee managing the shelter\u2019s door, who requested anonymity due to the nonprofit\u2019s media policies. The doors aren\u2019t supposed to open until later, but as nights get colder and darker, the staff opens earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People who stayed the night before can automatically receive a ticket for the following night. Then there are six tickets reserved for people who work, he explains. Two are for people coming from another shelter in Cambridge, and any remaining spots by the end are let-ins at the door, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A Dominican woman stands at the front, dressed head to toe in black. With her hood pulled up and hand holding the lip of the zipper above her nose, her eyes are all that peek out. Shivering in the cold, she waits for the ticketed ones to pass her by. The line now seems pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon, all the ticketed people have entered in ones and twos. Three remain. Another Bay Cove head peeks out from the warmth. It looks like we\u2019re at capacity, says the employee at the door, but wait just a second, and we\u2019ll check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They don\u2019t wait. In Spanish, the woman mutters something under her breath about discrimination, and in English, she thanks him for everything and says not to worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The three figures silhouette against the lights beaming out from the parking garage as they walk away. The employee emerges again, sees the disappearing wisps, and the quiet, calm man lets out a deep, long yell. \u201cWait!\u201d It echoes down the walls of the alley. But not far enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His shoulders droop. \u201cI told them to wait.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Cover Photo: Backpacks line the sidewalk in front of the Boston Night Shelter, marking their owners\u2019 places in the evening wait. (Credit: Shandra Back)<\/p>\n\n\n\n